Here’s a heck of a deal: For only $250,000, Martha Stewart will personally shill your product on her show. She even promises to “work in an advertiser’s talking points.” If you don’t have that much dough, you can grab a “one-time in-show oral mention with product close-up” for only $100,000.

In order to convince herself she’s not really a whore, Martha finds cute ways to rationalize endorsing a product. For example, Martha likes the yellow sponges with green scrubby back from Scotch Brite (Hey, who doesn’t?), so she said nice things about that product before demonstrating the toilet scrubber Scotch Brite paid her to use on the show. Why not just demonstrate the toilet scrubber? “I could see it being used elsewhere, and it works very well,” says Stewart, “but it was disposable, and it’s kind of wasteful.”

Does this sort of thing bother you as consumers, or is Miss Martha just paying the bills? —MEGHANN MARCO

Queen Of The Product Pitch [BusinessWeek via Freakonomics Blog]

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