By PETER RUGG
Ralph Roades doesn’t know why more Kansas City women didn’t want a free boob job.
Roades raffled off a free breast-augmentation surgery January 13 as part of the Wide Open magazine publisher’s Kansas City bike show. St. Louis-based Fantastic Plastic Surgery agreed to do the work, and Roades called the odds of winning the $6,000 surgery better than going to a casino.
He was right. When the time came, only 140 women signed up.
“I don’t understand how only 140 would get in on it,” Roades says. More than 500 registered for a similar raffle he held elsewhere, he says. “It surprised me.”
Roades had also planned for the winner to do before-and-after photos for the magazine, but now that probably won’t happen.
“This person is kind of a socialite and doesn’t really know if she wants to do that. She didn’t want her name out either, so you know, it’s a funny deal. But she wanted them,” Roades says.
Fantastic Plastics general manager Ken Seger confirmed the winner has scheduled a full consultation in the next month. Seger had been on hand at the rally to interview potential winners. “You had to be a suitable candidate for the augmentation, so no history of breast cancer, no previous implants, no breast diseases,” Seger said. “And there were a lot of people that asked, ‘If I win can I trade this for a tummy tuck?’ And we couldn’t do that.”
Roades hopes for better luck at his upcoming St. Louis rally.
“Advertising is the hardest. So many people try but not everyone figures out the magic formula,” he says.
Didn't the Pitch advertise the giveaway? Is this how you treat all your advertisers, or just the ones who realize that your publication did no good? I think the idea is great and I know a million girls who would do anything for a free breast augmentation. In my opinion, the poor choice was not what is being given away, but WHO they chose to advertise with.
Posted at: January 25, 2008 1:30 PM