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Senti-marketing of the Parents

Today marketers world over are urging their citizenry to remember the father in their lives.  Amazing right?  We are now reliant on profit hungry, shareholder driven corporations to provide relationship advice in our lives.  It has been since Kotler and his likes wrote the Marketing 101 study guides for MBA courses in said subject.

From McGraw Hill to Pepsi to Gap to Ford Motor the possibilities of what a father needs and should deserve are endless.  And the high fructose to high octane purveying entities are happy to oblige.

It is a shame when the humans decided to leave their common sense at the doorstep of vanity and jumped headlong into the entitlement well to find that they cannot really come back up for oxygen.  Drowning in debt, sorrow, and ultimately finding that when it was crunch time there was not a son or daughter that remembered them is now more a global reality of all the made up holidays and celebrations.

Remembrance for any one or any thing should be a private matter and be motivated by one's own calculation of what matters to them most.   Not a jungle of coupons in someone's purse or pocketbook or mobile phone vying to get the spender's attention.

Whether it is the nation's birthday or the birth anniversary of a music legend or a secretary that always gets shit done, or a parent that deserves your undying gratitude, the applause should be reserved for the two parties as a sign of mutual respect.  In reality that understanding does not even need a balloon.
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