THINK ABOUT IT: Is There a Relationship Between Marketing and Fatherhood?
Happy Father’s Day to you and yours. I trust you had a day filled with love, appreciation, and well wishes.
While many of you continue to receive love and appreciation for your role and express the same for your fathers, as I have done—despite his passing 49 years ago—I've been giving thought to our role as fathers and its relationship to marketing.
Crazy, huh!?! With > 50 years of brand marketing experience, I may have marketing on the brain.
However, I believe a solid and meaningful connection exists between fathers and marketers, and fatherhood and marketing. We are marketers of our children and, in our case, fathers to our brands.
First, let me establish that this odd musing does not discount mothers. I recognize and honor that they take front and center, bearing most of the labors of our love.
But this is about fathers—and, might I add, grandfathers. I’m the proud father to three daughters and four granddaughters.
As per the connection between fathers and marketing, the product is an excellent place to start, as our children are the most meaningful product of our lifetime. Period!
Each child is a miracle. There can be no finer creation than what fathers and mothers conceive.
Nothing we can envision, design, produce, or offer to society is more significant and profound than our children. They are a gift to us and the world.
Each child is a meaningfully differentiated entity with unique capabilities and potential to impact the world for the better. Each will generate a Butterfly Effect that will be felt locally and worldwide—if not in this generation, then the next.
Fathers, perhaps, one day, one of our children or grandchildren will save the lives of cancer sufferers, lead a country to peace, feed those who are hungry, lift someone from despair, or inspire another to achieve their best.
Their impact does not need to be sensational. Giving a helping hand to someone in need or eliciting a smile from someone feeling sad is meaningful. It positively impacts others and, as such, benefits society.
Like creating a brand, we fathers help imbue our children with values and a code through our words and actions to help maximize their potential in all walks of life—beyond the conventional perceptions of success—that will impact their lives, progeny, and society.
Compare our children with brands? Is it too much?
Today, many people in society brand themselves. They do it to elevate their perceived value and distinguish themselves from others.
We’re all familiar with celebrities as brands. You, too, are a brand regardless of whether consciously designed or as perceived by others in your circle.
Our children are our celebrities. They embody a constellation of values and experiences that distinguish themselves, impacting family, friends, and acquaintances.
Thus our children are and identify as brands unto themselves. There's the star pupil, the athlete, peacekeeper, the social butterfly, among others. No two children are the same, even in the same family.
A father’s work doesn't end with the birth of a child, just as building a brand doesn’t end with a launch party or Year 1 marketing plan. If it did, we would not be good fathers or good marketers.
Happy Father’s Day to you and yours. I trust you had a day filled with love, appreciation, and well wishes.
While many of you continue to receive love and appreciation for your role and express the same for your fathers, as I have done—despite his passing 49 years ago—I've been giving thought to our role as fathers and its relationship to marketing.
Crazy, huh!?! With > 50 years of brand marketing experience, I may have marketing on the brain.
However, I believe a solid and meaningful connection exists between fathers and marketing. We are marketers of our children and, in our case, fathers to our brands.
First, let me establish that this odd musing does not discount mothers. I recognize and honor that they take front and center, bearing most of the labors of our love.
But this is about fathers—and, might I add, grandfathers. I’m the proud father to three daughters and four granddaughters.
As per the connection between fathers and marketing, the product is an excellent place to start, as our children are the most meaningful product of our lifetime. Period!
Each child is a miracle. There can be no finer creation than what fathers and mothers conceive.
领英推荐
Nothing we can envision, design, produce, or offer to society is more significant and profound than our children. They are a gift to us and the world.
Each child is a meaningfully differentiated entity with unique capabilities and potential to impact the world for the better. Each will generate a Butterfly Effect that will be felt locally and worldwide—if not in this generation, then the next.
Fathers, perhaps, one day, one of our children or grandchildren will save the lives of cancer sufferers, lead a country to peace, feed those who are hungry, lift someone from despair, or inspire another to achieve their best.
Their impact does not need to be sensational. Giving a helping hand to someone in need or eliciting a smile from someone feeling sad is meaningful. It positively impacts others and, as such, benefits society.
Like creating a brand, we fathers help imbue our children with values and a code through our words and actions to help maximize their potential in all walks of life—beyond the conventional perceptions of success—that will impact their lives, progeny, and society.
Compare our children with brands? Is it too much?
Today, many people in society brand themselves. They do it to elevate their perceived value and distinguish themselves from others.
We’re all familiar with celebrities as brands. You, too, are a brand regardless of whether consciously designed or as perceived by others in your circle.
Our children are our celebrities. They embody a constellation of values and experiences that distinguish themselves, impacting family, friends, and acquaintances.
A father’s work doesn't end with the birth of a child, just as building a brand doesn’t end with a launch party or Year 1 marketing plan. If it did, we would not be good fathers or good marketers.
Instead, we undertake branding through the neighborhoods we choose to live in and bring them up as we do in where we distribute our brands.
We select the schools they attend so they may get a good education, like how we insist on educating customers about our brands.
We, fathers, empower our children to pursue activities to discover their true selves as we promote our brands to enable customers to discover them and their value.
Moreover, like brand marketers, we fathers are stewards of our children, not just through their childhood but throughout our lives. We’re present to help them get to where their nature calls—realizing their potential—regardless of their station in life or ours.
A child’s brand develops through fathers modeling their behaviors, providing a fertile environment, and counseling out of their love for them, along with the child expressing their nature.
I believe there’s a definite link between fathers and marketers. There’s a link between raising children and marketing—for all parents.
What do you believe?
I trust and hope you had a wonderful Father’s Day!
THINK ABOUT IT
MAKE YOUR MARKETING MATTER MORE
If you found this article helpful, please follow me on LinkedIn https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/richarddczerniawski/ , where I share my perspectives from 51 years of successful worldwide “brand” marketing experience across many business sectors.
Make your marketing matter even more! Avoid critical marketing errors. Eliminate them. Marketing errors can prevent you from realizing the full potential of your brand. Please read my most recent book, AVOIDING CRITICAL MARKETING ERRORS. Order here: https://www.amazon.com/AVOIDING-CRITICAL-MARKETING-ERRORS-Marketing-ebook/dp/B084YXVWFY/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3GK7L6C5ZFK2J&keywords=Avoiding+Critical+Marketing+Errors&qid=1704215761&s=digital-text&sprefix=avoiding+critical+marketing+errors%2Cdigital-text%2C118&sr=1-1 . I share a lifetime of learning to help you avoid critical marketing errors and suggest specific actions to help you make your marketing matter (even) more.
Peace and best wishes in making your marketing, and role as a father, matter more,
Richard D. Czerniawski