My daughter just learned how to share. She’s one.
After a year of being entirely on the receiving end of things, a light bulb went on. It suddenly occurred to her that she has the power to give herself. And she enjoys it.
Now in the middle of eating, she’ll hold out a Cheerio in her grubby, food-and-slobber-encrusted fingers to share with me or the dogs, smiling that beatific smile that says, “Look what I can do!”
My initial reaction was not as honest as the dogs’. I wanted to encourage her, so I pretended to take the food, chewing my ersatz morsel with melodramatic pleasure.
I could see the disappointment on my daughter’s face. She knew what I was doing. It wasn’t long before she started sharing with the dogs more and with me less. It’s gotten to the point where my daughter will spend half of dinner time flinging food to the dogs–without tossing a single Cheerio my way.
I know my daughter is an absolute genius, but a quick survey of my neighbors reveals that other children do the same thing. They pick up on stuff. They know when their parents are being insincere.
Which got me to thinking.
If we all had parents who pretended to take the soggy, mangled Cheerio, and we were all as astute as my one-year-old, we all learned early on that people don’t appreciate generosity as much as dogs. Would this explain why so many of us will help a stray animal before we’ll send the price of a cup of coffee a day to Africa for famine relief?
More relevant to our business, would this explain why consumers are often so suspicious of advertising?
Follow me on this.
I’m one. I try to give. My generosity is not appreciated. I come to believe that generosity in general is not appreciated. It’s a small step to the conclusion that there’s something inherently inappropriate about being generous.
Years later, I’m watching TV and on comes a commercial message that contains a “special offer.”
“Hmm,” I think. “If I act now, I can get a free gift. Seems vaguely inappropriate.”
So now I’m at a crossroads. If my daughter ever offers me another half-eaten Cheerio, what do I do? Do I muster as much sincerity as I can, eating the thing so I can prove to her how much I appreciate her generosity, thereby setting her on the path toward a rewarding life full of love and happiness, moderated only a little by the occasional disappointment she’ll inevitably experience when the “special offer” she falls for in some commercial turns out not to be all that special?
Or do I break her little heart, setting her up to become a cynical consumer like myself, unwilling to believe that the people putting out marketing communications could possibly be motivated by anything other than a greedy desire to fool her into buying something she doesn’t need for more than she really ought to pay?
It’s an easy decision. That Cheerio is kind of nasty.
Brian Belefant is a noted commercial director who’s currently repped by @Large Films in Portland, Ore.
