Marketing News South Africa

Teach a man to fish ...

There's an old saying - 'Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for life' or something like that. You know it in principle, but have you ever paused to think what it means to us in the 'zeros'? It's a great idea if you are truly altruistic in nature, but in the bottom-line economy of today's world, nothing could be worse for business.

It's nice to help people, to uplift them, to get them motivated to bigger and better things. This global economic slump needs the kind of help your neighbour mentality to get out of its rut. We need to put the effort in, and pass information to those who don't possess it in order to enrich the lives of millions and millions of people less fortunate than ourselves.

But there's a catch... who wants to share information? No-one. Give a man a fish, and tomorrow he'll buy one from you, teach a man to fish and tomorrow he affects your bottom line. That's reality. It's a nasty, horrid little truth, but it's there just the same.

Unless the free market economy changes its entire disposition overnight, we are not going to win this war on poverty. I am not saying I have the answer, and I am not saying that all is lost, but that's the way it is.

Politicians talk about upliftment, social change and all those American family values, which seem to have become universal in appeal, all the time and everyone likes to think that's what they want. We also know that as far as political rhetoric working in the real world, it will never happen.

Deep down inside is that not how we want it to stay? Are we actually happy that the politicians lie sop much and that all these social programs are so inept in their execution?

Do you really want a slightly harder life so someone else can have a slightly better one?

So be aware, change in not easy. There are issues that will effect us all and we need to be aware of them. There's a real challenge to integrity, because in this particular situation, lip service will do nothing.

Now who's ready to give some fishing lessons?

About Clinton Griffin

Clinton Griffin is an Art Director at The Flagship Group in Durban, and has been involved in the marketing and advertising industry for almost ten years. He has a Ndip in Graphic design from ML Sultan and is currently doing a BA degree in Communication. The accounts he has worked on include National Car Rental, The Sharks Rugby, Shell, Reebok, Forsdicks BMW, Scooters, Geen & Richards, Big Brand TV Show and others.
Let's do Biz