"A new report in the August issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine found that preschool children preferred the taste of food in McDonald’s packaging to the taste of the same exact food in unbranded packaging."
"A secondary analysis found that children preferred the tastes of foods and drinks that were thought to be from McDonald’s for four out of five comparisons. Preschoolers with more television sets in their homes and children who ate McDonald’s food more often were more likely to prefer foods and drinks they thought were from McDonald’s, the study concluded."
"The food and beverage industries spend more than $10 billion per year to market to children in the United States,” according to background information in the article." (link)
Instead of spending TEN BILLION dollars a year trying to sell your product, why not use it to provide clean drinking water to the billion people on the earth that don't have access to sanitary water? Why not spend it on bettering the world, instead of bettering your wallet?
The problem with America is that our mentality is "I want more money, and will do anything to get it." That is why God wants us to tithe. Tithing reminds us that it ISN'T all about money, it IS all about giving back to God. If America wanted to, we could literally bring every third world country out of that category, giving them clean water, and enough food to eat, but instead, we are only interested in padding our own pockets.
When was the last time you used your money to spread God's word?
Matthew
1 comments:
To be fair, you have to realize that all money spent on marketing and advertising is an investment and vital part of business growth. A healthy budget for marketing and advertising is between 10-30% of a business' annual gross profits, while typical charitable giving runs around 10%. That's because marketing is an investment and charitable giving (tithing) is not - though I believe they're both equally important to business success.
If a company puts $100 into advertising today, they should see that $100 + profit tomorrow from their investment. If they neglect to market and advertise their products, they'll soon go out of business.
So while $10B sounds like an obscene amount of money, it's not being flushed down the toilet: It's what allows those companies to be profitable (and in turn charitable) tomorrow.
What I'm trying to say is that I don't think the two priciples (tithing and marketing) are at odds with each other. Marketing itself is not a money-grubbing practice (though it can be carried out that way): It's a vital part of our free market society, a smart business principle, and drives the profit that allows companies and their employees to be more charitable.
And that's all I have to say about that.
Post a Comment