| Guest Blog: Doug Poppen | | Date Created: Jun 28, 2005, 07:58 PM |
| Doug Poppen is a bright, engaging young man I met recently while speaking at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte. He's been dealing with some tough times, and I admire his determination to speak up about an illness that I've battled for nearly three decades and is still shrouded in mystery and stigma. -- JG |
|
VICTORY VAIN?
by Douglas J. Poppen
"Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value."
- Albert Einstein
SUCCESS. One word with a million interpretations. If you ask "society," however, it will give you a very opinionated answer. Money, looks, excess, status, celebrity, possessions, image...yada yada yada. No longer do we publicly celebrate individuals whose achievements improve social well being. Today, we celebrate those who draw the biggest crowd and sell the most merchandise. Why? Because marketers give consumers every reason and avenue to do so.
I, and many other marketing professionals, have spent an entire career hawking products & services to people who are buying things they don't need, with money they don't have, to impress people they don't even like. While I love what I do, I'm finding it increasing difficult to lay my head down at night knowing that, in many ways, I'm contributing to the phenomena. It's easy to see that the things that matter most in life are not the ones getting the most commercial attention. And yet, I continue to go to work every day and create the "perceived value" that fuels society's drive to desire and acquire.
Being rich and having a comb-over should not make you cool. Nor should holding a $5 cup of coffee.
A few months ago, my brother Greg lost a long battle with depression and anxiety. His suicide, like many others, was driven from a perceived inability to succeed in life. Greg wanted nothing more than to accomplish some of life's most noble feats: find a good job, buy a good house, and marry a good woman. Despite countless attempts by those around him to reduce his pain, he deemed it impossible to achieve progress, and victory, in these areas. I can't help but wonder how much of his despair was driven by today's new definition of success, and the pressure he put on himself as a result of that expectation.
Recently my wife and I gave birth to our first child. How will the media and marketers of tomorrow, myself included, paint the victory lane of his life? Who will he celebrate? Who will he look up to?
While most people would consider Einstein's statement above a worthy one, only a small few would choose to promote it. The problem is that marketers, myself included, don't make money selling values. And until we do, you can expect society to lift people up just as quickly as you can say, "you're fired!"
Guest Bio:
Douglas J. Poppen is a consumer marketing professional. His interests & experience include product marketing, brand development, advertising & media, consumer behavior/insights, and sports/entertainment marketing. His wife and child believe him to be a decent, God-fearing man. Friends and relatives from his native California believe him to be a NASCAR-loving redneck. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. He resides in Charlotte, NC, and can be reached at dougpoppen@yahoo.com.
-------
Jade's other notes for Tuesday from a rainy, dreary Charlotte, while Driver #8 heads to Miami to judge tonight's Hooter's International Swimsuit Competition. Poor bastard.
A Portrait of Who They Were: A well-written story about some of the troops that have died in Iraq from the Christian Science Monitor. Required reading prior to Dubya's faux-fire-side chat this evening.
Halliburton and the Food Being Served to the Troops: Rory Mayberry, a former food production manager at Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root Inc., told Democratic lawmakers how Halliburton charged the government for as many as 10,000 meals a day it never served. He also said the company paid unusually high prices for its food, fed food as much as a year beyond its expiration date to the troops and ordered employees not to talk to U.S. government auditors. "For trucks that were hit by convoy fire and bombings, we were told to go into the trucks and remove the food items and use them after removing the bullets and any shrapnel," he said.
Why I would be broke and expelled if I attended Liberty University... (Mainly because I am a frequent violator of "entering the space above the ceiling tiles.")
Cell Phones Aloft: Yet another reason to stay home.
Terror Alert? Woops! Our bad.
|
 Laughter is the Best Medicine: Some of the most fun I've ever had was being a member of the Filets of Soul, the bitchin' backin' band for Rory Borealus, the most-rockin'-ist janitor and star of "The Rory Story." (That be he pictured on the right...) He now has his own online radio show at RORY RADIO. From his FAQ page: "Is Rory Radio good family entertainment? Depends on your family. Probably not." Can I get a wetness? |
|
|
|
All contents of this blog are the sole responsibility and views of the author.
They do not in any way represent the views, beliefs or corporate values of any clients of fingerprint inc.
This includes but is not limited to Anheuser-Busch or any other corporate or personal entities mentioned within.
| |
