Have you ever found yourself in a reflective mood pondering the questions, ‘What value does my work bring to the world? What does my daily toil contribute to the improvement of the human condition?’

I went to see this movie called About Schmidt. It stars Jack Nicholson as a miserable old comb-over with a dead, adulterous wife, a daughter who finds him tedious, and absolutely nothing of consequence in his life except for a poor, illiterate boy he sponsors in Tanzania. What he does for this boy gives his life meaning. A real nose-drainer of a movie. It got me to thinking.

So after it ended and I finished crying my little heart out, I walked to a pharmacy all the while ruminating on my work’s contribution to mankind. I absent-mindedly grabbed some shampoo with a free sample of conditioner attached to it. As I handed the bonus pack to the cashier, an epiphany!

We marketers are not doing enough! Think about it. We give away free stuff for a living. Stuff that’s great and all, but what does a free trial sample of conditioner do for anything but my hair and those who have to look at it?

We have a unique opportunity here people. We all know that incentives compel consumers to choose one product over another. What power we have. Instead of throwaways that offer momentary satisfaction, we can use our awesome powers for the greater good. We can choose to offer incentives that make us better people. Make us stronger people. Bring us into better alignment with the cosmos and all that.

Here’s what I’m thinking.

We need to rethink those skill-testing questions. 2 + 2 – 1 = ? Come on! Let’s do something like ‘e=mc2…explain.’ Make us work for it. Make us stretch our resources. The win will be that much more valuable to us. Give us pride in our achievements.

And that cool new Xbox that’s going to suck arid the essence of our social skills and evaporate our brain juices, when we buy one of those, we should get a copy of War and Peace or something equally mind expanding. If that’s too far from the interests of the target audience, fine. Make it a Maxim magazine. Men will learn how to make better stink bombs and fix our cars. Great. These are good things, too.

Incentives can bring us closer to the truth. Chinese food restaurants have a clear opportunity here. Buy a dinner for four and get another an hour later. Or fitness clubs. They should be offering limited-time three-week memberships every January. That’s about how long they get used by most of us. We’ll feel better because we’ve attempted to improve ourselves, but we won’t feel bitter and guilty because we’ve wasted money on, well, a real commitment.

Speaking of improving our health, I think the fast food purveyors have an opening. With every Whopper Combo get a free Slim Fast bar. This seems very reasonable to me. We know the stuff’s bad for us, but we’re in a hurry and we’re going to eat it anyway. Help us mitigate the damage.

Along the same lines, I think a smart idea would be to bonus pack cigarettes with Nicorette patches. Forget those pictures of bad teeth on the packs. (They’re actually fun to cut out and put in your mouth like an orange peel and smile at your friends. What a hoot.) When I buy some smokes, I’d like a nice clear patch. I can stockpile them and do a bang-up job for myself when I quit.

How about those big-ticket items, those truly luxurious and decadent purchases? There’s where some real impact can be made. Buy a Lincoln Navigator and get a free school for a village in Africa. It could even be personalized. The Pamela Davis Academy for Girls. Wonderful. Okay, maybe you’d have to buy a few Navigators, but still, you get the idea. How’s that for a contribution?

How many times have you said or heard someone more prone to cliché say about our work as marketers, ‘We’re not doing brain surgery here.’ A truism, yes, but if we apply a bit of that creativity that we’re so wont to brag about, we can collectively raise our karma quotient and meet each other in nirvana for a celebratory smoke and a patch, no?

Well, that or I’m just still desperately searching for meaning.

Veteran marketer and Strategy Perspectives columnist Pamela Davis is now responsible for sponsorship acquisition at Foster Parents Plan. To find out how you can bring meaning to your life by helping a child in need, call 416-920-1659 or visit www.fosterparentsplan.ca. Or e-mail Pamela at pdavis@fosterparentsplan.ca.