We’ve certainly read enough “what I’m thankful for” messages in the past week, so all of creation hardly needs another.

However, since we focus a lot on word choices that advertisers make, if there’s one that gets overlooked and underused, it is this: thanks.

That word has the power to praise, motivate and cheer.

In a marketing world that so often targets individuality and me-first, all the while leaving fathers out of the message, it’s nice to overuse that simple word as much as you can.

Yes, dads especially love hearing it. They repeatedly get ignored by marketers who prefer to speak only to moms, thus making them feel like second-class parents who don’t matter.

We believe this week’s annual exhortation to give thanks is overstated. Giving thanks seems like such an internal, individual, private affair done only in our minds, or perhaps just before Thursday’s big meal.

And all of that is fine.

But giving thanks is one thing.

Saying it is another.