Thursday, February 04, 2010

Five Personal Brand Loyalties

Most advertising is wasted on me, especially celebrity endorsements. I don't need to play golf like Tiger Woods or smell like Elizabeth Hurley. But I realized when I ran out of moisturizer last week that I am brand-loyal to a handful of things, and would need to take these with me if/when I ever make it to Antarctica.

What are you brand-loyal to?

1. Tide laundry detergent. If it has to be clean, it has to be Tide. I have experimented with cheaper brands, which give me rashes, and environmentally-conscious brands, which don't get clothes clean. Tide is best — Tide with Bleach, to be specific. I'm flexible on scents. My current bottle is "Clean Breeze."

2. Oil of Olay facial moisturizer. I was even able to buy this in Russia, almost 20 years ago. I have tried the fancier versions of Oil of Olay, which I usually can't afford; I like them, and would use them if I had the money to spare, but the pink stuff suits me just fine. I do usually buy the version that has sunscreen.

3. Schweppes Diet Ginger Ale. It's more gingery than its mainstream commercial counterparts (I'm looking at you, Canada Dry), it's caffeine-free, and it has excellent bubbles.

4. Cafe Bustelo ground coffee. I am lucky enough to have friends who send me small-batch roasted beans, but I always have a can of coffee in the freezer for emergency backup. This is what I drink; it is a dark roast, ground very fine, Cuban-style.

5. Old Grand-Dad bourbon. Not to say that I won't drink other kinds of bourbon, but Old Grand-Dad is what I buy. It was a former boss's drink of choice, and the first bourbon I learned to drink. I don't need the power and complexity of the fancier stuff.

In other news, I actually bought three Powerball tickets yesterday, and — surprise, surprise — won nothing. Now I feel like a sucker.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

My brother was a big fan of Cafe Bustelo, and he hooked me so that I drank it for many years once it was in Maine. But now, I have wandered from bean to bean...

RBo

Ellen Clair Lamb said...

Dizzy would like me to add that he strongly prefers Milk-Bones to the store brand of dog biscuit, and would be brand-loyal to Milk-Bones if he were allowed to do the shopping.

norby said...

I have to use the white bottle, scent free Tide. And the scent free Bounce dryer sheets. Everything else makes me sneeze. My dad wasn't allowed to buy the laundry detergent when I lived with them because he always said he could never find those but I think he just didn't look. He hurries when he shops.

Working at Petsmart, I've learned that dogs definitely can tell the difference between generic and name brand dog biscuits. We give out the store brand at our registers and a lot of dogs won't eat them. Smart dogs.

Larry said...

Fond memories of Old Grand Dad. My grandfather was cheap to a fault, but also a real character. He would always serve his guests Jack Daniels. What they didn't know was it was really old Grand Dad. Even at a young age neither I, nor anyone else, ever had the heart to tell him that the 15 year old Jack bottle was looking a bit long in the tooth.

John Schramm said...

Ore Ida Tater Tots. They invented them, they're the only ones who should be able to make them.

Breyer's Vanilla Ice Cream. There is no substitue.

I'll think of more ...