Brands I am addicted to

No matter how frequent one travels, it’s not so easy to ensure that everything is put inside the briefcase. This time, I missed out on my new Sony Digital camera bought at Akihabara, Tokyo. This camera wasn’t that lucky purchase once I realized that memory card of Sony was at loggerhead with Toshiba laptop. I was fortunate that my laptop remained intact. But the resultant damage was repurchasing US$50 for 1MB stick. It is surprising that two big Japanese brands don’t work with each other but one from Scandinavian Nokia memory coo coo’s well with Toshiba. I don’t know why these companies can’t declare their compatibility with other devices. Perhaps they do in their manuals but lazy as I am, I never read those and rely on ‘on the job’ playing around with push buttons to grapple with functioning of these gadgets.

Camera is not something I missed that much, what it really affected was my Mach3 razor. How important is this ‘astra’ is when I used my backup single blade Gillette razor. Few cuts, blood stained spots and uneven shave convinced me of utility of high price of Mach 3 I pay. Now I have upgraded version – battery operated Mach3. Smooth and sliding shave!!

There was a time when I felt buying branded good was sheer waste of money. I am paying for the cost of model, advertising and promotion cost when intrinsic value of the product without brand recognition remained the same. It’s only after the some years, I have realised that I ended up in paying more for unbranded or less brand value goods. Very often, the lesser brand recognition offered less value of money. I remember, many years ago, a product was launched and they proclaimed in the press advertisement that average cost of advertising and promotion for their product category is almost 30%. They want to cut down this cost by 20% and offer the benefit to the consumer by slashing the prices by 20%. They stuck to this policy with just press releases. The product bombed and went out of shelf within few months.

Today, besides Gillette Mach3, I have penchant for Heinz Ketchup, Lays chips, Snickers – Choco bar, Budweiser Beer, Sarvana Bhavan–coffee, Tata Tea, Mysore Sandalwood-soap, Marmum Yoghurt, Al Marai Milk, Zain – Mango Juice, Black label – Whisky.



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