Hi, My Name is Mr. Pybb, and I’m Addicted to Brands

Have you ever bought the generic, store brand cola? You know the kind with the clever, all-too-close but not quite the same names such as Dr. Cola or 7-Right.

I have – once. We were a little tight on money that week and I figured that it couldn’t taste all that bad. For nearly half the price, the taste wasn’t as important that week as the money. When I got it home, it wasn’t that bad. It was actually pretty good. Sure, it tasted “different” than what I was used to, but if I drank it regularly it would bring the same amount of pleasure and cavities as the big guns in the industry.

The rub is I didn’t add it to my diet on a regular basis. Why, you ask? Simply put, it was embarrassing for me to buy the store brand. I hated standing in the check-out line with that in my cart. Every fiber of my middle-class upbringing was screaming that I had somehow failed at life and was one step away from the streets.

That, my friend, is the power of brand marketing. Years of advertising have inundated my psyche with the idea that only two brands of cola exist – and I must choose between only those two. I’m not proud of it, but that’s being an American.

And that, in a nutshell, is why you want to buy a franchise rather than start fresh. I, like most Americans, will go with the familiar rather than take a chance on something new. I’ll choose a chain restaurant rather than a smaller joint simply because my brain perceives it as being somehow “better.” It may be the furthest thing from the truth, but that’s just how my brain operates.

If you still aren’t convinced to stick with the brands, let me put it another way: Do you really want to be the Diet Dr. Cola of your industry?

I thought not.

Franchise "Creature Feature" Writer