Never Done: Bought Colgate
I don't even pretend to understand all the factors that go into the reason I have brand loyalty to Crest toothpaste, but I'm going to try to probe my experience honestly, and see what I come up with.
So here's the deal. I grew up using Crest toothpaste. When I got out and on my own, I switched to Tom's. When I got older and got some gum recession (too much information?) I started using Sensodyne sometimes, and also I left Tom's behind and went back to Crest. In the meantime, my mom started using Tom's. That's important, because as you'll soon learn, I think I probably got my brand loyalty to Crest from her, or from both my parents.
I can remember when I was growing up, when I would go to other people's homes, I was quite open to some things they did differently from our family, and I was quite judgmental about other things. Some things landed in both camps -- things I liked but also judged. Store-bought salad dressing is in this category -- we didn't use it at home, but it became a guilty pleasure of mine when I went elsewhere. (Still is, and I still don't buy it.) I don't know what there was to judge about salad dressing in a bottle. It's not like we didn't use other processed, packaged products. Why did I get judgmental about that when we bought Hershey's chocolate syrup in a plastic bottle? (Which I then grew to judge, and have never myself bought.)
But this toothpaste thing is a little different. Most people I know, unless they use baking soda, buy toothpaste of some sort. So instead of opting out of buying the product altogether, we choose which one to buy. When it's time for new shampoo or soap, there can be something a little fun about choosing something new; as a bottle or a bar starts to run low, I can get just a little excited that I get to choose a new product. (Except that now that my hair silver, and I want to keep it from yellowing, I use one certain shampoo (Aveda Blue Malva) and don't get that little bottom of the bottle thrill anymore.
But let's explore why there's a little voice inside me (or there was until I noticed it and kicked its ass) that says that Crest toothpaste is better than other brands (except Tom's or Sensodyne -- one of which is obviously morally better (according to my little voice) and one of which serves a special purpose, so it's neither better nor worse.)
When I was a kid, there weren't as many product from which to choose. Also, until I got old enough to shop with my mom and dad, I didn't make the choices -- products just appeared in grocery bags. Today I buy my own toothpaste, and in addition to brand, I have choices about flavors, packaging (tubes or squeeze bottles), whitening, and Disney princesses. I also wonder -- were there fewer toothpaste brands in the 60s than there are now? I assume so -- so I assume that the choice my family made to buy Crest toothpaste might have been a choice among just a few brands, and not dozens. And if that is the case, I can see why I might have decided that Crest was choice OVER Colgate -- and therefore a declaration of Crest's supremacy. It's also possible that I grew up in an environment that promoted "we are better" thinking -- even if it was unintentional. I remember going to a middle school choir festival, and sleeping overnight at someone else's home. This was probably the first time I slept at someone's home who I didn't know at all, where I had no bearings. It wasn't a friend of the family, it wasn't a friend of mine from school; it was a random family in Duxbury MA who had a kid in a choir somewhere. And they drank powdered skim milk. We drank bottled whole milk. I remember that my distaste for powdered skim milk, a glass of which they poured at dinner, and also which we ate on cereal in the morning, became the marker for me of how much I didn't like staying at those people's house -- that they were different from me -- that I didn't belong.
Now it's also true that they weren't particularly fun, and the kids were not particularly nice to me -- but now, thirty five years later, it's the taste of powdered skim milk that I remember from staying there, and the lesson I learned from the milk, that not everyone does things the same way. Which is a good lesson to take away from a home stay.
At the time, I had no idea that class played any part in any part of this. Writing about it now, it's clear to me that class played a part in every part of this. I think the concept of "better than" is completely rooted in classism, and that because of that, my brand allegiance to Crest is rooted in classism. Because right, I didn't say this yet -- even though I can't remember anyone outright dissing Colgate (or Aim, or Aquafresh) toothpaste, I thought it was "weird" when other people bought those brands. The part I don't understand is how this actually functions. As far as I know, Crest isn't more expensive or more elitist than Colgate. It isn't marketed to middle and upper class people. I am pretty sure that Colgate use crosses all class boundaries. So other than the fact that I grew up in an environment that promoted "better than" thinking, why did I inherit this Crest bias? If any readers are market theorists, I'd love to know more about the factors that go into this phenomenon.
In the meantime, since I am committed to eradicating classism, I bought Colgate toothpaste. And it turns out I like it better than Crest. Go figure.
Yes, there were fewer choices, but remember, there were some New Kids on the Toothpaste Block. Remember Ultrabright Toothpaste, "taste you can really feel? Ultrabright gives your mouth (ding, ding) SEX APPEAL!" This was a startling statement to put on TV, but it was post "sexual revolution."
ReplyDeleteWe were a Crest family, pure and simple. Maybe it had to do with their advertising which was based around "Look ma, no cavities!" We were also Prell people. If you had dandruff you used Head and SHoulders. At Boiberik, there was a cadre of us who used some luxurious VO5 product, before others came out.
There simply weren't any other toothpaste options, as far as I knew till I was much older. Later, as an adult, I bought Colgate when they were our client in my business...perhaps out of some sense of loyalty to the many people I met whose lives had been devoted to its manufacture and propogation. Now I'm back to Crest with its ultra whitening promise (after fifty we seem to be bent on keeping things from yellowing), despite my knowledge of "this-stuff-could-kill-you" ingredients. The holistic toothpastes never felt right in my mouth!