I had a runny nose, so I went to the drugstore for some antihistamine. Generic store-brand diphenhydramine hydrochloride, 25 mg caps, three dollars a box. It was right next to the Benadryl, same chemical, same number of 25 mg caps, six dollars a box. The only difference is the brand.
What I find amazing about this is that the brand is worth as much as the chemical. I can only conclude that there are two kinds of customers. Some customers, like me, took chemistry in high school, and understand that chemicals have predictable effects on the human body. Why pay twice as much for the same chemical?
Other customers use magical thinking, and think the BRAND, not the chemical, is what stops their nose from running. What's the point of saving a few dollars if you don't get the magical brand?
Diphenhydramine hydrochloride also makes me drowsy, and every once in a while I will take it to help me sleep. Guess what? Nytol, a branded sleep aid, is diphenhydramine hydrochloride in 25 mg caps. Same chemical, about the same price as Benadryl, different purpose, different brand, different magic. I suppose there are people who have a box of Nytol as well as a box of Benadryl in their medicine cabinets. If they take a maximum dose of Nytol on top of a maximum dose of Benadryl...
2 comments:
I don't think it is magical thinking, I think magically and I buy generics by comparing chemicals and quantities. It is harder now that all the good cold and allergy meds are behind the counter - thanks to the crank cooks who were blowing up their houses with their toddlers underfoot.
I think it is branding...a hot iron pressed to the brains of young kids along with their cartoons. I know moms who buy one box of the "brand" advertised and then refill it with brand x. It works until you have to take a kid to the store with you.
Pam tells about observing an argument between a mom and a young child over cereal.
Mom, "You don't like that cereal!"
Kid, "I want this cereal!"
Mom, "I bought you that cereal, you don't like it!"
Kid, "I want this cereal!"
Mom, "We have it at home, already. You don't like it!"
Kid starts crying. Mom buys the box of cereal that she will probably toss or eat herself.
Here is her conundrum - does she make the kid eat the cereal, thereby developing in the kid a tolerance for it and overriding his/her natural dislike of sugary cereal and be doomed forever to buy stuff the mom and kid don't like or want. (this is what the advertising industry wants).
cet
I thought this was why adoption agencies were invented.
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