Sunday, October 29, 2006

Cool commie stuff

There is a popular retro movement in eastern Europe that makes old brands from the communist era cool, according to the International Herald Tribune.
Nostalgia has led East Europeans to embrace the products they shunned in the 1990s, when the collapse of the Iron Curtain opened borders to goods from the West.

From Traubi (grape soda) in Hungary to Inka coffee substitute in Poland and Jar dish soap in the Czech Republic, brands created to replace capitalist products are now attracting consumers with disposable cash and credit cards.
Most of the old brands, though, now belong to western marketers -- Jar, for example, being a P&G product.
The soap was the only dishwashing product available at the time and has stuck in people's minds, Norbert Racsko, an assistant brand manager at the Cincinnati-based company, said in an e- mail.

"It's a memory from childhood, and I even sometimes buy it," said Daria Spackova, 31, a film production manager.

Similar memories led Ildiko Nagy to teach her daughter the Traubi ad tune. "We love nothing but Traubi. We want Traubi," she sings, mimicking the ad broadcast on Hungarian state television 20 years ago.

"Traubi reminds me of my childhood, and I hope my daughter will remember it with her children one day too," Nagy said.

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