March 2024

Were You A Rich Kid If You Had These Foods In The House?

Life in the 70s, 80s, and 90s had its challenges. There were oil crises, speed restrictions added to highways, high inflation at times, but at the same time, the consumer market of America experienced new all-time highs. It may have been hard, at times, to feel like a life of luxury was attainable. However, some of our favorite brands picked up the slack and made us feel like we were high society just for buying and enjoying their products. One of the most common places was with their advertising, but overall, these brands sought to make us feel luxurious, even if just for a moment. And what’s even better, is these brands did it with a basic necessity - food! Let’s take a trip back to the high class eating of days past.

Grey Poupon

The first brand on our list has been making people feel luxurious since the 1880s, and still is today! However, in the 90s, they really upped their game. After the release of their limousine ad, they were a mustard brand no longer. Instead, they became a cultural image for what good eating was. It might run for double the price of Heinz at Walmart, but the feeling it gave you to have this mustard in your fridge was then, and might still be, priceless.

Perrier Sparkling Water

Perrier is another one of those staples that has been around forever, or well, since the 1890s at least. Sparkling water has always seemed more luxurious than plain ol’ tap water, even if you think it tastes like static. However, Perrier was not one of the brands that Americans wanted to buy until the 1970s, when the French company set out to convince us this distinctive green-bottled water is what we wanted. Advertisements began to boast that it was “More quenching, more refreshing, and a mixer par excellence”, marking it as a must have at cocktail parties and alcohol-free events alike. Perrier was fashioned as sophisticated, classy, and conscientious. To drink Perrier was to have these same qualities. Drinking Perrier, to this day, still makes us all feel a little more luxurious, doesn’t it?

Bon Bons (Nestlé)

Bon Bons by Nestlé were a crowd favorite. The thing about bon bons, is they’re almost always gone. Or something like that. Nestlé made us feel luxurious in a couple different ways with this product, both in its implied scarcity, and in the name itself. They made us feel great for having the few of them that existed, even though we didn’t know they would disappear entirely in the late 80s. Further, the name “bon bon” just feels fancy, so we did too! Even if the name just means “candy” in French, bon bons meant luxury to us.

Frusen Glädjé

Another brand that made us feel lux with their freezer snacks was Frusen Glädjé. They were one of the OG premium ice cream brands, along with Ben and Jerry’s and Haagen Dazs. Though they came to make their own space in the small premium ice cream market, they stole our hearts with their Frusen Glädje, or “Frozen Happiness” in Swedish. Their ads focused on the kinds of indulgences you needed to have, marking themselves as one of those. Their slogan “enjoy the guilt” made us believe that this was one guilty pleasure we should take part in. Because of the packaging, the taste, the ads, and the fancy name, we couldn’t help but feel luxurious while eating this ice cream.

Martini & Rossi Asti Spumante

As the ads say, bringing home Martini & Rossi Asti Spumante is like bringing home fancy, delicious, imported champagne. Except it is not champagne, it just makes us all feel like we are drinking a drink as sophisticated and luxurious as champagne does. Asti Spumante is also a lower alcohol content beverage. Meaning you could continue to indulge for far longer, without as great a fear of repercussions the next day. Martini & Rossi made us feel all the exquisiteness of drinking in the French or Italian countryside, without the damage to our wallets or to our heads the next day.

Polaner All Fruit 

Please do not call it jelly! Polaner All Fruit was in a class of its own - and so were you if you ate it! Their advertisements showed women in gloves and pearls, passing their Polaner All Fruit to the handsome gentlemen next to them on a silver platter, scorning anyone who dare assume it was merely jelly. How could you not feel just as fancy as they did while you ate this at your breakfast table? Polaner All Fruit was the epitome of luxury fruit eating, made affordable for those of us who do not eat their breakfasts in pearls.

Bonus: Fancy Feast

Obviously we know that Fancy Feast is not a meal for humans, but their marketing implied that we humans must have superb taste if we were buying their food for our cats. After all, if your cat is eating out of a crystal glass, you certainly must be pretty fancy yourself! 

While we know this is not a comprehensive list of brands that made us all feel luxurious, these are some of our all time favorites. If you have any brands to add, please let us know! We want to continue to feel all this faux luxuriousness as long as we can!

- Maddy

 

 

Back to Core Memories Unlocked! blog home