THE LOCKDOWN CHRONICLES #1 Spreading Brand Loyalty

Wednesday 25 March 2020: LD-DAY –2

I’m ashamed to admit it but I did some #CoronaVirus #Covid19 panic shopping today.

Now before you judge me, hear me out.

The #Lockdown plan was totally on track until last night when I realized we had run out of mayonnaise. Now I do have a pretty high pain threshold. I regularly took 6 flaps from my old headmaster Mr. ‘Pop’ Graham at New Forest High School for Boys. I did my army training in Kimberley in the middle of winter and I’ve even run Comrades Marathon.

But 21 days without mayo is one bridge too far. Basically, it’s just uncivilized and there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that mayonnaise-deprivation is linked to a wide range of behavioural disorders.

So this morning I joined all the old folks down at my local Pick n Pay #PnP (Panic ‘n Purchase) at 07h00. Not the liveliest bunch to be honest and I suspect more than one of them has been a regular viewer to the Doc Martin series on ITV.

To be brutally honest, I was a more than a bit disappointed that the security officer just waved me through when the doors opened because I was fully prepared to be interrogated about my age and whether I qualified for old person shopping benefits. So much for keeping in shape. In any event he waived his right to check my ID and we all surged towards the open door.

Now when I say “surged” I use the term in the loosest possible sense. It was more of an enthusiastic amble. Effortless. Took me less than an hour to get into the store.

Focused on my mission I headed off to retrieve my loot. When I got there, I realized I had encountered a serious problem because I was unable to reach out and take a bottle off the shelf. Fortunately for me a young shelf packer, who was dressed like a surgeon from an episode of Grey’s Anatomy, explained that the Covid19 2-meter rule only applies to other people. Not to mayonnaise.

So I took a bottle of Crosse&Blackwell Tangy Mayonnaise even though it wasn’t on special and headed for the checkout. And Ehrenberg Bass says there there’s no such thing as brand loyalty anymore.

When I got to checkout people in the queue were looking at me from behind their loaded trolleys as if I was completely daft. Eventually one guy said to me “all this effort for one bottle of mayonnaise?”.

I said “Ja. But there’s a brilliant on-pack competition. You can win a trip to Italy with Alitalia”.

See! That’s the other thing when you’re shopping with the old folks down at the Panic n Purchase.

Humour isn’t such a big thing.