1 CVS doesn’t get cute. It uses its own CVS brand and labels its diphenhydramine with a big “ALLERGY” in italics and capital letters, just like the Benadryl package.
2 The most familiar brand is Benadryl – here fending off discounters with 12 free tablets. Benedryl is more expensive, and unlike the Walgreens house version, contains a long list of inactive ingredients: candelilla wax, crospovidone, dibasic calcium phosphate dihydrate, D&C red dye no. 27, aluminum lake, hypromellose, magnesium stearate, microcrystalline cellulose, polyethelene glycol, polysorbate 80, pregelatinized starch, stearic acid, and titanium dioxide. No wonder this is the high-priced brand.
3 Walgreens has a shameless chameleon called “Wal-dryl” – a clumsy but effective combo of its name with Benedryl's. It has the check-marks next to symptoms, but note: Like a school-kid disguising plagiarism, the checked symptoms are in a different order. Runny nose first, sneezing third. Also, “Wal-dryl” has fewer ingredients – which is turned into a benefit: “DYE-FREE”
4 Wegmans has an interesting approach. It offers this “Top Care” brand – which is used by non-Wegmans stores as well. The Top Care package – with its brand slung up along the left side – looks like a cheap, value brand – which is the point.
5 For its diphenhydramine, Walmart uses its own sub-brand called “equate” (equate, get it?) Symptoms with check marks are on the box – and in the Benadryl order! The package has nauseating circles and wavy lines – probably giving customers a reason to buy something for their stomachs.
6 Rite-Aid’s diphenhydramine has the discount look down pat. When they designed this package, Rite-Aid must have hired the same guys who pick their in-store music: “Just stack all the words down the middle, paint the thing hospital-wall pink, and call it a day.”
What's the point? I don't care what they call it, as long as diphenhydramine is handy when those damned yellow jackets attack me again.
brandsinger
