My wife does this from time to time, "What did you have for dinner last night?"
Commercials work.
Now in a household of years past, the answer might have been "baked beans and ham", "some yucky vegetable I don't like", "lasagna", "grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup", "mac & cheese", "BLTs", "scrambled eggs and fried potatoes", and countless other options.
Today, it is almost always "Wendy's", "McDonald's", or "Burger King", with a few strays like "Arby's" thrown in. They don't even describe WHAT they had, just where, as in "I had Wendy's for dinner last night". It usually means a burger, fries, and soda if she presses.
Pizza gets a pass here because that, while more common now, is just as likely to be the answer as it was when we were kids. We usually made our own rather than ordering it, or ordered it and picked it up, but even then the stuff we made was generally "Chef Boy R D" (sp?) or something in a box with sauce in a can and a dough mix that was sticky and always tore when you tried to spread it out. It was still better than Pizza Hut "death on a pie pan".
People don't even to get out of their urban assault vehicles anymore - they just sit in the drive-through lane idling and yacking on the phone. It isn't that they're saving time - they just don't have to move their asses to get food and throw it in the back for the kids.
But yes, kids know the brands. They know the logos. They know the slogans. They know way too well and they are the target of the advertising - suck them in young and get a customer for life. I rarely buy the "well known" brand because there are better products available at equal or lower prices.
There are only a few examples I can really point out where I like a major brand better - one is Campbell's "cream of" soups. A lot of the others have a consistency that seems to include library paste. Most of my "brand loyalty" is to relatively local companies with equal or better products for an equal or lower price. We've raised our kids to keep all things in mind when considering purchases - cost per unit, product quality, company ethics, locality, and perhaps most importantly, "how badly do I really need this?"
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