Observations on a small island #1

You can take the girl out of the ad industry but you can't take the ad industry out of the girl seemingly. I've become a little obsessed with American and Caribbean branding, shopping has never been so much fun!

On my first trip to the supermarket, I felt like I'd entered Springfield. The supermarket, Foster's Food Fair, had the most unbelievable logo I've ever seen. Tescos and Sainsbury's take note, you need a scary-ass clown with a fake black beard imploring your customers to believe that he cares! Awesome.

So once inside Krusty the clown's supermarket, what should one buy to drink? Step up local marketeers,
you're brewing a beer on Grand Cayman, in a Cayman brewery, Cay-brew? Caybrew! It has three stars on the design, but I'd say it barely scrapes these. Although in an effort to support the local community we'll persevere a little longer.

So it's hot, you're parched, you grab a Caybrew (which by the way at a glance has a C which looks quite a lot like a G), how do you cool down? Well you switch on your 'Big Ass Fan' of course. Yes, believe it, I was mesmerised by the enormous fan in the breakfast dining room/Caribbean shack. Trying to decipher the logo at its centre as it span around, is that a great piece of branding or what?!

But in terms of brands I've discovered in my first week, brands that do exactly what they say on the tin, Caybrew and Big Ass Fans are up there, but my personal favourite has to be Cost U Less. It's a warehouse store, think Argos Superstore combined with a cash and carry and Toys R Us. It has everything you could possibly want, electrical appliances, multipacks of Heinz ketchup, Lea and Perrins Worcestershire Sauce, garden chairs, kids' bikes and cheap meat. Oh yes, there's something so wrong but so right about buying meat from a warehouse, perhaps that's just the Northerner in me? Who cares, Cost U Less may be my new favourite shopping experience. More observations on a small island coming soon.