I don't entirely disagree with you. I'm not quick to reach for Buckley's (which is of course the point of the marketing), but my suspicion is that a lot of people do. Additionally, many people talk about them, which is a harder thing to achieve than most believe.<p>The thing that I think we have to take away from Buckley's marketing is that without that approach, they'd have a bad tasting cough medicine. Admitting that it tastes bad, on the other hand, leads us to ask, "how good does it have to be, in order for them to admit that?"<p>On the other hand, there are dozens of other brands of cough medicine out there, and I'm hard pressed to remember the names (or stories behind) any of them.