By Caroline Winter

'Ostalgie' for the bad old days

Only 17 percent of East German companies survived the enhanced competition of the Western marketplace, according to a 2009 MDR-Werbung study. Today, ostalgie—a new German word combining "east" and "nostalgia"—bolsters those brands: 80 percent of MDR survey respondents in the former East said their purchases were based more on familiarity than on product quality.

Click here to see some old "favorites."