Nostalgia Marketing

In Fashion: Vintage consumption is flourishing online and off. Call it the renaissance of retro, from once-passé décor aesthetics, to traditional barbershops for classic haircuts, to old fashioned sweets appealing to our inner child. Even the colors of yesteryear are back. Honeysuckle pink, specifically Pantone 18-2120 TCX, is the new-crowned hue of 2011. It recalls the lipstick our mothers wore, or maybe the tile in our ‘50s bathrooms. The New York Times points out a nostalgic fashion trend: stores such Blue Velvet Vintage and Stop Staring! are booming, selling reproductions of vintage, curvy, feminine shapes from the past. The only difference is that their fashions are made to fit and don’t come some of the shortcomings of original vintage – musty odor, stains, bad fit or fragility.

 In Food: Crops of new restaurants pay homage to American culinary classics. Vintage spirits and forgotten cocktails are quaffed anew. In a nod to tradition and technology, AMC’s Mad Men Cocktail Culture app helps users master the forgotten art of cocktail mixing. And in a campaign throwback, Mr. Peanut, the iconic Planters Peanuts character, has begun to talk (the voice of Robert Downey Jr.) for the first time in the 94 years since he was first introduced with the hope of “charming” consumers.

In Travel: Nostalgic travelers are ringing cash registers where happy memories were once made. Beset with budget cuts, the U.S. National Park Service hopes to inspire nostalgia with historic park brochures on its website, including a vintage 1913 one from Crater Lake National Park. Officials hope to evoke childhood memories of family vacations long past, when mom and dad might “see the USA in a Chevrolet” on a cross-country jaunt when gas was a quarter a gallon.

A variety of marketing research studies do indicate that the use of nostalgia in advertising does arouse attention, is entertaining, is persuasive, and evokes nostalgic reflections in consumers. Besides the positive emotions, they also induce mental images of former situations and experiences that are also positive in nature.

 In comparison studies, nostalgic advertising induces more positive emotions and more intensive mental images than non-nostalgic advertisements. The combination of the positive emotions and images evoked by the ads generate positive resonance toward both the ad and the product advertised.

Nostalgia advertising appeals are especially appropriate for emotional products because the positive response to them can enhance the other positive emotions generated by the product itself. Products that are likely to be subject to mental images are also very appropriate because nostalgic ads evoke a more intensive mental image than do non-nostalgic ads. The result can be a direct and positive effect on consumers’ attitude toward the product advertised.

At this point there is no need for Coca-Cola to keep creating new Christmas adverts - the infamous 'trucks' ad hits on the basis nostalgia and the the fact that it's perfectly crafted. In fact, I know lots of people (myself included) who Christmas doesn't start for until they've seen the Coca-Cola trucks advert.