Who doesn’t love that warm feeling when we see something that reminds us of something from the past? That special something was an object or moment that we really cherished, or it represents those happier and simpler times.
And that sense of nostalgia is used by marketers with a marketing strategy which is called nostalgia marketing.
Nostalgia marketing is everywhere. You turn on the TV you watch an advertisement featuring an actor from your favourite you use to watch as a kid. You open Spotify, you hear a guitar riff that was purposely designed to take you back in time. You go to the supermarket – you are more likely to see products with classic fond and styling.
Nostalgia marketing aims in capturing the audience attention by tapping more familiar trends from the past. The reason nostalgia marketing is effective is that it makes the advertisements and marketing campaigns appear more down-to-earth and authentic to your audience.
A notable example of this is Microsoft promoting its new Internet Explorer. To win over the generation loyal to Safari and Chrome, the advertisement took viewers down memory lane via the famous 1990s fads and trends such as Trolls, Tazos, and Hungry Hippos. To this date, the advertisement had been viewed over fifty million times, thus showing us that the featured fads defined the 1990s childhoods for many users.
Everything old is gold again
Sometimes, it’s best to look back at the good times of yesterday and this is very much evident in marketing. Through nostalgia marketing, brands can invoke positive emotions from their audience, but their products in the spotlight, and generate more revenue and visibility. Older audiences will enjoy the stroll down memory lane — and the younger market is likely to get a kick out of it, too.