Tagged: nostalgia marketing, throwback, retro ads, 8 Brands that Used Nostalgia Marketing to Captivate, How to Set Goals (Real Ones) for Your Influencer Marketing Campaigns [Downloadable Guide], How to Set Goals (Real Ones) for Your Influencer Marketing Campaigns, ROI Expectations + How to Plan for Your First Campaign. Don’t think nostalgia marketing can work for your business? And we call that nostalgia marketing. For some of the biggest consumer brands, nostalgia is anything but yesterday’s news. Nostalgia marketing can also address the changes that we all go through over time. BP ended up the butt of tons of late night monologue jokes and became the poster child for corporations’ need for more oversight and accountability. You could also highlight previous iterations of a product, to show how far the brand has come. It’s actress Bea Arthur as Golden Girls’ quick-witted roomie, Dorothy Zbornak. Before I get into the whys and wherefores of nostalgia marketing, let me tell you a little story about a kid from Harlem that will drive home the impact nostalgia can have on buyers in the real world. Nostalgia marketing has seen a major resurgence over the past several years, and the COVID-19 pandemic has made the trend even more ubiquitous. Source: Today.com - In this photo are Ryan Gossling, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Justin Timberlake. Now in their mid-20s to mid-30s, these young adults are looking back to a time before social media and constant connectivity, when your neighborhood was your world. She never put the seeds in it. Coca-Cola has always been a company that’s embraced its nostalgic past — for example, its continual production of iconic 1950s-era bottles and use of 1930s Santa Claus imagery — but recently it embraced a more contemporary era: the 1990s. One piece of marketing theory says that the millennial generation, in particular, is … What about corporate earrings that break the dress code… and people can’t really wear them to work? For Super Bowl LII, Kia ran a spot to promote the Stinger using Aerosmith frontman-turned-American Idol judge Steven Tyler. A good way to do this is by capitalizing on a collective memory that many of them will appreciate. Nostalgia marketing certainly isn’t a new concept and it’s one that can yield serious dividends so would be worth looking into, even if you don’t end up pursuing it. Doing things like re-running popular old campaigns or doing a mashup that combines your old, grainy training videos attended by ladies in long, wool skirts with new irreverent commentary from people young enough to be their adult kids can be a fun way for brands to nurture old connections AND establish new connections with their audiences. Creating a high-impact nostalgia marketing campaign will niche-down your audience reasonably well but you can go narrower to really zero in on what your target buyer wants and what they actually need to hear from you to convert the sale. The Surge revival was successful because Cola didn’t use nostalgia marketing to force an old idea on a new audience. Times of amazing childhood days spent watching Beyblade and Pokemon, running in your flashy sneakers and feeding your virtual pocket pet. Nostalgia is particularly evident in Social content when brands use hashtags such as #tbt which stands for Throwback Thursday. Yet, there is little research about why and how such nostalgia marketing creates enchantment for consumers. Find a natural way to make your product more aspirational by triggering inspiration (but not envy). Don’t get me wrong. In a time when most marketing focuses heavily on the future, it transports us back to a simpler place where our current problems don't matter and the hustle and bustle of modernity just melts away. The jacket triggers a kind of theme song in this guy’s imagination (K-Ci and Jo Jo’s All My Life) where he imagines himself sitting at that same bar, only this time he’s wearing the jacket and he’s not hunched over the bar with his back to the room. And this ad will have cross-generational appeal. PPC + Influencers: Is PPC the Key to Super-Charging Your Influencer Marketing Campaign? Nostalgia marketing is the advertising equivalent of comfort food. These recollections almost certainly bring a smile to your face, and that overlap between memory and emotion is unique to nostalgia. Facebook, for example, offers ‘Your Memories on Facebook’, while #ThrowbackThursday is common on Twitter (and even Pepsi are into it! The spot featured 2018 Tyler hopping in a Stinger on a racetrack and speeding around the track in reverse to the band’s iconic song, Dream On. This spot in particular originally aired in 2006 with a KILLER song called Remind Me by Röyksopp (there are tons of mixes of this song… and yeah that pixel art thing is the real video). I don’t even exactly remember what the car even looked like, only that Kia did a really cool spot for the Stinger. The company has used a string of mascots in its commercials over the last couple decades (Mayhem, for instance). Front-load value and ask for nothing (or very little) in return. Second, it helps brands create an instant connection with their audiences by tapping into a shared memory. Politicians were literally steamrolling over piles and piles of rap albums indiscriminately. Are they Boomers in their retirement years? I bought my sister a Golden Girls-theme Christmas gift last year. To create enchantment, companies are increasingly marketing past-themed brands and products. From the very first conversation you have with Ray, you will quickly discover that he speaks completely differently than most marketing people. But you don’t have to blend a bag of marbles, man. Each channel streams a set playlist, but users have the option to click away to hear specific songs in the playlist in a separate tab. Not every ad is meant to sell your product. Nostalgia is a great way to get folks to buy what you’re selling. Yet brands that use nostalgia marketing must remember to put these references into a modern context. Since most small businesses don’t have the budget for Muppets, look for other, more affordable ways to incorporate nostalgia marketing into your strategy. Nostalgia-centric marketing succeeds when brands keep a finger on the pulse of modern culture, listen to what people are talking about, and plug into those ideas to create new marketing … More than just helping you makes sales, nostalgia marketing can help you make positive impact and help solidify the value of your brand in the minds of your target audience. Content that evokes positive emotions also triggers engagement. Each of these brands is benefitting from the emotional power of nostalgia, a wistfulness for days gone by. One spot features a studious, bespectacled man sitting hunched over at a bar, scrolling through his phone. This could be a very useful strategy for apps and SaaS companies. While reaching as far back as childhood continues to be effective, many of us are currently feeling nostalgia for a more recent time — before the pandemic. We want to help you link up with amazing creators who can help make your message beautiful, relevant, and effective. Clicking away lets you hear your song choice, but also provides you the option to register for a free account (and opt in to receive emails) and of course, create custom playlists. Think about it: If you’re at a party, are you going to spend all night hanging out in a corner with Debbie Downer or get in that growing circle of laughs around Fun Bobby? And before he (Justin Timberlake) became Branch (the grumpy troll) for your kids. #nostalgiamarketing. All you need is a time period that your target market is going to feel nostalgic about. People love it! Nostalgia marketing works when brands remind customers of something cool from the past, but it also works pretty well when brands are willing to share their own memories and corporate histories. The record company Sean formed and built on the foundation of making music that would make HIS FANS’ PARENTS forget they were listening to rap sold something like 40 million records in its first five years of existence (and made Sean one of the richest men on the planet)… at a time when a video views didn’t count as a record sold. The New York Public Library, for example, has created a playlist recreating the pre-pandemic, . Born in the mid-1940s to mid-1960s, this demographic would feel the strongest connection to the mid-century aesthetic. For example, memories that evoke the childhoods and teen years of Generation Xers and Millennials have recently been trending. Millennials will be more excited about Nickelodeon showing up on the scene, and boy bands… and crushing on the curly-haired boy on Mickey Mouse Club before he became a member of the group N*Sync and a big pop star. And anyone who uses Twitter and Instagram have probably dug through their own photo albums (physical and virtual) to find the perfect pic for #throwbackthursday. It's M-A-Y-E-R. Oh! So, this particular instance of nostalgia marketing was an emotional play both for Millennials who love The Backstreet Boys as well as anyone who’s ever been wholly committed to their red-light vocal performance from the front seat of their car. To promote these, one of the marketing tactics Walmart used was game reviews by someone who specializes in collector’s items. A time that was more certain, more secure, and more comfortable (probably because these good ol’ days happened back when someone else was doing all the adulting for us - haha). No matter your audience, people want to buy into brands that make them feel something. Social media is a great place to do this. Well into adulthood, this demographic is raising their own young children in an environment drastically different from the one in which they grew up. A few seconds later, Tyler hops out of the car 40 years younger. Once you’ve keyed in on your demographic, you can start creating assets that will speak to that audience. For those who grew up during the 90s and early 2000s, you may think back fondly on the cavemen. By Jillian Berman. Reach out to us! 10 Cult Brands So Popular They Don't Need To Advertise. You could also highlight elements of pop culture or certain consumer goods that you were “raised on,” to create a connection with the audience. The song was re-released and charted in 1976 after the band’s second album. Huy Fong Foods, the makers of Sriracha . Apple, for example, introduced Siri with a charmingly nostalgic commercial featuring Cookie Monster. Nostalgia marketing can also address the changes that we all go through over time. If they don’t, they risk being perceived as outdated or irrelevant. Blendtec boosted sales and created an enormous amount of buzz about the brand by using its industrial blender (with the super unsexy name) to grind up things like cell phones, baseballs, marbles, super glue (that one was cool), silly putty… the list goes on. Instead, it simply responded to the requests of its customers, to generate goodwill and loyalty among its fans. You could also highlight previous iterations of a product, to show how far the brand has come. Even the recent “How it Started vs. How it’s Going” trend on Instagram taps into nostalgia marketing. from Whitesnake. Use Your Close Or Distant Past: You don’t have to have hundreds of years of history to use nostalgia in your marketing. And the Nintendo Switch continues to be one of the hottest gaming consoles, with a full catalog of old school video games. ... and The A Team’s Mr. T to infuse its marketing messages with retro fun. Kentucky Fried Chicken brought back vintage chicken buckets from 1966 and 1971 for the holiday season. There’s a section of Walmart.com called Classic Arcade Gaming that hosts a virtual catalog of 6-inch games, tabletop arcade games, the four-foot game cabinets, and risers for the game cabinets. How To Do Blogger Outreach (includes templates to make this quick and easy), How to Vet Potential Blogger and Influencer Partners, 7 Core Strategies for a Successful Influencer Campaign, Here Is EXACTLY How We Ran Our First Influencer Campaign. Perhaps the most obvious is social media, especially as nostalgia is already an integral part of many platforms. If you like to treat your taste buds well then you've probably heard of Sriracha, but you likely haven't seen an ad for it on TV. Nostalgia marketing is the crafting of campaigns to evoke feelings like comfort, happiness, security and longing. Click the button below to schedule a 30-minute demo with us and we’ll help you reach your brands expansion and development goals. Lego, masters of nostalgia marketing, have created a. that brings back some of the classic Lego characters, and shows how today’s kids can still enjoy the Christmas season through their imaginations. Nostalgia marketing has a time and place, and the time to take part in it is most certainly now. 1. He was launching his business at a time when gangster rap had sort of ruined everything already. We talked about this pretty extensively in the social proof post. Nostalgia marketing uses imagery, music, or pop culture references from the past to tap into our collective longing for a simpler past. Nostalgia works on a couple of different levels - individual, familial, community, nationally, culturally, generationally.... You and the friends from your old neighborhood will have a different set of nostalgic moments than the ones you and your college friends share. Tying new, promotional content to an audience’s memories by cleverly weaving in old content, ideas, or ideals can be a powerful way to spread a brand’s message. If you’ve noticed the old school vibe creeping into branded content, you’re not alone. Most old brands are relying on something the marketing community now calls nostalgia marketing. Last holiday season, Walmart stores displayed a small selection of 45-inch, full-cabinet arcade games. Think again! If you choose not to create an account, you can go back to your graduation-year playlist, but it’s basically a just commercial-free radio station - you don’t get to call any shots. But Sean came from a marketing background, so he developed a game plan. campaign. There are plenty of young gamers who are interested in retro arcade games. The strategy is only successful if a brand creates an emotional hook by using nostalgia to offer something completely new. Decades later, you can still hear Sean’s music around the clock, playing on throwback rap stations that broadcast nothing but rap hits from the 80s and 90s… many of them originally released by Sean’s company. But this is a fallacy, as stores are full of fairly new brands that trade on a heritage they don’t … The spot, which opened with Chance the Rapper alone followed by a dance number in an airplane hangar with the rapper and the pop stars was sort of epic in that it served to kick off The Backstreet Boys’ tour. But there’s only a certain remnant of the population that will happily engage with content that incites rage, fear, or shame. AND they get to remember / rediscover the Royksopp video. Think about that for a moment. Two things about nostalgia marketing: First, it works because it instantly disappears the days, months, years to make you feel like no time has passed at all since your significant moment. Or young Millennials, born in the mid-1990s? In two other Prime Wardrobe spots, similar situations are presented and set to 80s rock hits, Eternal Flame by The Bangles and Is This Love? The next point talks about why that is. It creates a “remember when” feeling that helps your audience feel more connected to you and your brand. He comes across a picture of a black leather jacket. Sure. The idea is to skip the ho-hum, corporate-y polo shirts this time around. While the pandemic has isolated many of us, these peeks into the world of 2019 remind us that life changed quickly — and it can quickly change back. Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, Gen Alpha: What Makes Them Buy? Boogie2988 is older and played the original arcade games back in the day when they were out. Source: On Instagram here’s @paulspulse sporting the fly Central Perk shirt. The company released a rather sobering, “Our bad, we’ll do better” type of ad in response to the incident. When consumers evaluate brands, they usually rely more on emotions than just facts alone. The New York Public Library, for example, has created a playlist recreating the pre-pandemic sounds of New York. “If I knew then what I know now…”, Visually, it couples old school cool (Steven Tyler is all that) with new school innovation and keeps the audience’s attention because it’s always cool to see a Benjamin Button-styled age-down… This ad works because it gives the audience something they probably didn’t expect - a cool, imaginative car commercial that skips over all the regular car commercial stuff like the car, its features, the safety rating, price, down payments, well-qualified buyers, lease options…. What would it say about your brand if you blanketed a members only jacket (you may have to look that one up) or other clothing items and outerwear with your logo? © 2020 MarketBlazer, Inc. a Georgia Corporation dba Ray L. Perry Consulting | Powered By MarketBlazer, Terms and Conditions | Privacy Policy | Disclaimer. For this year’s Super Bowl, Doritos aired a 60-second spot promoting its Flaming Hot Nacho flavor by teaming Chance the Rapper with 90s boy band The Backstreet Boys. In fact, for many brands, utilizing nostalgia marketing is one of the best techniques for adding to their SEO strategies. Before the Geico gecko, there were the Geico cavemen. What was super smart about this particular review was that this guy wasn’t just your typical Gen Z or Millennial gamer. The songs he chose included those made famous by the likes of Diana Ross, David Bowie, The Jackson 5, James Brown, KC & the Sunshine Band, The Police, The Trammps, Lisa Stansfield, Miami Sound Machine, Kool & the Gang, Duran Duran, Miles Davis… major, right? Golden Girls are still a national treasure. “Nostalgia marketing can unite people around a brand, product, or idea and become a cultural phenomenon.” This ad dreams up a concept that anyone over a certain age has considered before - turning back the hands of time. 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