The Time Travel Machine: How to Boost your Brand by Evoking Nostalgia?
Tamagotchi, Furbie, Troll dolls, cassettes, floppy disks, Super Soakers, laser points, sticky hands, yin-yang, Mountain Dew, funny packs, yo-yos. Wait! Did someone just open a 1990s time capsule?! Unfortunately, the majority of these trends are dead and gone. However, if they were to appear once again, every true representative of Generation Y would be thrilled.
Precisely because of this, with our rising enthusiasm, numerous brands have resorted to nostalgia as one of the most persuasive marketing techniques. This theory has been recently proven by the work titled Nostalgia Weakens the Desire for Money. Based on six experiments, this paper proved that today, nostalgia marketing can be the basis of building a strong brand image.
So, what we can conclude here is that nostalgia definitely sells. Here are some awesome examples of how you can use it to make your brand more popular.
Know what the Interests of your Users are
In order to emotionally engage your target demographic, you first have to get to know them. What you need to do here is a comprehensive market research, where you would determine who your consumers are, how they access your website, what their profession and interests are, as well as what their average age is. Only by doing so will you be able to determine what they really expect from your brand and most importantly, to apply effective nostalgia marketing methods.
Remind your Users of the Good Times You Spent Together
The key to the success of your brand is to observe it like you would a human being. After all, that’s exactly what it is – at one point, your brand is born. Then, it starts developing into something beautiful and meaningful for everyone. It also has a set of objectives and strives to meet them all. In this process, it constantly changes and evolves. But, it is its core values that remain unalterable.
Most importantly, from the very beginning, your brand makes new friends. It provides them not only with the products or services they need, but also with invaluable support. They grow together, creating an unbreakable relationship and this is exactly what you need to put an emphasis on.
Internet Explorer: “You grew up. So did we”
Just take an example of Internet Explorer’s ad called Child of the ‘90s. As the browser was first released in 1995, the company’s goal here was to equate it with Millennials. Under the slogan “You grew up. So did we,” they presented the most iconic symbols of the 90s in order to elicit the feeling of nostalgia among Y generation. Seems legit.
Facebook’s “On this day”
The similar application of nostalgia was later introduced by Facebook, which was, by the way, the only big network to experience the drop in active usage in 2014. What they did here is actually called micro-nostalgia. Namely, they launched “On This Day” feed of the memories the users posted to their timeline on a given day in the past. Similarly to Internet Explorer, the main goal of this giant was to remind its users of all the beautiful moments they spent together, and thus inspire them to use it more actively.
Bring your Product back from the Dead
Of course, your brand will constantly grow. When the time comes, some not so popular products will be discontinued or simply replaced with their better, upgraded versions. However, what you need to know is that, once your product is pulled from the market, people will still remember it and, above all, start feeling nostalgic about it. In other words, by bringing such products back, you will actually have an opportunity to make them more popular than ever. This is exactly what some of the largest conglomerates had in mind.
Coca-Cola’s Surge is back!
One such example is Coca-Cola. On the demand of a Millennial-led online fan community, they decided to reintroduce their long-forgotten Surge, a citrus-flavored soft drink that was withdrawn from the market 13 years ago. Apparently, the results of this idea were quite impressive. At the moment, Surge is more popular than it has ever been, taking pride at an astonishing figure of 330.730 Facebook followers.
McDonald’s Hamburglar
Similarly, McDonald’s decided to bring Hamburglar back, their red-haired, snaggle-toothed, tiny rascal mascot. Dressed in stripy prison clothes, with a black Zorro hat, this loveable scoundrel appeared for the last time in a commercial with the Williams sisters, in 2002. However, the mascot recently reappeared and the only difference was that, this time, it was a grown man with a mask and fedora. On online networks, there were mixed emotions on Hamburglar’s new look. While some people were loving it (pun intended), others found it not that kid-friendly. Either way, the burst of emotions was there and that’s all McDonald’s wished for.
Retro Awakens Emotions
Retro never truly stays in the past (at least not for long). This is exactly why many companies have started employing it as one of the most creative and original ways to attract more customers.
When we say retro ads, probably the first thing that pops up in your mind is Coca-Cola. Over time, the company definitely became synonymous with the most appealing emotional marketing campaigns. Their vintage bottles, TV commercials, posters and songs (especially Christmas ones :)) are known for invoking positive reactions among both older and younger generations. However, Coca-Cola is definitely not the only company that employs retro-inspired commercials.
Your Tango: Facebook etiquette
In 2009, Your Tango launched an award-winning vintage-style video called “Facebook Manners and You.” Aiming to teach people some basic rules on how to behave on social networks, this black and white ad, showing a woman typing her Facebook messages on a typewriter soon became extremely popular. Namely, it was liked by about 2.000.000 people and shared on a myriad of online channels. Similarly, in 2010 a Brazilian ad agency started a similar campaign and made a series of throwback social media posters.
Evoke Customer Familiarity Heritage Branding
Whether your brand has been around for a year or several decades, it probably takes pride in its rich history, services and customer satisfaction. In order to emphasize its legacy and significance on the market, many companies resort to what’s called heritage branding. And what better way to do so than adding a subtle hint of nostalgia?
American Express: The Brief Story of Famous AmEx
American Express stands for quality and credibility, for sure. This is exactly what they wanted to emphasize in their latest video promoting Apple’s mobile payment service. Designed as a compilation of previous AmEx ads, this commercial features 1990s icons like Jerry Seinfeld, Jackie Chan and Tina Fey all using the famous green plastic. Finally, the video culminates with a man using his iPhone at a cash register instead of Apple Pay. So, what’s the moral of the story? Although the technology changes a lot over time, good old AmEx simply remains the same.
Budweiser: Engaging Generation X
In their latest ad, Budweiser based the entire marketing campaign on the crazy ‘80s. Namely, this ad focuses on a set of subtle suggestions that are supposed to recreate fun times from the brand’s history. Bright colors, parties, large jewelry and cool shades provide us with callbacks to Generation X’s past. While this ad may not address Millennials and some younger generations, it definitely hits home with Generation X.
Conclusions
As it has been already suggested, nostalgia definitely weakens people’s instinct to cling on tight to their wallets. In other words, when feeling nostalgic, one is more likely to make a purchase. This is exactly why even a teeny tiny hint of nostalgia might considerably change the entire outcome of your branding and marketing efforts. Plus, it’s so much fun!
