Nostalgia

When someone thinks back on their childhood, they remember the good times. Nostalgia marketing uses these good thoughts and images to their advantage. When we grew up we have certain images that stick out to us like maybe Mr. Bubbles bubble bath soap or pizza rolls. If we loved these things a long time ago, they have an attachment to us therefore we’re more likely to buy into these brands and items. Instead of being a just a product, these items engraved themselves into our past memories. This is a pretty smart way for advertisers to target customers but it has its advantages and disadvantages.

A major perk that nostalgia marketing incorporates is consumer loyalty. You could be loyal to a brand without nostalgia, yes, but this type of marketing creates a much more powerful bond with a product. Creating a lifelong consumer is one of the one of the greatest achievements a company could make. This type of marketing relies on good schema.

A disadvantage of this marketing is, if you’re trying to market an older product, maybe “older isn't better”. Consumers may not relate a product with good memories but instead bad ones. I think creating a good schema for a product is the key to having a successful nostalgia marketing technique.

Since this type of marketing may not work for all products. You have to know your target audience. For products such as converse or mini, I may be too young to understand all the references in their advertisements even though they are intended for me. Let's take converse for example, many people my age do not know Sid Vicious because we did not grow up listening to the Sex Pistols (instead we grew up with Lady Gaga and Britney Spears which is sad and I could write a whole new blog post about how that is a terrible thing, but I won't). Converse uses Sid's rebellious demeanor to sell converse but if the consumer does not fully understand who he is, this type of advertising may not work. 

Another way nostalgia marketing could not work is when they company changes the product in a way consumers do not like. This happened when KDD changed their ice cream to Blitz. Consumers had so much negative backlash and the company went under fire.

There is no doubt that nostalgia marketing is successful but companies should just understand some disadvantages.