You’ve probably recently seen a Liberty Insurance commercial out there by now that states “Research shows that people remember commercials with nostalgia,” and that would be correct! With Nostalgia Marketing becoming one of the savviest ways to get your audience’s attention, I wanted to take the ‘liberty’ – yes pun intended, to break it down for you and give you recommendations on how to incorporate it into your brand’s content.
What is Nostalgia Marketing?
According to autopilothq.com “nostalgia marketing aims to capture (or rather, re-capture) your audience’s attention by tapping into older and more familiar trends from the past.” This concept is much like how movies or TV shows tap into past decades to use as settings to draw you in. Also, popular songs today use nostalgia in the form of sampling baselines, lyrics and other elements into arrangements. The key here is familiarity. How impactful a message is, is directly influenced by how likely the audience remembers what you are referencing.
Why Use Nostalgia Marketing?
By using familiar popular culture moments, movie references, or anything trendy in the past, you create an emotional feeling for your target audience. The goal here is to get them to experience the “Ah, I can totally relate to that!” feeling or “Yep – I remember those days.” By making them feel warm and fuzzy about their past, it can translate to them feeling warm and fuzzy about your brand. Millennials and Gen Z are notorious for short attention spans and you have just under three seconds to capture them. By creating ads and content that remind them faster of what they like or liked, you’re already halfway there.
How To Use Nostalgia Marketing
I recommend using Social Media as where your brand tries it’s hand at creating nostalgia magic. Try concepts for posts with a “through the decades” approach or find trends from popular culture past or present to play off of. It could be either graphics, throwback photos, or animations that showcase your brand in this light. One idea is taking a photo of someone dressed in the 80’s sporting your brand logo all over the outfit or making a branded cassette tape and changing the song titles to fit your product or service. Another idea is making a video with a great filter that reminds the viewer of an old camcorder.
Lastly, you could also show your community on social media your past logos through the years and have them vote on the best. We’ve seen Pepsi and Coke use the throwback logo tactic…why not you!
So, go ahead, make my day…start using nostalgia marketing in your campaigns!