Contents 1 Resource Links: Websites & Articles 1.1 The American Package Museum  1.2 Retro Chic - Harnessing the power of the past 1.3 Nostalgia – aiming at the heart of your consumer 1.4 Retro-marketing: yesterday’s tomorrows, today! 1.5 Harnessing Nostalgia 2 Blurbs 2.1 Does the revival of 'retro' products show marketers lack imagination? 2.2 A GOLDEN TIME FOR NOSTALGIA

Resource Links: Websites & Articles

The American Package Museum 

This is a wonderful vintage design website. It's curator, Ian House wrote the following about the site:

"The primary obective of this website is to presearve and display specimens of American package design from the early decades of the 20th Century...It is my hope that this website will eventually develop int a significant archive of corporate heritage and branding..." (read more)

Retro Chic - Harnessing the power of the past

....Drawn by intangibles such as childhood memories, a consumer ’ s appetite for many brands is not necessarily based on price. More companies recognize this trend and are beginning to target marketing strategies and packaging to cater to consumers eager to relive their past... (read more)

Nostalgia – aiming at the heart of your consumer

Nostalgia is always 'in' with consumers. Forward-thinking brands know that nostalgia never went out of fashion. Looking for a new USP for an existing product or service, or one taking its first steps into emerging or mature markets, it's hard to go wrong with this approach. (read more)

Retro-marketing: yesterday’s tomorrows, today!

Retro, in other words, is largely due to the demographic longue durée. The greying of the baby boom generation has prompted a psychic return to the comforts, certainties and conflict-free times of childhood or early adolescence, when people were polite, picket fences pearly white and mom’s apple pie perpetually cooling on the stoop. Like the golden age of the ancients, admittedly, this sepia-hued retroscape never actually existed (outside of Hollywood studio back lots), but the concept certainly does and it is expropriated, exaggerated and artfully exploited by the hucksters of heritage. (read more)

Harnessing Nostalgia

Emotions imprinted during childhood and the teenage years are especially powerful, and by associating our products with those nostalgic memories, we can piggyback on them. First you need to know who your target audience is -- 20-year-olds will be nostalgic about very different things than 40-year-olds, and regional, ethnic and social class differences may exist as well.

You could do focus groups where you ask them to name the music, tastes, smells, celebrities, TV shows, etc that they remember fondly and the specific memories associated with them. Focus on the senses, because those are the key to tapping into those nostalgic emotions. You will find that certain things get most everyone nodding wistfully; when that happens, you'll know you're onto something...

...You do need to be careful, though, when you are messing around with things that people hold dear to their hearts. If they perceive you as tampering with their cherished icons or that the people associated with them have "sold out," you may generate a backlash. (read more)

Blurbs

Does the revival of 'retro' products show marketers lack imagination?

Retro is all the rage - first there was the return of Cadbury's Wispa bar, now Birds Eye is tapping into the trend for relaunching defunct brands with the return of its Arctic Roll after a 10-year hiatus. 

NO - VANESSA COHEN, PARTNER, PROPHET 

"...Smart marketers have recognised that baby boomers and Generation X-ers feel sentimental about foods from the past, perhaps especially in times of economic crisis and uncertainty, and that this opens revenue streams that were long dead. As for young consumers, they jump on the bandwagon because the resurrected brands are hip and fun..."

NO - MARK RAE, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR, ROUNDHOUSE

"...Imaginative marketing is a great thing, but there are times when consumers are more open to it. Right now, the world portrayed by the media is a scary place and, in the case of the financial world, almost beyond our imagination. People are retreating to Mum and the brands they had when they were kids. The emotional benefits of nostalgia brands are safety, security and comfort. Food marketers can benefit from this by bringing that nostalgia to the supermarket aisles. Coming across an old brand in-store adds a warm feeling and an uplifting surprise to your day. Eating is one of life's simple pleasures, and rediscovering brands such as the Arctic Roll is a quick way to feel positive about the world again. Smart marketers should engage shoppers at point-of-sale and imaginatively induce positive memories of the past..." (to read you more must login to UC Library)

A GOLDEN TIME FOR NOSTALGIA

January 15, 2009 - "...David Kershaw of M&C Saatchi explained to the Financial Times why people should expect more warm and fuzzy nostalgia from advertisers this year. "In times of uncertainty people like to hark back to the finer things of the past," he said. "That is quite a natural human response. People understand there are emotional strings to be pulled by going to people's past - as much for the baby boomers of the golden days of the 1980s as the cobbled streets of Hovis." (to read you more must login to UC Library)