Nostalgia Marketing

What are some of the major advantages and disadvantages of nostalgia marketing? Are there some products or brands for which this strategy may not be successful? Why or why not?

Nostalgia marketing is a powerful tool in the marketing and advertising world. To play off of the memories and emotions of people can benefit and hurt the thing being advertised.

There are advantages and disadvantages to nostalgia marketing. Some advantages are brand loyalty and positive reviews by consumers to others. Brand loyalty is important to companies. They want to have a following of the products or services they produce. By having a large following of dedicated customers, it ensures their continuation in  the future.

A personal example of this happens around Christmas for my family. We are traditional when it comes to a Christmas tree. My family prefers a real one because of the smell and the feeling we get from having one in our home. We are always reminded of past Christmases as a family by the fireplace. But we don’t purchase our tree from anywhere. We specifically go to Target for a tree. Over the years, we have always gone to Target for a long lasting Christmas tree. This year will be the same.

Some disadvantages to nostalgia are emotional shutdown and bad memories that lead to product rejection. Everyone grows up with products that work and fail. Based on personal experiences with certain products or services that have failed, we will choose to rarely or never go back to the same product again.

One example my sister experienced was with a specific type of sunblock. She used Coppertone and came home with a bright, red rashes. We discovered that she was allergic to a product in the sunblock. Since then, my family has not bough Coppertone because of the experience my sister had with the product.

Another example of nostalgia marketing being a disadvantage is the children’s toy Furbys.

I had lots of friends that grew up with Furbys in their homes. Many of them can testify to being woken up in the middle of the night to the sound of a Furby talking. Most would say that they were so scared that they would never owned another one after throwing out their original Furby. As now college students, I asked if they would ever buy their children a Furby. All of them strongly refused to let one into their homes for fear of terrifying their children.