Ah, sweet nostalgia...We all get it somehow. I'm only 21 and I feel nostalgic for the carefree days when I was ten and watching Powerpuff Girls on Cartoon Network.
A big advantage of nostalgia marketing is the loyal customers that have been with you for some time are almost guaranteed to respond positively. It's not uncommon for Coca Cola commercials today to do a montage of clips of their advertisements throughout the decades. And it works well for any audience, young or old, because it gives the older demographic nostalgia and shows the younger demographic just how long the company has been around. It doesn't work all the time though, as it could also prove just how much a brand has changed; sometimes too much.
Nostalgia works great with companies in the food and drink industry as their products never really change. Hershey's will always sell chocolate. Pepsi will always sell soda. McDonald's will always sell sub-par burgers. More technology based brands could only be hurt by nostalgia though. Windows and Apple have changed so much over the years they now have their own split camps of fans to the point internet wars will break out over the two. Yet some will agree that both have their problems (certain recent Windows operating systems come to mind while Apple tech doesn't seem to want to cooperate with several nice programs and other add-ons) and reminding users of the 90s before everything was sleek and shiny and computers were far less complicated and more user friendly is a bad idea. Gaming company SquareEnix would only serve to remind its fanbase of the myriad games it made in the past when their stories were good. Yes, the graphics weren't eye-searingly gorgeous like they are today, but the characters and gameplay were well-written and fun. Nostalgia marketing is the worst possible choice SquareEnix could possibly do, outside of making yet another sequel to the fanbase breaking Final Fantasy XIII.
In short: if your product has only gotten worse instead of better, don't use nostalgia. It'll only do you more harm than good.
This has been another lesson in selling stuff. My final lesson, really.
This is Rose Daly signing off.
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