Using nostalgia to market your brand

Published June 16, 2014 at 8:52 am

The importance of connecting with your audience is something that we have emphasized frequently on this blog. One of the keys to creating a successful campaign is to make it relatable. The more people you are able to reach, the greater the impact of your campaign.

There are lots of ways for marketers to connect with an audience. In some cases, impressive attributes of a product or service hold a great appeal. In others, deals and offers are attractive. However, the campaigns that are able to connect with the audience on an emotional level will be most likely to strongly influence them.

Recently, we talked about how interesting, relatable campaigns improve branding efforts. Humor is one way to connect with an audience and make a campaign more relatable. Another effective way is nostalgia.

Nostalgia may be equated with sentimentality, but research has shown that the feeling actually may have greater purpose. According to Inc., this research, which was conducted by psychologist Constantine Sedekides, revealed that “helping foster nostalgic feelings in people is one of the greatest things you can do for them.”

It turned out that feelings of nostalgia are related to a fear of death, and that people who were able to feel a connection to something bigger than themselves had an easier time dealing with this fear and were more resilient.

These findings are certainly worth noting. Although many brands have used nostalgia for campaigns in the past, there is now actual research to back up the reason behind its effectiveness. Connecting to the past is powerful, and marketers that are able to foster this feeling can use it to increase the effectiveness of their campaigns.