Nos­tal­gia has become an increas­ing­ly pop­u­lar way for brands to con­nect with con­sumers as they tap into the past with beloved real-life fig­ures, mas­cots, taglines and prod­ucts, but incor­po­rate these ele­ments in new ways to con­nect with younger audi­ences as well. No mat­ter what the era, nos­tal­gia enables con­sumers to relive mem­o­ries and, if done cor­rect­ly, cre­ates pos­i­tive brand asso­ci­a­tions. But how effec­tive is it, real­ly? And why are so many brands turn­ing to it at this moment in time? And how can your brand ben­e­fit?

In the annals of adver­tis­ing his­to­ry, 2014 may very well be remem­bered as the Year of Nos­tal­gia.

Elec­tron­ics retail­er RadioShack kicked things off with a 30-sec­ond Super Bowl spot “meant to shed out­dat­ed per­cep­tions of the brand for con­sumers in need of a rein­tro­duc­tion” with ’80s icons like Hulk Hogan, Mary Lou Ret­ton, Kid ‘n’ Play and ALF.

“We’re using the Super Bowl as the plat­form to get peo­ple to rethink RadioShack,” said Jen­nifer War­ren, senior vice pres­i­dent and chief mar­ket­ing offi­cer at RadioShack, in a state­ment. “This ad is meant to grab atten­tion, make view­ers laugh, and let peo­ple know, it’s out with the old and in with the new RadioShack.”

The move worked – at least in the short term. The brand was wide­ly tout­ed as one of the big win­ners of the 2014 Super Bowl, receiv­ing nods from out­lets like the Wall Street Jour­nal. In addi­tion, RadioShack stock went up 7 per­cent fol­low­ing the big game.

Auto man­u­fac­tur­er Hon­da, too, is incor­po­rat­ing toys and car­toon char­ac­ters like Stretch Arm­strong, Gum­by, Jem and The Holo­grams, Lit­tle Peo­ple, Mag­ic 8‑Ball, Skele­tor, Straw­ber­ry Short­cake, and G.I. Joe in its sea­son­al Hap­py Hon­da Days cam­paign, which includes six TV spots and “[pays] homage to pop­u­lar toys through­out var­i­ous decades,” the brand says, not­ing “the mag­ic of these beloved toys has been brought to life with stop-motion ani­ma­tion rather than com­put­er-gen­er­at­ed imagery to authen­ti­cal­ly cap­ture how these toys came to life through play.”

“With con­sumers inun­dat­ed with hol­i­day ads dur­ing the hol­i­day sea­son, our goal is to break through the clut­ter by help­ing peo­ple relive favorite child­hood mem­o­ries of a toy they loved dur­ing the hol­i­days and asso­ci­at­ing that with a great deal on a new Hon­da,” said Susie Rossick, senior man­ag­er at Hon­da.

And, for its part, quick ser­vice chain Wendy’s has tapped a num­ber of nos­tal­gic musi­cal favorites in its #Pret­zelLoveSongs cam­paign, includ­ing R&B group Boyz II Men.

“We know Mil­len­ni­als are pas­sion­ate about 90s nos­tal­gia, music and humor—and Boyz II Men deliv­ered on all three in its ren­di­tion of #Pret­zelLoveSongs,” said Wendy’s Chief Mar­ket­ing Offi­cer Craig Bah­n­er in a state­ment. “We part­nered with Boyz II Men because the group and its mem­bers are legends—and it looks like our Pret­zel Bun is becom­ing one, too.”

The brand has also worked with Latin artist Jon Seca­da in a pret­zel-bun-themed remix of his 1992 hit, “Just Anoth­er Day” and pop-star-turned-TV-per­son­al­i­ty Nick Lachey, as well as The Fresh Prince of Bell Air alum and recent Danc­ing with the Stars champ Alfon­so Ribeiro and the Karate Kid him­self, Ralph Mac­chio, on a more recent bar­be­cue cam­paign.

And then there’s insur­ance com­pa­ny Geico, which recent­ly enlist­ed hip hop trio Salt-N-Pepa to do a spin of its hit “Push It” in its lat­est ad.

Mean­while, oth­er brands are instead look­ing to cap­i­tal­ize on the nos­tal­gic val­ue of their own inter­nal assets.

Salt brand Mor­ton Salt, for exam­ple, saw 2014 as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to refresh its brand iden­ti­ty while cel­e­brat­ing its long-time Mor­ton Salt Girl mas­cot, who turned 100 this year. The refresh includes an updat­ed logo with a “fresh and friend­ly font,” includ­ing an R that “car­ries a slight kick to mim­ic the Mor­ton Salt Girl’s step,” and a Mor­ton Salt Girl with “clean­er, sim­pli­fied linework,” the brand says.

“We con­stant­ly lis­ten to con­sumers to ensure that we con­tin­ue to meet their chang­ing needs,” said Chris­t­ian Her­rmann, Mor­ton Salt CEO, in a state­ment. “Through our lat­est mar­ket research, we know that the Mor­ton Salt Girl is syn­ony­mous with the brand and her time­less, clas­sic look still res­onates with con­sumers today. How­ev­er, we also knew there was an oppor­tu­ni­ty to make the brand look and feel more mod­ern and approach­able.”

Oth­er brands cel­e­brat­ing birth­days this year include Gen­er­al Mills cere­al Cin­na­mon Toast Crunch, which turned 30 and marked the occa­sion in part with a blog post chron­i­cling the evo­lu­tion of its Chef Wen­dell char­ac­ter, and cloth­ing retail­er Old Navy, which cel­e­brat­ed its 20th birth­day by ask­ing fans to sub­mit self­ies in its #Self­iebra­tion cam­paign.

Like Mor­ton Salt, cat food brand 9Lives sought to cap­i­tal­ize upon a well-known inter­nal asset and tapped dig­i­tal agency Evo­lu­tion Bureau to bring back its “icon­ic spokescat,” Mor­ris. Accord­ing to Evo­lu­tion Bureau, the brand “tasked us with doing it in a way that appealed to nos­tal­gic Mor­ris fans while intro­duc­ing the icon­ic orange cat to a new younger mil­len­ni­al audi­ence.”

Ergo, Evo­lu­tion Bureau says it cre­at­ed Cat’s Eye View, an inter­ac­tive video expe­ri­ence that lets fans guide Mor­ris with cus­tom wear­able tech­nol­o­gy. And, to increase engage­ment, Evo­lu­tion Bureau says it seed­ed the site with orig­i­nal 9Lives com­mer­cials.

Anoth­er cat food brand, Meow Mix, asked fans to remix its icon­ic jin­gle in the Its Meow Time cam­paign, spurring recre­ations by artists like Ash­worth, Hip­ster Orches­tra and J.R. Moore.

And Kellogg’s waf­fle brand Eggo report­ed­ly brought back its “L’Eggo my Eggo” tagline in a series of new spots.

And then there are nos­tal­gic prod­ucts in and of them­selves.

Retail­er Hot Top­ic recent­ly stocked Under­oos, the super­hero-themed children’s “under­wear that’s fun to wear” from the ‘70s, in adult sizes and sold out quick­ly.

In a tweet on Novem­ber 17, Hot Top­ic said, “More are on the way! Should be avail­able again in 2–3 weeks!”

And, in Sep­tem­ber, the Coca-Cola Com­pa­ny re-released its cit­rus soda Surge on Ama­zon, say­ing, “Fans thirsty for a taste of ‘90s nos­tal­gia – or those who are sim­ply crav­ing a cit­rus-fla­vored sparkling bev­er­age with a kick – can rejoice in the news that Surge is back after a 12-year hia­tus.”

Accord­ing to Coke, Surge is its first dis­con­tin­ued prod­uct to make a come­back “thanks, in part, to a pas­sion­ate and per­sis­tent com­mu­ni­ty of brand loy­al­ists who have been lob­by­ing The Coca-Cola Com­pa­ny to bring back their favorite drink over the last few years.”

It was first com­mer­cial­ly avail­able from 1996 to the ear­ly 2000s.

“If expec­ta­tions are met, this may be only the first of a vari­ety of efforts we explore to launch niche prod­ucts through e‑commerce rela­tion­ships,” said Wendy Clark, pres­i­dent of sparkling and strate­gic mar­ket­ing for Coca-Cola North Amer­i­ca, in a blog post.

And then there’s footwear brand L.A. Gear, which says it plans to make “a tri­umphant return” in spring 2015 as it “kicks off its re-birth” with the release of its Orig­i­nals col­lec­tion. Not­ing it has worked with celebri­ties like Michael Jack­son, Kareem Abdul Jabar, Wayne Gret­zky, Belin­da Carlisle, Paula Abdul, and Joe Mon­tana, the brand says it is relaunch­ing with rap­per Tyga.

So why are so many brands turn­ing to nos­tal­gia to con­nect with con­sumers? And is it an effec­tive way to do it?

The Psychology of Nostalgia

In a report from inbound mar­ket­ing soft­ware plat­form Hub­Spot, con­tent strate­gist Erik Devaney explained that while nos­tal­gia may be trig­gered by neg­a­tive emo­tions like lone­li­ness, these mem­o­ries are gen­er­al­ly hap­py and nos­tal­gia can there­fore have psy­cho­log­i­cal ben­e­fits like enhanced mood, reduced stress, and increased self-esteem and feel­ings like life has mean­ing and pur­pose.

There­fore, if mar­keters can cre­ate con­tent that makes con­sumers feel nos­tal­gic, “it will also get them feel­ing good by exten­sion,” Devaney wrote. “And when it comes to grow­ing a loy­al fol­low­ing of folks who love your busi­ness, cre­at­ing con­tent that makes them feel good seems like a win­ning strat­e­gy.”

In addi­tion, per a BBC report, a series of inves­ti­ga­tions by psy­chol­o­gist Con­stan­tine Sedikides found nos­tal­gia “may act as a resource that we can draw on to con­nect to oth­er peo­ple and events, so that we can move for­ward with less fear and greater pur­pose.”

The Time is Right

For her part, email mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy con­sul­tant Jeanne Jen­nings notes the cur­rent polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic cli­mate is marked by some upheaval includ­ing shifts in pow­er after mid-term elec­tions and numer­ous chal­lenges on the inter­na­tion­al front, which may indi­cate con­sumers feel some­what unset­tled and the time is right for mar­keters to use nos­tal­gia.

And Kristin Kovn­er, pres­i­dent of mar­ket­ing strate­gies firm K‑Squared Strate­gies, notes that while nos­tal­gia mar­ket­ing has his­tor­i­cal­ly been pop­u­lar when con­di­tions are uncer­tain and con­sumers long for the good old days, “today it seems mar­keters are using nos­tal­gia as a way to build authen­tic­i­ty and claim a real, long-time rela­tion­ship with con­sumers. In a way, nos­tal­gia mar­ket­ing is the nat­ur­al exten­sion of authen­tic­i­ty mar­ket­ing, espe­cial­ly dur­ing the hol­i­days.”

What’s more, Kovn­er notes nos­tal­gia mar­ket­ing is just start­ing to take hold for mil­len­ni­al mar­keters, since mil­len­ni­als are just reach­ing the age of becom­ing nos­tal­gic.

“The pop­u­lar­i­ty of Throw­back Thurs­days, Buz­zFeed lis­ti­cles of ‘90s ref­er­ences, and the reemer­gence of ‘My Lit­tle Pony’ all show how this audi­ence is ready to look back and rev­el in the past – includ­ing the brands and brand mes­sages that shaped their child­hoods,” she said. “As this audi­ence starts hav­ing kids of their own, there’s an oppor­tu­ni­ty to reen­gage par­ents in order to build a rela­tion­ship with this next gen­er­a­tion.”

The Proof Is In The Pudding

And research seems to indi­cate nos­tal­gia is, in fact, an effec­tive mar­ket­ing tool.

Con­sumers are more like­ly to spend mon­ey when they are feel­ing nos­tal­gic, accord­ing to a study in the Jour­nal of Con­sumer Research. In fact, the authors con­duct­ed six exper­i­ments that found, in part, con­sumers asked to think about the past were will­ing to pay more for a set of prod­ucts than con­sumers who were asked to think about new or future mem­o­ries, and con­sumers had an increased will­ing­ness to give more mon­ey to oth­ers after recall­ing, reflect­ing, or writ­ing about a nos­tal­gic past life event.

“We found that when peo­ple have high­er lev­els of social con­nect­ed­ness and feel that their wants and needs can be achieved through the help of oth­ers, their abil­i­ty to pri­or­i­tize and keep con­trol over their mon­ey becomes less press­ing,” the authors say in a release.

Plus, nos­tal­gia allows brands to quick­ly con­nect with their audi­ences when time is of the essence.

“Giv­en that peo­ple are now con­sum­ing more and more of their media on mobile devices, it is get­ting much tougher for brands to con­nect with users in a mean­ing­ful way due to small screen sizes and capped video lengths of 15 sec­onds,” said Rob Gross­berg, CEO of mobile gam­ing com­pa­ny Tre­Sen­sa. “Nos­tal­gic mar­ket­ing cam­paigns are effec­tive because they are emi­nent­ly famil­iar and are, thus, able to grab a users’ atten­tion and quick­ly pull at their heart­strings.”

In addi­tion, Tes­sa Wegert, com­mu­ni­ca­tions direc­tor at dig­i­tal agency Enlight­en, says nos­tal­gic cam­paigns are appeal­ing to brands because they increase the like­li­hood that ads will be shared online.

“Con­sumers share things that incite an emo­tion­al response, and hap­pi­ness and amuse­ment are main dri­vers of that,” Wegert said. “When brands dig up beloved prod­ucts and mas­cots from the past they know it’ll res­onate with cus­tomers, and those cus­tomers are primed to share the joy with oth­ers.”

How Do Brands Create Good Nostalgic Campaigns?

1. Have A Good Reason For Turning To Nostalgia

There has to be “a sound rea­son for it that you can artic­u­late before going there – oth­er­wise it’s just a shot in the dark,” Jen­nings said. “You should make a case based on your tar­get audi­ence, macro fac­tors at play, per­ceived state of mind and what worked in sim­i­lar instances in the past.”

2. Make Sure The Memories Your Brand Evokes Are Positive, Well-Established

Coke, for exam­ple, prob­a­bly wouldn’t want to revive New Coke, Kovn­er said.

3. Incorporate A Knowing Tone

Per Kovn­er, this why Radio Shack’s Super Bowl spot was effec­tive: “It acknowl­edged how out of step the cur­rent brand had become in a light, tongue-in-cheek way,” she says.

4. Consider Rolling It Out During The Holidays

That’s when “con­sumers are already in a ‘nos­tal­gia’ mind­set, think­ing about fam­i­ly and tra­di­tion,” Kovn­er said.

5. Shake Things Up A Little

In a report from pro­gram­mat­ic adver­tis­ing and retar­get­ing firm Chango, Vice Pres­i­dent of Mar­ket­ing Ben Plomion rec­om­mends brands “take what’s old and make it new again for a dig­i­tal world” but add a unique twist to tap into con­sumer excite­ment tied to the feel­ing of, “I remem­ber those!” in a suc­cess­ful cam­paign with nos­tal­gia.

What do you think about the use of nos­tal­gia in mar­ket­ing? Is it always effec­tive? Or do brands rely on it too much?