5.5 Nostalgia
An increasingly common message appeal is the use of nostalgia, or what is sometimes referred to as ‘yestermania’ – a fondness for revivals, remakes and recreations (Brown et al., 2003, p. 31).
Nostalgia, in the context of marketing, can be defined as
‘A preference (general liking, positive attitude or favourable effect) towards experiences associated with objects (people, places or things) that were more common (popular, fashionable or widely circulated) when one was younger (in early adulthood, in adolescence, in childhood) or even before birth’.
(Holbrook and Schindler 2003, p. 108)
Stern (1992) distinguishes between two types of nostalgia in marketing:
- i.historical nostalgia: a desire for the way things were
- ii.personal nostalgia: a desire for the way I was