Nostalgia in Marketing: A Trap for Brands and Customers

The marketing world loves nostalgia. Brands dig up the past to tug on heartstrings. This is easy to understand. Nostalgia is society’s highlight reel. We remember the best and forget the rest. For brands, it’s easy and safe.

However, nostalgia is terribly misunderstood and wrongly applied. By definition, it is a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations. Instead of treating sentimental longing as a destination, marketers should view it as a cautionary path.

Nostalgia in Marketing
Most marketers dredge up the past in innocuous ways. They stylize a logo or create a campaign based on a past decade. Restaurants bring back sentimental menu items like the McRib and Shamrock Shake. We see it in professional sport when teams resurrect retro uniforms. These actions are quaint, and grab earned media for a short cycle.

As a consumer, I understand the entertainment value but as historian and marketer, I am less enamoured. To be blunt, it’s lazy and brands do not anticipate the risk. The history is poorly interpreted and the marketing a hollow homage that does little to contribute to sustained and meaningful branding. Such short-lived tributes are vacuous memory teases.

The clothing company, Burberry, is now a confused amalgam of centuries-old heraldic logo and 1990’s photographic aesthetic. I understand Polo and Lacoste; they leverage their histories but seek ongoing relevance. Burberry is a messy mystery with no clear narrative. Pepsi’s 2023 logo refresh borrows heavily from the 1970’s but it’s a costume without an actor. We know how the brand wants to look but we have no idea what it’s trying to say. By borrowing from or stealing the past, brands reveal that they have no idea what is going on today.

Branding is not a logo and marketing is not a slogan. That is why these efforts stand out as one-offs and not part of a lucid strategy and clear continuum. Brands copy the graphic style and copywriting tone from another era while consumers are not a consideration. This is incredible when you consider nostalgia is meant to conjure-up personal associations.

Nostalgia Breeds Inauthenticity
I appreciate classic restaurants that never age. Give me the preserved-in-amber steakhouse. One exists in my hometown and refuses to change or accept current events. That stubbornness is part of the charm. I hold healthy scepticism for those attempting to recreate the past. Retro 1950’s diners are so faux and forced that they demand rejection. I recently visited one and the experience was sad.

Noah Galuten writes for Eater and penned a lament on the loss of real restaurants. On a 2023 road trip, he chose to avoid chains and recycled concepts.

“On a surface level, I suppose I was just hoping for anything other than corporate monotony. But on a deeper level, I think I wanted to find a place of independent character and ideally someplace old, where people had been eating for decades. I wanted a restaurant that had survived a changing world and somehow wore its years gracefully but honestly. I hoped for patrons with weathered faces, and a server who’d committed a crime two states over, or maybe dated Bob Dylan in the ’60s, or fought in a war that no one remembers. The toast would come with margarine and the soda with chipped ice in a 32-ounce plastic cup, but the coffee would come in a 6-ounce mug with endless refills of varying temperatures. I wanted a steak that begged to be smothered in A-1 Sauce, maybe served as an open-face sandwich that really just means “on top of a slice of sourdough toast.” I’d order the soup of the day, no matter what is in it. I knew that I would rather fast for the next 4½ hours than eat a Deluxe McCrispy.”

Inherent in every fast-food chain’s branding are claims to the past. This is the case for Sonic and KFC. These brands are iconic given history and ubiquity but are instantly forgettable. Michael Pollan explored this in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, “I said before that McDonald’s serves a kind of comfort food, but after a few bites I’m more inclined to think they’re selling something more schematic than that — something more like a signifier of comfort food. So, you eat more and eat more quickly, hoping somehow to catch up to the original idea of a cheeseburger or French fry as it retreats over the horizon. And so it goes, bite after bite, until you feel not satisfied exactly, but simply, regrettably, full.”

Chasing that original idea of a cheeseburger sums up the marketing of fast-food restaurants. Tapping old emotions and memories is a pillar of nearly every food establishment. Food & Wine noted that the 1990’s are now influencing menus of even fancy restaurants. NARO serves a popsicle coated in pop rocks while a giant blooming onion with gourmet ranch dip is a hit at Patti Ann’s. A psychotherapist is quoted to explain the attraction, “Memories are really grounding for individuals. They link us to this connection of our past, and they give us meaning and structure.”

Brooklyn’s As You Are restaurant serves housemade spaghettios in chicken soup. A new restaurant, Greywind, competes nearby with a “tantalizingly large platter of homemade, jumbo-sized Cheese-Its”. The owner has noted an additional level of curiosity from diners when they can try a newly inspired version of a food they are very familiar with.

That is the big point; familiarity is not nostalgia. The rekindling of the past is tactical, short-lived, and episodic. Take Taco Bell. It’s once hot, Volcano Menu, has been resurrected. The Volcano Burrito, Volcano Taco, and the hot-and-creamy Lava Sauce are back on the menu in certain markets. The Volcano Burrito originally debuted in 1995 as a promotional tie-in with the forgettable film, Congo. KFC brings back the infamous Double Down, the sandwich that uses two chicken filets instead of a bun. The chain wants to make this nostalgic when it’s really a periodic press release.

I love Kentucky Fried Chicken but shudder at KFC marketing. The bastardization of the Colonel over the past dozen years mystifies. It’s gone beyond parody and homage to a weird, dark place. I wonder if anyone in the marketing department knows the chain’s history. The Colonel lived a tumultuous personal life but when it came to the business, he was unyielding in offering really good product. He lived the last fifteen years of his life in Canada because he could not abide the slide in quality after selling the U.S. operations. KFC marketing is now so meta that both consumers and the marketing department have no idea how to interpret the brand.

Having examined the advertising of the top fast food and quick service chains, the last things the content touches upon is taste, quality, and value. It is all gimmick, tons of sizzle but no steak. Dare I say, “Where’s the beef?” Much of the marketing is like a carnival sideshow, great promise but with an inevitable swindle.

The Barbie Factor
The global success of the Barbie movie will be analyzed for years to come. Much can be attributed to people needing an escape from a post-Covid, politically unstable, and economic uncertain world. I believe the balance with Oppenheimer helped immeasurably. The macro message was, it’s okay to dumb-down with Barbie because we also have this heavy examination of our history and human nature. The films became companion pieces and we collectively co-branded them Barbenheimer.

Co-joining the movie titles was organic, the promotion of Barbie was deliberate. I appreciated marketing experts attempting to claim Barbie was a movement not a strategy. They could not be more wrong. The marketing budget was more than the cost of the movie. There were more than 100 different Barbie collaborations, from clothes to carpets to spending a night at the Barbie dreamhouse through AirBNB. This extended to a clothing line with Zara and cosmetics with NYX Cosmetics. Burger King Brazil sold a burger with hot pink sauce on it.

The movie was one of the most partnered and line-extended in history. If you want to get ultra-specific, the nostalgia was surface at best because the story took place in Barbie’s world instead of placing Barbie in our world. Still, it may become a blueprint for nostalgia marketing. It begins with identifying an endearing piece of intellectual property and then commercializing every possible angle and aspect.

This is the ultimate capitalistic exhumation of sleepy or forgotten brands. It is happening with the coming Hot Wheels movie that will begin the expansion of the Mattel cinematic universe. I had Hot Wheels and played with them but have zero passion or wistful affection for the toys. That won’t stop brands from lining up to align with the production. If I sound negative about this approach, it is just not so. I know of at least two dormant brands that I would love to get my hands on and rekindle with nostalgic but relevant marketing.

Nostalgia marketing is the ultimate chicken and egg debate except earned and paid media are the two factors. Barbie spent US$150 million in traditional marketing, gained millions in partnerships, and the movie grossed US$1.5 billion. This does not include the hundreds of millions of earned media. By comparison, Avengers: Endgame spent US$250 million on marketing while earning nearly US$3 billion. Yet, the buzz and partnership marketing for Barbie was far greater. That is the promise of nostalgia and there is nothing subtle or nuanced about it; the efforts are meant to pummel people with heavy-handed sentimental ubiquity.

McDonald’s Makes No McSense
Jessica Stillman follows cultural trends and how they impact the business landscape. She follows a highly anticipated development at McDonalds. Stillman recently wrote an article in Inc., “Details of McDonald’s Secret New Spinoff Just Leaked, and You’re Going to Feel Super Nostalgic”.

While speculation mounts, the chain intends to launch a completely different format called CosMc’s. McDonald’s CEO has referred to it as a smaller format restaurant with a unique personality but all the DNA of McDonald’s. A test location has been found by Internet sleuths. While mostly kept from view, four drive-thru lanes have been spotted. This has been interpreted as a competitor to Starbucks with a focus on selling coffee and snacks rather than burgers and fries. The four lanes will speed patrons through faster.

Jelisa Castodale at Food & Wine revealed the roots of CosMc’s, “In a mostly forgotten McDonald’s commercial from the late 1980s, Ronald McDonald, Grimace, and the obscure McDonaldland resident called “The Professor” are walking together when a silver flying object gently lands on the road in front of them. An orange alien that looks like a slug with legs pops out, says he’s on a “trade mission” and casually scams Ronnie McD and Grimace out of their headphones, skateboard, and lunch. Ronald invites him to eat the burgers he tried to steal, and then the alien launches himself back into the sky.”

CosMc, the McMeal-loving alien, is an odd choice to base an entire spinoff restaurant around. I expect the concept is mostly using the name for its “cosmic” associations rather than a full call-back to the 1980’s and McDonaldland. This is substantiated by Castodale whose article is titled, “Remember CosMc? Neither do we.”

What’s the point of dredging up a past that no one remembers? Perhaps it is leaning on the ambitions of that decade. It was a full-throttle time of conspicuous consumption of the finer things. It led to the emergence of the yuppie. Hollywood and novels often makes yuppies out to be sadistic narcissists. In hindsight, they were aggressive and self-absorbed but mostly ambitious, hardworking, and successful. Millennials and yuppies are similar. McDonalds is determined to attract Millennials away from Starbucks and will use CocMc to make it happen even when those Millennials have no connection to the original character.

Nostalgia Trumps Common Sense
Both for marketers and consumers, nostalgia is a minefield. We remember things differently. Each person carries their own definition of nostalgia. Now brands and marketers are interpreting nostalgia in a confusing way. It is not tapping emotion; it is more like a skit or facsimile.

Adobe hired an actor to portray the beloved public television painter, Bob Ross, for a series of commercials. Chili‘s depicted it’s origin story through retro vignettes. The laid-back founders play ring toss, lounge on the hood of their car, and flip classic Chili’s burgers in their first restaurant. Uber Eats turned to Mike Meyers and Dana Carvey to reprise Wayne and Garth for a Super Bowl spot.

These examples are short campaigns and episodic. They are fleeting much like our memories. I want to know what was in the brief for these campaigns. Brands have confused familiarity with nostalgia. The result is a bit of buzz and a press release. If the goal is to truly tap the emotions of days gone by; it begs the question, why is that in anyway important to present day? That is where each brief should start.