The advertising industry is banking on nostalgia themes to get consumers out of their spending slump.
Consumer good giants are reaching back into their archives and reintroducing earlier jingles or packaging designs used for their products in earlier decades, in hopes that consumers’ nostalgia about the past will help fuel some optimism about life today.
Pepsi Cola and Mountain Dew have reintroduced “throwback versions” of their popular sodas that are evocative of the ’60s and ’70s, and sweetened with real sugar instead of with high fructose corn syrup. Meanwhile, Diet Coke has gone back to its 1982 tag line, “Just for the taste of it”.
Cotton Inc’s. 1981 advertising campaign reassured us that “The touch, the feel of cotton” was “The fabric of our lives”; a theme that is revisited in 2009, as they pursue a marketing strategy of going back “to the brand’s rich heritage”. View campaign at: http://www.thefabricofourlives.com. Source: Marketing Daily 4/22/09.
General Mills cereals are also being sold in throwback boxes at select Target stores, while I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter launches a new campaign with a 1950’s visual style, but with a very contemporary message about current health & nutrition trends.
The Buttertons
Watch The Buttertons’ transformation from 1950’s cheeky to 2009 hip & healthy by clicking on the link to the left.
In fragrance, nostalgia themes are interpreted with gourmand notes such as vanilla & chocolate, popular for their intrinsic feel-good qualities. Soft woods, musk and nutty notes also wrap you in their sweet, warm and creamy comfort.
Expect to see many of these nostalgic notes incorporated into the green fresh floral and botanical fragrance characters that have been the common denominator in recent scent development as consumers look for an antidote to life’s uncertainties and stresses!
Have a fragrance or product category you’d like to read more about?…Send me a note and you’ll find it in a future post!
Fragrance Insights 