57% APAC citizens if given the choice, would prefer to have grown up at the time when their parents were children
The rosy retrospection of nostalgia provides fertile territory for brand activations. Help customers to find the feel-good factor in their past
When the here and now is unrelentingly grim, people are faced with two means of escape: look back to when times were happier and simpler; or try to look ahead to when times will get better. Right now, the second of these routes is made all but impossible by the highly uncertain pathway to the future, which is beset by profound and potentially existential economic, environmental and geopolitical challenges. No wonder, then, that people all over the world, and of all ages, are finding solace in the past. While this is a constant feature of being human, it increases at times of uncertainty, like now.
For some, there are also other perceptions that life is not what is used to be: the more globalised the world we live in, the more technology intrudes our lives, changing the way children experience childhood. Some people may want to turn the clock back , but others view these changes as signs of developmental progress.
There's also a vast difference across regions between those who feel nostalgic and those who don't. But it is clearly not just about geography. Nostalgic feelings seem higher in some Asian markets (India and Hong Kong, for example) but are very low in others (such as South Korea, China, Vietnam and Japan).
A nostalgic mindset can take many forms. For some, it can simply mean revisiting one's own memories; for others, the TV shoes and music of yesteryear serve as reminders of happier times.
Nostalgia can also take on more significant forms: sometimes the contrast between the current situation in a country with what the collective memory suggests it was like in the past can be the basis for political change.
Corporations, particularly those with a long history, can leverage nostalgia through feel-good messaging, but also by resurrecting product formations/recipes from the past.
Thought Starters
Can you leverage your history and/or heritage to tell a story that mentally transports your customers back to better times?
Have you retired any products, services or marketing and communications campaigns that you can dust off and reuse today?
Don't reject nostalgia as a tool just because your target audience are Millennials or Gen z. They are just as likely to have a recent past that they feel nostalgic about.