Emotional Marketing: What is the Appeal of Nostalgia?

Download ‘Emotional Marketing: What is the Appeal of Nostalgia and the Memory of Experience?’.

Stop what you’re doing, close your eyes and think back. Do you remember your first pair of shoes? Your first summer holiday? Those memories are most likely fond, vivid and evocative. Nostalgia is a powerful state of mind and one that psychologists have found elicits feelings of elation and euphoria.

It can also change our behaviour: in 2011 Harvard researchers found that childhood memories can put us in a more altruistic and charitable frame of mind while a 2009 study made a link between nostalgia and a positive self image. In short, the evocation of pleasant memories makes us happy, which is something that Old Spice leverage when rebooting its brand in 2010 while putting a modern social media twist on it. Coca Cola has also tapped into our collective nostalgia by bringing back the old fashioned cola bottle design several times over.

You see, although general psychology and behavioural science can tell us a lot about why people behave the way they do, often what we are specifically interested in is why consumers behave the way they do: why do some people have a strong loyalty towards the aforementioned Coca Cola over Pepsi? How do we draw on concepts like nostalgia to provide someone with a better brand experience? What kinds of research-backed techniques can “nudge” a person or entire audience towards a favourable outcome?

This report is part of series called The Science of Events. We decided to delve into the science of events and the results of our in-depth research can be found in three other reports, which are:

The Science of Design: What makes great event design?
Group Behaviour: What is the psychology of networking and bonding?
Social Media: What is the science behind online engagement at an event?

This free report details the concept of emotional marketing and what that means to an event organiser. Here are some of the insights you’ll draw from Emotional marketing: What is the appeal of nostalgia and the memory of experience?:

• The Power of Nostalgia – learn why it’s crucial to a brand.
• Emotional Marketing – learn how it’s creating “signature experiences”.
• Give Your Attendee a Great Experience – learn about the new research findings conducted by global communications agency Cohn & Wolfe.
• Simplify Choice – learn about the jam experiment.

Download ‘Emotional Marketing: What is the Appeal of Nostalgia and the Memory of Experience?’ ABOVE.