It’s one of the most ingenious and engaging marketing concepts yet hatched by the marketing mas-terminds of Madison Avenue. ‘Newstalgia’ may engage the broadest demographic ever targeted by advertisers. Are you in it?
The ubiquitous White Castle Slider: Brought back with a hint of
hot pepper, to snag both the Boomers and the younger set…
When marketers go out with advertising campaigns, they’re usually trying to grab the attention of a certain market ‘segment’, or ‘demographic’ group.
Shared experiences…
Folks of a certain age living in a certain geographic region can be assumed to share a lot of the same life experiences. As such, they can be assumed to share many of the same product and service pre-ferences. But that’s just the beginning…
Today, marketers have at their disposal previously unheard of mountains of consumer behaviour and preference information. They get a little more each time you fill out a marketing survey, make a pur-chase at almost any store, Google a given product or click on a given ad online.
Marketers positively wring their hands with glee when you join a brand loyalty program. Because they can then cross-reference your preferences to nail down even more specifically which folks are buying which products, and why.
Age a key factor
Age is one of the most powerful factors in defining a marketing demographic. The most basic demo-graphic profiles contain only a few ‘variables’. For example: ‘North American males aged 45 to 64’. And age is always one of them…
But sometimes – like a comet zipping through our solar system – an outside factor can offer a golden opportunity to appeal to the broadest imaginable group of potential buyers for a given product. And that’s the principle behind what marketers are calling ‘newstalgia’.
Two for one
What appeals to the young usually doesn’t appeal to older folks. And vice-versa. But thanks to the phenomenon of nostalgia, marketers are currently finding they can tailor advertising pitches that appeal to both the kids and their grandparents at the same time.
“This is an attempt by marketers to cater to elder millennials while also introducing Gen Z to some-thing they might never have tasted before,” Marnie Shure writes in Food & Wine.
“Take White Castle, for example, which brought back its 1921 Slider — a recipe formulated to taste exactly like the burgers 100 years ago did — and then added ghost pepper cheese to it for a modern twist.”
And then there’s the new Oscar Mayer campaign designed to tweak the curiosity of younger folks – the traditional market for folks such as Hot Dogs – while reviving the interest of Baby Boomers who (marketers hope) will remember fondly the good days when every product had its own jingle. And Oscar Mayer’s was on every kids lips…
A proven winner
The ‘newstalgia’ technique has proven a winner across the board, for all kinds of products from sneakers to candy bars. But food processors and Fast Food brands have led the charge. No less an authority than Nestlé Foods – one of the world’s largest and most respected mega-brands – has endorsed the phenomenon as a packaged and processed food marketing powerhouse, expected to keep going strong at least though the end of next year.
My questions to you:
Have you been snagged by a product that’s leveraged the power of the ‘newstalgia’ phenomenon?
Do you agree with me that ‘newstalgia’ can at least increase your awareness of products – even if you are not induced to buy them immediately?
Do you agree with me that simply introducing the fun component ‘newstalgia’ can inject into an ad campaign makes you more friendly toward that brand?
Oh, those crafty, insidious marketing masterminds…
Muse on that!
~ Maggie J.