November 2, 2014, was my first time in LA! It felt like I already knew the streets from playing GTA as a kid, or seeing iconic landmarks from movies and music videos I watched growing up.
LA back in 2015/16 felt like a dream. The mecca of streetwear, the centre point of all media attention.
I walked into The Hundreds store and Bobby Hundreds himself was behind the counter, then walked to Flight Club, a few blocks down and spent $750 on some Yeezy 350’s!
That’s nostalgia and it might be the most useful emotion a marketer can understand right now. Let’s get into it.
THE SCIENCE OF WHY WE CAN’T LET GO
- A 1997 study by Terence Mitchell and Leigh Thompson found that the delays, the bad food, the sore feet, all of it faded. Only the good parts survived. Your brain isn’t lying to you exactly, it’s editing you a highlight reel, because remembering it that way protects your mood and keeps your sense of who you are intact.
- Second, nostalgia is a shortcut to belonging. Nostalgia’s real function isn’t about the past at all, it’s about connection right now. Shared reference points are instant trust, and nostalgia manufactures that same shortcut for an entire audience at once.
- Third, and this is the one marketers actually use, whether they realize it or not, nostalgia is proof of concept. The 80s came back. The 90s came back. Y2K came back, low-rise jeans and all. None of that is coincidence! If a look, a sound, or a feeling already worked once… bringing it back is one of the lowest-risk bets in culture. You’re not guessing what people will love, you already know.
NOSTALGIC MARKETING
Here’s how to use “nostalgic marketing” to your advantage.
Psychologists have started using a newer term for what a lot of Gen Z feels toward eras they never lived through: anemoia… nostalgia for a time you personally missed. That’s a real shift. Nostalgia marketing used to work because it reminded people of something they’d actually lived. Now it works just as well by selling people a past they never had. The numbers back this up hard source, nostalgic campaigns lift brand favorability by 20% and purchase intent by up to 60%. Things like limited-edition throwback drops and retro re-releases really drive sales growth.
THE BRANDS DOING IT RIGHT
- Motorola: The Razr was the hottest phone in 2004. They sold 130 million of them before it faded out. Instead of slapping a retro shell on a new device, Motorola rebuilt the Razr as a genuine foldable flagship and let the nostalgia do the selling. It worked. Motorola’s share of the global foldable phone market went from 14% to 28% in a single year, and in North America specifically, its share jumped from 30% to 44%, eating directly into Samsung’s lead.
- BMW: Earlier this month, BMW relaunched its Kith partnership around Inka Orange, a shade the brand hasn’t used since the 1971 02 Series, paired with fully restored cars from the 70s and 80s. It didn’t read as a costume, because it wasn’t one. It was the real color, on real cars, brought back by people who’d actually lived through that era of the brand.
Different playbooks, reviving the literal product, recruiting a generation into an identity it never had. None of them are asking their audience to feel something new. They’re reminding people of something they already feel, or in Gen Z’s case, something they wish they’d gotten to feel the first time around.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
- First, figure out which era your specific audience is nostalgic for. This usually maps out between 15 and 25 years… or, for a younger audience, whatever era they’ve absorbed secondhand through parents or older siblings.
- Second, find the real symbols from that window, not “the 90s” as a vague vibe, but the exact colors, brands, sounds, and places that era actually ran on. Watch how teal was the color of the 90’s and how they used it here. Specificity is what separates it all.
- Third, pick the playbook that fits what you actually have. Revive the real thing, like Motorola. Or create your own archive, like BMW. All three work. What doesn’t work is a shallow version of all three at once.
WHAT’S HOT
Hope you liked today’s letter, lots of info I hope you learn from. See you next week.
-Benni
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