Concept: Nostalgia - Advertisements

Hovis Bread

Staple British bread brand Hovis have released a new advert showcasing over 100 years of the nations history. Part of Hovis huge relaunch campaign, the ad is a mammoth 122 seconds long celebrating the 122 years since Hovis was established.  Filmed in Liverpool, with a cast of over 750 extras many of whom are ordinary Brits cast off the streets, the ad depicts the highs and lows experienced by Britain during Hovis existence - including World War I, the suffragette movement, the first motor car, World War II, the 1953 coronation, the swinging sixties, England winning the World Cup, the 1980s miners strike and the Millennium celebrations. It ends with the poignant message: 'As good today as its always been' reinforcing Hovis strong brand heritage and marking the beginning of a new Hovis era.

The following was broadcasted in 1973 but has been recently shown on TV alongside the previous advertisement. This indicates that advertisers often use familiarity and nostalgia to promote their products rather than the product themselves.

Concept: Nostalgia - A good medicine

Nostalgia promotes psychological well-being  

When people wax nostalgic, they become happier. For example, in the laboratory, when people are asked to reflect on experiences, objects, or songs from the past that they are nostalgic about, positive mood increases. This makes sense because when we analyze the content of people's nostalgic episodes we find that they are mostly positive. It is true that nostalgia can be bittersweet (happiness with a tinge of sadness). However, the net result is positive. Nostalgia simply makes people happy.  Nostalgia is more than just a mood boost though. It also increases self-esteem and perceptions of meaning in life. This explains the championship game story phenomenon. Many nostalgic experiences are connected to personal accomplishments and momentous life events. Life is not one great success after another. Our daily existence can often be tedious and sometimes depressing. Using nostalgia, we can inject some meaning and excitement into life. Nostalgia involves conjuring up the experiences that stick out as worthwhile and fulfilling.

Nostalgia fosters feelings of belongingness  

Nostalgia isn't just about the self. It is also about our relationships. When people engage in nostalgia, they feel more connected to others. For example, our studies find that most nostalgic episodes are social and having people engage in nostalgia makes them feel close to and loved by others. The past experiences, objects, movies, and music we love are often anchored in social contexts and thus remind us that we are able to form and maintain relationships and that people do care about us.  

So when are we most nostalgic?  

Based on the research I just described, it may not come as a surprise that people turn to nostalgia in situations that cause negative mood, loneliness, and life meaninglessness. Marketing and consumer research demonstrates that nostalgia can be directly induced by providing consumers with products they are nostalgic for (e.g., 80s-inspired clothing, music, and toys). However, it is when we are psychologically vulnerable or threatened that we naturally turn to nostalgia. So next time you feel a little down and alone, try nostalgia. It may be just what the doctor ordered. And don't be ashamed of keeping that championship game story in heavy rotation or the fact that you just dropped half of your monthly rent for prime Bon Jovi tickets. You may be reaping the psychological rewards of being in touch with your past.

Source: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/death-love-sex-magic/200908/nostalgia-is-good-medicine

Concept: Nostalgia - Advertising

The power of nostalgia in advertising

Marketing experts tell us again and again that the key to sales is to make a connection to the customer. Clearly it’s easier and faster to co-opt our fond memories than create a brand new positive association with your product. Two giants of advertising, Pepsi and Coke, appear to be masters at tapping into our fake nostalgia with many of their commercials vividly displaying their generational history. At its heart, their message is “Remember way back when you were young? Well, we were there with you”.

As we age our nostalgic yearnings grow, making us more receptive to advertisers and marketers use of what researchers call "a longing for positive memories from the past." In addition to time's arrow, this desire for nostalgia is further intensified by society's present circumstance of receding predictability and opportunity. While science is still struggling to unravel the neuro-dynamics of nostalgia, studies have identified some nostalgic cues that can be exploited and how images and sounds from the past can create favorable attitudes about products. Despite being obvious, this strategy taps into something fundamental about the human mind and consciousness. Every time we remember a past event it not only evokes the earlier memory, but can re-cast the past into a more pleasing "remembered" version. Memory, thinking and feeling are an active, shaping process.

What makes us nostalgic?

The music, cars and movies you identified with when you were young stick with you throughout your life. Take music, recordings that were released when we were teenagers or young adults, are locked into our memories forever, to release a flood of vivid memories and emotions when replayed, especially in ads. For example, people who were 23 in 1964, when the Beatles appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show," will turn 70 this year, are a prime target for nostalgic marketing appeals.

(The feeling of nostalgia varies from age to age therefore advertisers need to think of new and innovative ways of appealing to a broad target market.)

For marketers, the key is finding the right music and images, which do not even need to directly relate to their products, as long as warm feelings are stirred up. It is the emotion generated from that good feeling that influences people's evaluation of the advertised offer. Recollection provides context and context impacts on how we evaluate things. Moreover, nostalgia can make us feel that not so much time has passed between then and now, making us feel young(er) again and that we still have a long ways to go and have the time to make it "there." Nostalgia telescopes time and brings it more under our emotional orchestration.

Concept: Nostalgia - What makes you nostalgic?

In order to gather evidence that 'Nostalgia' is infact, good, I set about asking as many people as possible, what makes them nostalgic. I had many positive responses, with people discovering childhood memories that they have never recalled before.

The following was posted on my Tumblr blog:

Kath Warburton
Kim & Jessie - M83 reminds me of last autumn/winter
Electric heater reminds me of my nana' house

shevketdesigninspiration
Music I used to listen to when I was young, or looking through my photo albums ( not Facebook photo albums, the real ones )

Christina Massam
Gardeny/sheddy smells make me nostalgic. And the smell of fresh mint, and a certain bird call but I don't know which bird makes it, but whenever I hear or smell these things I always think of my great Grandad, and how Emily and I would play in his Garden while he would do the Garden work.

maxplusmira
carousels

7sobm
Original transformers movie & the cheesy music that went with it, small footballs, david beckham, toy story, screams of kids at playgrounds, ps1, home alone, tom and jerry, non alcoholic beer, flake 99, getting up early in the morning to watch tv, first nike jacket, steps, spice girls lol, school dinners, custard & apple crumble, school uniforms, colour blue. All i can think off the top of my head!

Sophie Wilson
The smell of roses reminds me of home

crazymadsad
some specific smells. some songs that will bring you back at a very specific moment. movies you used to watch as kids and you watch back now.

emits
old photos, old sweets, pokemon cards, toys and dinosaurs (cos i lived in that era obviously lol

Beth Yates
songs definitely! when i hear really cheesy bad songs from the nineties i'm always like 'god i remember this coming out!' then i feel seriously old haha :D and theres certain songs that make me think of specific events aswell - like the time warp from the rocky horror show, me and some friends started singing it in the middle of a random street in new york while on a school trip :D it was pitch black and the teachers were lost and i always remember these 2 guys pulling up in a car and having a right giggle at us :D

Kirsty Cave
febreeze apple spice reminds me of home and in a way comforts me (bit weird lol) and songs always remind me of things, i heard lou bega's mambo number 5 on the way back to leeds today and it just reminded me of being a kid :) really cheered me up

James Flanagan
The smell of perfume on my pillow after she has left.

Lisa Whitaker
I have got a glass jug that was my Gran's and I think of homemade Apple pie and cream and her kitchen every time I use it!

lisaverdin
christmas, disney, old sweets, the smell of cut grass

pillaidesign
Music and food

luciamorettidesign
Autumn

linutile
tv shows or movies that are about High School or 90s tv shows I used to watch as a kid

Concept: Nostalgia - Articles

Here are some articles I found supporting how nostalgia is in-fact, good. These will be used a further evidence to back up my presentation. In the following article in particular, found on the BBC website, particular quotes referencing nostalgia as a 'good psychological medicine' will prove very beneficial to support my theory.

BBC News - What is Nostalgia good for?

A Standard Life study suggests 28 to 40-year-olds don't plan for the future because they prefer to reminisce about past times. Yet experts say nostalgia can give meaning to our seemingly dull lives.

What was the most recent film you saw? Chocolate you bought? Fashion trend you noticed? Or friend you contacted on Facebook?  "If it was Star Trek, a Wispa, shoulder pads or school friend, then don't fear, you are entirely typical of someone who lived through the Noughties," says a report from financial services provider Standard Life, which concludes that more than any other decade, the 2000s were very retro.

Businesses and advertisers have known for years that nostalgia sells, that the products popular during a person's youth will influence their buying habits throughout their lifetime. "But they didn't know why, and they perhaps didn't care - that was their endgame, to figure out how to sell things," says psychologist Clay Routledge, of North Dakota State University.

In recent years, psychologists have been trying to analyse the powerful and enduring appeal of our own past - what Mr Routledge calls the "psychological underpinnings of nostalgia". "Why does it matter? Why would a 40-year-old man care about a car he drove when he was 18?" he asks. It matters, quite simply, because nostalgia makes us feel good.

Once nostalgia was considered a sickness - the word derives from the Greek "nostos" (return) and "algos" (pain), suggesting suffering due to a desire to return to a place of origin. A 17th Century medical student coined the term "nostalgia" for anxieties displayed by Swiss mercenaries fighting away from home, although some military doctors believed their problems were specific to the Swiss and caused by the Alpine racket of cowbells.

Understanding has moved on somewhat since, with dedicated research in recent years suggesting that nostalgia is "good psychological medicine". Studies by Mr Routledge, along with colleagues at the University of Southampton, have found that remembering past times improves mood, increases self-esteem, strengthens social bonds and imbues life with meaning. Not bad for just a few minutes' daydreaming about scoring the winning goal for the school team, aged 12, or reminiscing about a family caravanning trip in a balmy summer gone by.

"Most of our days are often filled with with routine activities that aren't particularly significant - shopping for groceries, commuting to work and so forth," says Mr Routledge. "Nostalgia is a way for us to tap into the past experiences that we have that are quite meaningful - to remind us that our lives are worthwhile, that we are people of value, that we have good relationships, that we are happy and that life has some sense of purpose or meaning." Because the psychology of nostalgia is a relatively new field of research, there is no evidence to show whether particular generations are becoming more nostalgic. Dr Tim Wildschut, of the University of Southampton, stresses that nostalgia is a "fundamental human emotion" and "not something that changes overnight".

Concept: Nostalgia - My own experiences

1) Street behind our house aka 'the backs'

I spent a lot of my time hanging out with friends, playing 'donkey', 'curby' and basically harassing the neighbours. I lived nearby a lot of people who were of a similar age therefore we all used to congregate in 'the backs'. In the same street was a corner shop where we got our daily sugar high.

How to play curby: A game of two players, a ball, preferably a round ball (e.g. football) and a road with to curbs on either side. One pler stands on one side of the road and the other stands on the other, the person with the ball throws it aiming to hit the curb on the other side for it to bounce back at them. If the player with the ball misses the curb and the ball goes to the other player, that player must throw the ball his/her oponent before he/she gets back to their side of the road.

2) Old school retro games/consoles

As a kid I used to be pretty obsessed with the n64, gameboy, playstation followed by the gameboy advance, nintendo ds, ps2 etc. The earlier n64, however, brings back a lot of memories and to this day I still have this console and play Sonic or Goldeneye now and again.

3) The packaging pokemon cards came in

Modern day trading cards still come in silver foil packages which instantly reminds me of the time I used to go the newsagents every week with my pocket money and buy a packet of pokemon cards.

4) Childhood cartoons

Tom & Jerry especially, Dexter's Laboratory, Ed, Edd and Eddy, Rugrats etc. Standard.

5) Christmas

Would also be on almost everyones list.

6) Childhood films - The Goonies, Drop Dead Fred etc

I still watch these today, brilliant films.

7) Other stuff:

Alien baby toy (pretty weird but still awesome as a kid). Nice news story to go with this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wear/3516621.stm

Concept: Nostalgia

Definition

Nostalgia is something everyone ultimately comes across during their lifetime and something which I and many other people are fond of. Wikipedia defines nostalgia as the following:

"The term nostalgia describes a yearning for the past, often in idealized form. The word is a learned formation of a Greek compound, consisting of νόστος (nóstos), meaning "returning home", a Homeric word, and ἄλγος (álgos), meaning "pain, ache". It was described as a medical condition, a form of melancholy, in the Early Modern period, and came to be an important topic in Romanticism. In common, less clinical usage, nostalgia sometimes includes a general interest in past eras and their personalities and events, especially the "good old days" of a few generations back recast in an idyllic light, such as the Belle Époque, Merry England, Neo-Victorian aesthetics, the US "Antebellum" Old South, etc. Sometimes it is brought on by a sudden image, or remembrance of something from one's childhood."

However, the term of "feeling nostalgic" is more commonly used to describe pleasurable emotions associated with and/or a longing to go back to a particular period of time.

Natsukashii

A more appropriate term for the positive feeling of nostalgia, is the Japanese term, 'natsukashii' which loosely translated means, 'a sentimental feeling of familiarity'

Why is nostalgia good?

Comfort
Takes us back to a happy time
A 'natural drug' to keep our spirits up
Positive associations with certain 'things'
We learn from these memories
Familiarity