Creating Nostalgic Advertising Based on the Reminiscence Bump: Diachronic Relevance and Purchase Intent

Abstract

Nostalgic advertising uses images relevant to past periods in individuals' lives to market products. The current study examines the reminiscence bump in a new context: reactions to nostalgic advertising. We examine diachronic relevance and its influence on purchase intent using a 3 (time frame: bump advertisements, non-bump past advertisements, present-focused advertisements) × 2 (age group: Generation X, late-stage baby boomers) between-subject design. Results show that advertisements for a fictional camera brand (i.e., Optimax) that focus on a bump year (i.e., 15-24 years) have more diachronic relevance than advertisements from either a non-bump past year or present-focused advertisements. In addition, advertisements focused on bump years elicit greater intent to purchase the advertised product than non-bump past and present-focused advertisements. Analyses show that intent to purchase the product is fully mediated by diachronic relevance of the bump-year advertisement. These effects hold across both age groups.

Nostalgic marketing, perceived self-continuity, and consumer decisions

“…Neugarten, 1974), implying that age may be a major factor in evoking nostalgia (Sedikides et al, 2008a). Repeating this study with older samples would provide more meaningful findings though note that nostalgic advertising did show interesting effects even in this young sample (also see Ju et al, 2016). Finally, the current study is based on print ad stimuli, which may limit senses and feelings evoked.…”

“…This measurement is designed particularly for personal nostalgia and it has been used in many studies (e.g. Muehling et al, 2014;Ju et al, 2016). Self-continuity (Sedikides et al, 2015) was measured by four items with a seven-point scale.…”

Understanding the reminiscence bump: A systematic review

“…Other methods. Other memory recall methods that were not associated with the three methods already discussed, were found in some studies (e.g., dream diaries, the evaluation of participants’ reactions to nostalgic advertising, a modified version of timeline methods for recording specific memories, issues surrounding the Academy Awards, World Series, and current events, life regrets’ content and chronology, and free recall events having public or private nature[9–11, 63, 65–67, 85, 110]. Adults were interviewed to discover their: recounted and oral life stories; specific autobiographical lifetime events; three favorite books, movies, and records, or the five best football players; and memories using the Yearly News Memory Test (YNMT) comprising 30 open-ended and multiple-choice questions [79, 80, 83, 97, 99, 102, 103, 112].…”

“…Other research studies focused on curves of forgetting after memorizing a 10-chapter autobiographical novel, flashbulb memories, AM recall, and memories from the lives of participants’ parents [24, 64]. Some studies investigated dreams of older adults’ life regrets; flashbulb memories; reactions to nostalgic advertisements; and responses to the World Series, academy awards, and current events [9, 11, 65, 67, 85]. And in other studies, researchers asked participants to report three favorite books, movies, and records as well as the five best sports players of all time [79, 83, 94, 100].…”

“…Japan, Bangladesh, U.K., China and the U.S.) revealed that more than 50% of memories were recalled from the ages of 10–30 [63]. Studies also showed a bump in late adolescence to early adulthood as well as a bump between 15 to 24 years of age [9, 11, 65, 67, 79, 85, 92, 94, 99]. Two studies, using a life history timeline method and a “life-line” interview method, discovered the bump between 10–30 and 10–40 years of age, respectively [66, 110].…”