What makes a product vintage? Investigating relationships between “consumer pastness,” scarcity and purchase intentions toward vintage products

Abstract

Purpose This purpose of this study is to develop actionable marketing insights regarding why consumers might elect to purchase vintage products. A concept called consumer pastness is introduced, developed and defined to achieve this end. Consumer pastness demonstrably affected consumers’ perceptions of vintage products’ scarcity and consumers’ propensity to purchase vintage items. When applied inside marketing contexts, consumer pastness may also explain how and why consumers distinguish vintage products that are “of the past” from new and second-hand products. The data suggest that when consumers perceive products are characterized by higher consumer pastness the products will be perceived as scarcer, more desirable and more valuable than new or second-hand versions of the same item. Design/methodology/approach A scale was developed to capture three dimensions that comprise consumer pastness and then a pilot study and two experiments were conducted to test the research propositions. Findings Study propositions were confirmed. Consumers perceive vintage products as scarcer and more desirable than other types of products. Originality/value A novel and useful concept is introduced to the marketing literature inside this study. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to investigate and develop theoretical insights regarding how and why consumers perceive vintage products differently from new and second-hand products. The investigations reported below are also the first to develop practical insights regarding how management might respond to these insights about the role consumer pastness plays.

A meta‐analysis on the psychological and behavioral consequences of nostalgia: The moderating roles of nostalgia activators, culture, and individual characteristics

“…Nostalgia studies often employ this strategy to evoke memories and elicit nostalgic feelings (e.g., event reflection task) (Wildschut et al, 2006). Other nostalgia research opts to use objects to evoke nostalgia (e.g., vintage products) (Schibik et al, 2022). We hypothesize that events (compared to objects) will exert a stronger effect on the main direct effects because they are more personal and, therefore, more connected to the individual.…”

Tout casse, tout passe, tout lasse; et tout se remplace: resurrecting declining brands by leveraging brand-pastness

“…Consumers’ perceptions of brand-pastness should prove more cognitive in nature than their perceptions of nostalgia for given brands. Brand-pastness perceptions emerge from consumers’ recollections of historically well-branded product characteristics (Schibik et al , 2022). By contrast, nostalgic perceptions are suffused with emotion-laden attitudes derived from consumers’ prior brand preferences (Kessous et al , 2015; Rose et al , 2016).…”

“…Nostalgia can be associated with past brandable events, objects or people. Brand-pastness, by contrast, is exclusively product-based (Schibik et al , 2022). Notably, however, consumers may extract affective and potentially effectual nostalgic attachments to brands based on their cognitive-based perceptions of contemporary brands that are imbued with brand-pastness (Rose et al , 2016; Rose et al , 2017).…”

“…Brand-pastness n ee pastness Pastness has been defined as the quality of products being "of the past" combined with consumers' perceptions that those exact products accrue value because they are "from the past" (Holtorf, 2013;Schibik et al, 2022). Pastness' logical descendent, brand-pastness, should capture the quality of certain brands being of the past and consumers' perceptions that these focal brands accrue value because they are from the past.…”

Embracing Nostalgia: The Irresistible Allure of Vintage Treasures Over Brand-New Alternatives

“…This environmental aspect adds another element to the fascination of historic treasures, appealing to people who are conscious of their environmental influence. Nostalgia, a powerful human emotion, serves as a tremendous amplifier of the attractiveness of vintage treasures [19]. In this sense, the emotional bonds formed between people and artefacts from the past are amplified when the objects themselves are from that age.…”