As consumers embrace nostalgia and retro ad campaigns, retailers can draw on past successes to introduce their products to a new generation

For brands, the past can be a foreign country, rarely visited in the belief that things can only ever get better. However, rose-tinted spectacles have been much in evidence of late.

Nostalgia’s stock is rising on a number of fronts with cultural brands from the past such as James Bond, Star Wars and Back to the Future experiencing a new lease of life. The latter’s slightly surreal Back to the Future Day saw brands compete with a flurry of ironic activity based around the conceit that the future had finally arrived.

Tesco's latest campaign is a nod to its past

Tesco ad

Tesco’s latest campaign is a nod to its past

Elsewhere, recent weeks have seen a number of classic ads revived. Hovis has brought back its boy on a bike with a new spot exhorting square-eyed modern kids to get out and have some fun (fortified with a Hovis sandwich of course).

Archetypal 1970s smoothie the Milk Tray man is back in business with a hunt for a new candidate, and Tesco has recreated its classic ‘every little helps’ ads with a new cast featuring Ruth Jones and Ben Miller.

Reinvention

This reinvention of the past fires the nostalgic synapses of those who recall the first time round, but also creates a whole new experience for later generations.

When M&S celebrated the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, it revisited classic British designs of the 1950s, pulled straight from its archives. It used retro designs for advertising and packaging, but also for products that hit the sweet spot of the growing demand for ‘vintage’ designs, such as a range of glamorous lingerie.

“HMV’s supposedly dying business model is vibrant again as people realise that there can be too much choice online, and that they want a more curated selection with knowledgeable staff to help them”

Matt Pye, Cheil UK

Elsewhere, HMV is riding a wave of retro-consumption as its sales have overtaken online players for the first time in years.

A supposedly dying business model is vibrant again as people realise that there can be too much choice online, and that they want a more curated selection with knowledgeable staff to help them.

Retailers are ideally placed to ride the nostalgia wave. Many of the things consumers value are part of their own heritage, especially notions of personal customer service. Too often digital businesses act as if they own this space, but it belongs to an older heritage.

By cherry-picking what is best of their past and allying it to the digital and technological offerings of today, retailers can celebrate their past and remain relevant to today’s customers.

Often what we think of as a bang-up-to-date idea has roots in the past. Few of us would consider renting TVs as our parents or grandparents once did from Radio Rentals. But we don’t think twice about signing up to subsidised handset deals in a high street phone shop.

The only ideas that are past their sell by dates are the ones that never worked in the first place. Everything else is fair game.

  • Matt Pye, chief operating officer at Cheil UK