Nostalgia Products: Making A Tasty Comeback
Mad Men's suave advertising executive Don Draper may have said it best: "Nostalgia: It's delicate ... but potent."
Advertisers have been selling us back our childhood memories since the 1950s — and it is as powerful a strategy as ever. In a 2013 study, NBCUniversal Integrated Media noticed that brands that connected to the past shot to the top of its Brand Power Index.
Whiskey maker Jack Daniel's launched a special edition to celebrate what would have been Frank Sinatra's 100th birthday. Microsoft Windows took '90s kids on a flashback tour to promote the latest version of Internet Explorer. Herbal Essences brought back its classic '90s "Shine and Smooth" collection, complete with floral fragrances and packaging (yes, yes, YES!), and Old Navy dropped cameos from Airplane and The A-Team stars into its current crop of ads.
A Sweet Comeback
Brands are finding it effective to add a mix of retro-cool to their advertising campaigns, but the Twinkies comeback may be the first time that an iconic product has resurrected a faltering brand.
Enriched wheat flour, modified cornstarch, high fructose corn syrup — Twinkies have survived a whole foods revolution and a diet food craze (though at 120 calories a cake, you could certainly do worse).
When James Dewar introduced his Twinkie in 1931, he was simply looking for a use for pound cake that would appeal to shoppers long after berries were out of season. The two-for-a-nickel treats — initially injected with a banana filling — were an instant hit. Dewar himself admitted to eating three Twinkies a day for 50 years; he lived to be 88.
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