Marketing Nostalgia: How Companies are Taking Advantage of “90’s Kids”
A recent surge of 90’s nostalgia has led to “only 90’s kids will remember this!” becoming a popular phrase on the internet. The most recent example of the “Golden Age Fallacy” (idolizing a past time period) has seen swarms of Millennials harking back to the days of Nickelodeon and the Spice Girls. Corporations have since taken advantage of this nostalgia by translating it from online to the real world. A recent music festival in Brooklyn called 90s Fest celebrated popular trends from the decade including Nickelodeon characters, artists such as Smash Mouth and Blind Melon, and merchandise galore. According to the New York Times, a man was selling shirts at the festival made from Simpsons-decorated bedsheets. The price? $300. Making clothing from recycled material is no new idea, but by using 90’s nostalgia as a way to influence buyers’ decisions, he was able to make a marketable item. This was by no means the only example of influencing buyers using nostalgia—the festival was scattered with booths promoting all forms of merchandise from the decade.
We can interpret the profitability of nostalgia for the 90’s through social networks. By reviving past trends, companies can effectively target two groups: those who grew up in the 90’s (we’ll call them Group A), and younger generations who are closely connected to this group (Group B). Group A would represent the core target group of these companies, because their ties with the decade would be the strongest. Group A would then have connections, whether through family or friends, to Group B, effectively spreading the nostalgia to a new target group. Group A represents a demographic of college-age or older, so marketing to a younger generation would be profitable to the companies, as they are mostly high-school age or younger, and therefore more impressionable and have more disposable income than older groups. Television is an easy medium to start with, and corporations are already moving to bring back 90’s shows such as Full House, The X-Files, and Twin Peaks. In fact, rumors have been circulated that Nickelodeon is planning on creating a channel strictly for airing 90’s cartoons. Brace yourselves, the 90’s are coming!
Link to NYT article: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/17/fashion/90s-fest-pauly-shore-lisa-loeb-naughty-by-nature-coolio.html?_r=0
Another article discussing the festival: http://fusion.net/story/197068/i-went-to-90s-fest-with-someone-born-in-the-90s/