Leveraging nostalgia for engagement, also known as engagement marketing, is a powerful strategy employed by clever and creative marketers. But how can you use it for your niche? From creating nostalgia-driven content to vintage design, here are some suggestions.
Understand the Audience
Excellent design never dies, and classic interfaces and video games are making a huge comeback. Successful remakes of games like TES IV: Oblivion invoke magical memories, and AAA titles aren’t the only key players.
Audiences in specific niches love everything to do with it. For example, for a decade theme, you can research shared memories and experiences such as classic games like Spider Solitaire, related songs, and other media like TV shows and movies.
Nostalgia for Engagement through Content
Content is king when it comes to engagement. Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke” campaign was effective, with more than 51 million impressions and a 7.8% engagement rate, while influencer Tweets using @CocaCola delivered 13.88%. In comparison, the benchmark was 1.5%!:
- Use strong visuals such as colors, text, and images that involve specific memories.
- Audio is often overlooked but is a powerful way of bringing back nostalgic feelings.
- Create content around classic products or campaigns that the audience remembers.
Most people who engage online absorb content visually, so striking imagery will capture and keep attention. Of course, everyone has fond memories of songs and jingles that defined their childhood or formative years. The audience stays engaged when you invoke these memories.
Use Platforms for Sharing Content
Nostalgia content can go viral pretty quickly when created with care, compassion, and respect for the source material. Of course, there are specific platforms that boost engagement and help a campaign take off.
Social media platforms such as Facebook, X, and Instagram are powerful launchpads for successful ad campaigns, especially ones aimed at specific audiences to capture nostalgia. Therefore, consider these as a part of your strategy to help spread the ads.
Build a Like-Minded Community
People love to share memories of the things they love. Anything from ad campaigns to retro products are discussed at length and in detail with emotion on platforms such as Reddit, and in social media groups.
Bringing people together to remember specific things from their past and that they feel nostalgic about is powerful. It also provides a stable source of data as you can gauge what they remember most fondly and use it for further nostalgia marketing campaigns.
Considerations of Nostalgia for Engagement
A survey by The Drum found that 80% of Millennials and GenZ are drawn to the nostalgia effect through successful nostalgia marketing. You can of course use analytics to increase social media engagement, but you need to attract an audience in the first place for that information.
Keep engagement authentic
Any attempts at capturing nostalgia will be all for nothing if there is no authenticity. Ensure all elements are genuine and actually resonate with the audience, or you risk a failed campaign.
Ensure content is relevant
Creating a balance between past and present is a powerful way to ignite nostalgic feelings. Retro elements with a modern interpretation help keep content relevant and engaging.
Track and measure audience impact
Not every idea will work, and some will be hugely successful. Using available data, track engagement to see what is working and build further campaigns around successful ones.
Authenticity is vital for engagement because it shows your content is honest, aware and open to others. Relevant content also garners trust, but increases engagement rates too. Analyzing metrics allows you to understand the audience and cater content to what drives engagement.
Hold Contest Campaigns
Contest campaigns are valuable for various reasons. They provide a platform for people to share their past experiences, and this is immensely valuable data that can be used for future campaigns. It also allows you to introduce a new campaign at the right time.
To gather this valuable data, ask your audience to share their favorite memories and stories related to a specific product. As an added bonus, this also helps when building a like-minded community.
Reuse Older Successful Campaigns
Nostalgic content comes in many forms, and it can all be used for powerful marketing. One of the easiest and sometimes most successful is to use throwback content or simply reuse a vintage campaign.
Classic products can be reintroduced for a limited time and work well when combined with a modern twist. For example, snack manufacturers often print vintage packaging for current products. Classic products, such as McDonald’s 1950s burgers, can also be used.
Nostalgia for Engagement with Vintage Designs
Design is among the most powerful allies a marketing campaign has. It is reported that brands using nostalgia marketing can expect up to 70% more engagement. There are tons of nostalgic designs you can leverage as part of niche content, so consider trying these out next time:
- Your brand can leverage nostalgia with iconic imagery such as Furby and Motorola Razr.
- A successful campaign from the past can still have an impact even in the modern era.
- Vintage style, such as imagery and fashion, has an impact on a nostalgia campaign.
There are many iconic products from the past that people remember fondly and will engage with based on nostalgia because of these, even when introduced in a modern way. Of course, vintage content still has a place in nostalgic content and demonstrates respect for the source.
Don’t Forget About Compliance
For all the amazing designs, products, and memories you can bring back with a clever and creative campaign, you must always stay aware of compliance. In general, copyright is a major concern with nostalgia marketing. You may want to bring back the 1990s in a campaign, but Hasbro might not take lightly to the use of Furby in your content. So, before using anything, research if it is legal to do so freely, and if not, always seek permission from the owner(s).
Summary
Understanding the audience is a good first step when you want to use nostalgia for engagement in ads and content. There are also other things to consider such as authenticity and relevance. You can also get into a lot of trouble if you don’t get permission to use copyrighted content.
