 "brands collage")
Carvaan. Paper Boat. Royal Enfield. Racold. Google. Nokia. Keventers. Vespa. The list of brands convinced that sharing a blast from the past and thereby tugging at heartstrings is what it will take to get consumers engaged is growing by the month. So what makes marketers turn to rekindling memories as the answer to creating differentiation?
This phenomenon shouldn’t be that difficult to understand once we view the penchant for nostalgia as a push-back to the frenetic pace of change that our lives are being subjected to. In the age of impersonal digital media, where consumers are inundated with information and suffer sensory overload, perhaps the simpler, familiar things of yesteryears act as an emotional safety valve.
Interestingly this holds true, not only for older folks. The young are vulnerable to the growing pull of the times past. Kantar IMRB’s research on early millenials revealed that they are 20 per cent more likely to listen to old film songs on the internet compared with the older generation, as well as tune into remixed songs and watch mythological serials on television. From that perspective, the digital radio brand Carvaan’s premise of targeting digitally savvy youth to indulge a parent may be somewhat off the mark. True, some may buy into it; but there’s a large opportunity to get the brand to appeal to the 25-35 year olds.
Numerous examples back the nostalgia trip that the young are on. The Facebook memories video feature on its timeline, Throwback Thursdays, Instagram filters, Pokemon Go are some examples where brands have taken something old and renewed it to strike a chord with a young audience.
Offline brands are doing the same. Travel experience startup Unhotel’s property in Varanasi, Granny’s Inn, leverages the power of nostalgia very effectively. Run by feisty sixty-something-year olds, it leverages the owners’ intimate knowledge of the ancient city and their long-standing relationships to offer customised experiences.
For heritage brands, keeping the nostalgia alive through the story and experience can be the road to success, even in a crowded marketplace. The dairy brand Keventers has a legacy dating back to 1924, when Swiss national Edward Keventer acquired an Aligarh-based dairy and gave it his own name.
In 2015, the firm’s current owners saw its immense potential and decided to revamp the brand. They recognised that the brand had very high nostalgic value, with the classic, old-school Keventers bottle being something of a collectible. The old Delhi Milk Scheme bottle became sleeker and the owners added a cursive flourish to the font along with the term ‘Since 1925’ and a tagline ‘The Original Milkshake.’ Keventers added more flavour choices but kept the originals—popular since the 1960s. The company added 77 outlets last year and expects to have 300 outlets by next year.
Not all brands, however, have been successful in riding the nostalgia trend. The Finnish startup HMD believed that the iconic Nokia 3310 would win the company new fans in emerging markets, where feature phones are still common. The phone was relaunched with much fanfare at the Mobile World Congress, but has not found the same level of popularity. What the firm did not realise was that even the bottom-of-the-pyramid consumer has moved on, and has many more local options to choose from; besides many first-time buyers are opting for aggressively-priced Chinese brands. The Nokia brand may be alive in their memory, but is no longer relevant.
After a slow start, the premium scooter brand Vespa, has enjoyed a good run, posting a 91 per cent YOY growth according to CEO and MD of Piaggio India, as reported in the media. The scooter’s iconic round headlamp, round mirrors, chrome embellishments—retained since the 1960s and 1970s when it was very popular, are an essential part of its retro appeal. Like Vespa, Olympus’s mirrorless PEN-F camera and Fuji’s NEO Classic are tapping into the high-end of the market, where classic design is being valued ever so much.
For many entrepreneurs, the booming flea market scene in the metros has provided a test bed for their nostalgic creations, just as the scrap market has emerged as a source for whimsical, nostalgic decor. Restaurant chains Soda Water Bottle Openerwala and Farzi Café draw upon that nostalgia. Visit gatherings like The Li’l Flea in Mumbai’s Bandra Kurla Complex, or Kitsch Mandi in Delhi, and you’ll find them awash with stalls offering home décor items crafted from old Dalda and Farex tins, clocks made out of vinyl LPs, lamps and coffee tables that use old Ambassador parts. The reference to brands that stoke our collective memory is unmistakable.
Kunal Sinha is executive director – Advisory at Kantar Insights
Next: Brands had to come to terms with an icreasing duality in consumer behaviour in 2017 writes Rukmini Gupte
