Blasts from past
Dr Margaret-Anne Lawlor on recyling old trends and why nostalgia can be what it used to be

"Don't hold me to it, but I heard they're bringing Wispa back". So trumpeted the   slogan heralding the resurrection of Cadbury's Wispa bar, thanks to popular demand. The rebirth is an example of a surge of interest in the past as consumers go ‘retro' and fondly remember the good old days and a demand for ‘old' products and services.

Retro's tentacles are far reaching and are visible on shelves and in popular culture. Witness how the BBC enjoyed strong audiences for its Strictly Come Dancing reality series recalling the long-held British fondness for ballroom dancing.

ITV attracted huge audiences with programmes redolent of Victorian variety shows,   like Britain's Got Talent. In popular literature, the Harry Potter phenomenon is a genre that has its roots in fantasy which appeals to both adults and children at different levels, in the same way as Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland once did.

Marketers are now embracing nostalgia as they strive to leverage the past to build on current brand equity. In fashion, designers and retailers revisit history for inspiration, while a flurry of activity has seen supermodels being brought out of ‘retirement'.

Linda Evangelista fronts for L'Oréal and Twiggy shines for Marks & Spencer. Unilever welcomed back the iconic ice pop, Wibbly Wobbly Wonder, while Cadbury's Mint Crisp proudly proclaims it is being sold in its original packaging.

Even the banking sector is tapping into bygone times with Ulster Bank's revival of its Henri Hippo character, targeting the children of those parents who remember Henri urging them to slot their coins in his back during their own childhoods.

Retromarketing seeks to exploit links with the past. It is closely related to nostalgia which derives from the Greek words, nostos a, meaning to return. It could be a piece of music, a scent or a phrase that has the power to transport people back in time.

An example of retro at the high end of the market is the interest in luxury train travel,  evoking nostalgic memories of the 1930s Orient Express and its opulence, service and the romance and excitement of travelling by train between exotic locations.

The Independent reported that an ex-British Rail employee, Howard Trinder, developed the new 12-carriage Danube Express for about £5 million. Using navy and cream livery, the five-star luxury sleeper train travels between Berlin, Prague and Istanbul. Facilities include en suite bathrooms and a pianist in the restaurant car.

A presidential car can be attached to the train so its occupants do not have to mingle with other passengers. While businesses try to be different, better and more innovative than their rivals, why is there such an embrace of what has gone before? Retromarketing works well for companies that have traditions which they can celebrate and exploit and when a society undergoes major change. Post 9/11 research showed an appetite for softer, more nostalgic advertising and escapist movies.

A preference was recognised at the US box office in late 2001 and soon after, where ‘feel-good' films like Shrek and Harry Potter were given priority in cinemas and the release dates for many action films and war movies were deliberately put on hold.

The current recession may be ideal for retromarketing as media commentators recall   the hairshirt budgets of the 1980s. The cliché of the ‘time-poor, cash-rich customer' reflects a huge swathe of middle-class time-poor and cash-tight customers.

As consumer spending declines and penurious circumstances beckon, many consumers may be drawn to brands that remind them of more pleasant bygone times. But there are downsides to adopting a retromarketing approach.

It may work well with an older generation which remembers the first incarnation of a product, but that sense of history and nostalgia can be lost on young people. Up until now, a defining characteristic of Generation Y or Net-Gen consumers was that they had never known recession, unlike their Generation X counterparts.

Behaviour, attitudes and values of the Net-Gens may not be at one with past values which marketers may wish to tap into. Retromarketing is synonymous with living in the past, so we fall back on the luxury train travel market and cherished FMCG brands like Wispa bars, while ignoring technology items like cars and mobile phones.

Travelling back through time may do a job, but there must also be an element of ‘where do we go from here?' Like human beings, brands must move on and change with the times. Looking to the past is far from being a panacea for marketing ills.

Dr Margaret-Anne Lawlor (malawlor@dit.ie) lectures in marketing communications at DIT

BOUNCE BACK Asheenar Naido and Jayne Wilde at the NCAD student design competition to reintroduce the Cadbury's Wispa bar 25 years after it was first launched. In Ireland, three Cork students, Emily Hughes, Joy Allen and Louise Cremin, started an online petition to bring back Wispa. The campaign attracted 5,000 members on Bebo.

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