I've written about Jeep's genius move in 2020 to produce a Super Bowl commercial featuring a throwback to the 1990s with Bill Murray reinacting scenes from Groundhog Day. But did you know that this an actual marketing strategy? Yes, and and it is called Nostalgia Marketing. Sometimes marketing practitioners refer to to is as throwback marketing or retro marketing. Generally speaking, they're all talking about the same thing. And that is using the powerful emotion of nostalgia to help customer's make the decision to purchase a product. In the case of Jeep, they used nostalgia marketing to help people purchase a jeep.

What is nostalgia marketing?

Nostalgia marketing is the process of invoking styles, images, icons, or personalities from the past in a current marketing effort in order to stimulate emotions of nostalgia in the customer. The objective for that emotion to be powerful enough to be a significant contributing factor in the customer's decision to purchase a good or service.

How is Nostalgia marketing manifested?

Nostalgia marketing can be manifested in a handful of ways, including Product throwbacks, Pricing, Personalities, Packaging, and music. For example, a product throwback is when a company decides to bring a product from the past and reintroduce it into the marketplace. Nintendo did this in 2020 with the Nintendo mini. A pricing throwback is when a company does a throwback to pricing from the past. McDonald's is doing that in 2021 with Throwback Thursdays selling hamburgers for 35 cents a piece! Packaging throwbacks occur when a company changes the packaging to reflect the look and style from yesteryear. And personality throwbacks occur when a pop culture icon from the past steps in to help move product in an ad. And this is exactly what Jeep did with their Super Bowl 2020 ad with Bill Murray