December 27, 2020
Merriam-Webster describes nostalgia as a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for a return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition. We're built that way as human beings. We don't even have to have lived through something ourselves to have sentimental yearnings for it.
Sometimes we experience nostalgia for a time and place that we wish could have been or that strikes similar chords in our psyche. Think of a farm boy from Ohio identifying with Dylan Thomas's depictions of the holidays in A Child's Christmas in Wales. An award-winning television series was built around the theme of longing for a past that belongs to someone else…Mad Men, anyone?
Nostalgia has long been a tool in many advertising agencies ' toolkits. And the holidays seem to be a perfect time to key in on those feeling of longing for the past to engage with customers. Here are a few that employ the strategy quite skillfully.
From the French company Bouygues
And as if we didn't recognize McDonald's knows parents.
And an oldie but a goodie from Folgers. (This one is pre-Hi-Def!)
This year has made it tough on many of us who cannot return to our nostalgic cultural touchstones due to the COVID19 pandemic, so hang in there, call someone you love, perform a random act of kindness, and take it easy on yourself.