Cozy Up to Nostalgic Advertising

When the temperature is comfortably warm, your shoppers become more receptive to advertising which appeals to nostalgia. This finding, from researchers at Tampere University, Aalto University School of Business, and Southwest Jiaotong University, can guide marketers in choosing merchandise to feature, marketing angles to employ, and shopping temperatures to maintain.
     Nostalgia is a person’s desire for the past or attraction to merchandise and activities associated with a pleasant past. Prior research had found that nostalgia generates feelings of psychological warmth.
     Personal nostalgia is a yearning based on a consumer’s own experiences, while historical nostalgia is based on associations with a prior era which a consumer did not themselves experience. The personal nostalgia advertising text used in the studies read in part, “It was a special childhood. In my impression, I was simple, cute, and happy at that time… Return to those times with COTON.” The historical nostalgia advertising text read in part, “It was a special age. In my imagination, people at that time were pure and kind, lovely and persistent…. Return to those times with COTON.”
     Study participants browsing the ad in a comfortably warm temperature reported more positive attitudes toward it than did those browsing the ad at a comfortably cool temperature. The two temperatures were about 81⁰ and 68⁰ Fahrenheit. This was true with both the personal nostalgia and the historical nostalgia ads. But in another of the studies, an uncomfortably hot temperature of about 95⁰ resulted in less positive evaluations of both types of nostalgia ad compared to the results with an uncomfortably cold temperature of about 41⁰.
     The explanation for these findings is that, in a comfortable temperature range, bodily warmth triggers psychological warmth, leading to greater willingness to engage with ads. However, when the temperature is uncomfortably cold, a person finds relief in the warmth generated by a nostalgic ad.
     Beyond stimulating nostalgia appeal, thinking about warm temperatures increases shoppers’ willingness to pay, according to a study at Clicksuasion Labs in North Carolina, University of Auckland, and Western Sydney University. This effect is strongest when consumers are making purchase decisions with only sparse information.
     Notice how that study explored results of thinking about warm temperatures, not providing warm temperatures in the store. It’s a distinction important during this era we probably won’t look back on with nostalgic fondness in which cranking up the heater burns through your business profitability at an inflated pace.

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Indulge in Group Nostalgia 

Appeal to Nostalgia 

Keep Shoppers Cool for Critical Thinking 

Elevate Expected Prices with Hot Cues 

Add to Global Warming in Your Store