Oct 01 2008
Nostalgia Ads
There is a class of ads commonly called “nostalgia ads.” These ads use happy images from the past, either the explicit past (the 70’s, for example) or the implicit past (childhood, school days, the teen years, etc.) An example is the Target commercial I was just watching. It has lots of images from a generic American past: a boy on a paper route, a dog playing with a boy, a family camping out, a family on a picnic. All of these images are from a happier time, and are intended to evoke similar memories inside almost all of us.
We have spoken of connection, and linking up the product with good feelings. However, there is more than that going on here: namely, age regression. Age regression is when we go mentally back to an earlier age or time in our lives. In the most complete regression, we don’t even remember memories after the regressed age; more often, we just have extremely strong memories of that past time.
Age regression is inherently an hypnotic phenomenon. Anyone who is age regressed is also in a trance state, a state that is a withdrawal from the normal orientation of life. Many hypnotists use age regression as part of their inductions, and an extremely effective one. It accomplishes orientation to a different reality, time distortion, and internal absorption all in one operation.
Politicians and advertisers use regression for a variety of reasons, including trance induction. If we are “take back” to that earlier time, we are more credulous and more suggestible. Age regression is a part of the toolbox of the hypnotist, the politician, and the advertiser alike.
One Response to “Nostalgia Ads”
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It also seems that a lot of “old” chocolate bars keep on getting launched…..things from the early/mid 70s (my childhood) and when they come back on the market for a while they sell like wildfire. There also seems to be a fairly strong market for compilation DVDs of children’s TV from the early/mid 70s. I guess that the purchaser is hoping that by eating something they used to eat and love as a child, or watch something they used to love they are somehow going to re-live those “happier carefree” times and temporarily escape from the pressures they face in adulthood.
Personally, whenever I have eaten an “old” chocolate bar like that it never seems as big now as it did then (maybe they DID make it smaller now to save money or maybe my hands and mouth were just smaller then so everything seemed bigger…) or whenever I have watched an “old” DVD compilation I wonder WHY I was ever so enamoured by the programme