Why make a new campaign when you can recycle a classic?

As a child of the nineties, I find it really strange that stuff from the nineties is now instantly recognisable. Whether it be popular music, clothes or food packaging, these things can evoke really strong memories that take you right back to a specific moment, experience or feeling (like dancing to The Spice Girls in my bedroom and pretending to be Mel C in my Adidas ‘popper’ trackie bottoms...)

I’ve noticed that advertisers and marketiers are using the power of nostalgia more and more. Hall’s Soothers for example have just spent £1million relaunching an advertising campaign that originally ran in 1993 – the iconic ‘Kiss’ ad. I’ve seen this a few times in the past couple of weeks and can’t believe how inherently ‘nineties’ in now looks. At the time it no doubt raised a few eyebrows due to it’s overtly sexual nature. Where perhaps it doesn’t quite have this effect today, it definitely plays on the fact it looks dated and evokes strong memories of a different time, whilst retaining the overall message that Soothers ‘kiss your throat better’.


This idea of relaunching old iconic ads has also worked really well recently for Crunchie with their ‘I’m so excited’ rollercoaster advert and the Milky Way red car versus blue car animated ad.
For me, playing on nostalgia makes these ads so much more memorable, powerful and talkable. I still to this day get pleasure from watching adverts on old videos taped off the telly from when I was little as they take me right back to sitting infront of the TV when I was five watching Christmas films. For me, these adverts have the same powerful effect.