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The use of nostalgia in the marketing domain has been popular around the world. Nostalgia has been considered a complex yet ambivalent emotion, which has ignited curiosity among marketing researchers and practitioners alike. In response to calls from marketing practitioners and scholars to understand nostalgia formation among consumers, this study tracks the evolution of nostalgia concepts in the domains of marketing and, more generally, business management. This study aims to highlight the development of a theoretical framework to integrate existing concepts and offer implications based on understanding nostalgia as a phenomenon among consumers as a tool for marketing practice.

This study is descriptive and inductive in nature. The manuscript is designed and positioned as a conceptual study exploring nostalgia’s journey from the domain of psychology to business management. The study synthesizes concepts of nostalgia from psychology, sociology and business management.

The study reveals that nostalgia in the business-management domain is not perceived in the same way as in psychology studies. It has journeyed through different schools of thought and is now used as an impactful marketing practice. The manuscript offers relevant information to marketing practitioners to improve their nostalgia marketing strategies, such as advertising and promotions, retro-branding, crowd-sourcing and culturally oriented practice. Subsequently, the manuscript offers pointers for understanding consumers across the generations and exploring nostalgia and consumption patterns for future research.

The manuscript offers relevant information about nostalgia to marketing practitioners to improve their nostalgia marketing strategies and proposes avenues for future research to the domain scholars.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is no comprehensive paper tracking the journey of nostalgia in business practices and providing directions for future research. This study extends existing literature both by suggesting future research directions and by drawing marketing practitioners’ attention to a conceptual framework for understanding the processes of and relationships with consumer nostalgia, including ways to use consumer nostalgia within marketing practices.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of nostalgic marketing on consumer decisions, including the relation of nostalgia to perceived self-continuity, brand attitude (BA), and purchase intent (PI).

The study uses an experimental design that compares individuals’ responses to past-focussed (nostalgic) vs present-focussed (non-nostalgic) advertising across a range of three product types. Analyses include structural equation modeling (SEM) to investigate direct and mediated relationships.

Nostalgic past-focussed advertisements (as compared to present-focussed advertisements) elicited higher perceived self-continuity which led to more favorable ratings of BA and greater intent to purchase the product. These effects held up regardless of product type. SEM showed that the relation of advertising-evoked nostalgia to BA is partially mediated by consumer’s perceived self-continuity. BA also directly predicted PI.

These findings provide two implications for marketing managers. First, the perceived self-continuity plays an important role in the success of nostalgia marketing. As such, advertising designed to directly influence perceived self-continuity should be used for framing a nostalgic marketing purposes that aims to connect consumers to particular brands. Second, evoking nostalgia in marketing communications is not just effective for one product type but appears to be useful across a variety of product type (i.e. utilitarian, hedonic, and neutral).

The study is based within an experiential marketing framework but is innovative in examining the specific experience of nostalgia and linking it to consumer’s identity (i.e. self-continuity). This area has received little attention and appears to be a promising area for future research on consumer decisions.

Framed by nostalgia marketing, this research draws upon lessons from ParticipACTION, a Canadian non-profit health promotion organization, to examine one of their most well-known campaigns, Body Break with ParticipACTION, in order to assess the potential role for nostalgia-based marketing campaigns in sport participation across generational cohorts.

Exploratory sequential mixed methods involving two studies were completed on behalf of ParticipACTION, with the authors developing the research instruments and the collection of the data undertaken by research agencies. Study 1 was the secondary analysis of qualitative data from five focus groups with different demographic compositions that followed a common question guide. Study 2 was a secondary data analysis of a pan-Canadian online survey with a sample (n = 1,475) representative of the overall adult population that assessed awareness of, and attitudes toward, ParticipACTION, Body Break, physical activity and sport participation. Path analysis tested a proposed model that was based on previous research on attitudes, brand and loyalty. Further, multi-group path analyses were conducted to compare younger generations with older ones.

The results provide direction and understanding of the importance of nostalgia in marketing sport participation programs across generational cohorts. For instance, in the four parent-adult focus groups, unaided references as well as frequent and detailed comments regarding Body Break were observed. Similarly, Millennials reported that Body Break was memorable, Canadian and nostalgic, with a mix of positive and negative comments. The importance of nostalgia was supported sequentially via results from the national survey. For example, while 54.1% of the 40–54 age-group associated ParticipACTION positively with Body Break, so did 49.8% of the 25–39-year age group, most of whom were not born when the promotion ran. Further, brand resonance was found to explain 4% more variance in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), the proxy for sport participation, for younger people compared to older people.

Results provide direction to brands, properties and agencies around the use of nostalgia in sport marketing campaigns and sponsorship efforts. For brands seeking to sponsor sport properties to alter their image with potential consumers in a new market, associating with a sport property that many view as nostalgic could improve the impact of the campaign. On the sport property side, event managers and marketers should both identify existing assets that members or fans are nostalgic about, as well as consider building nostalgia into current and new properties they develop.

This research is valuable to the sport marketing and sponsorship literature through several contributions. First, the use of nostalgia marketing, and nostalgia in general, is novel in the sport marketing and sponsorship literature, with future research in nostalgia and sponsorship recommended. Second, the potential to adopt or adapt Body Break to other sport participation and physical activity properties is empirically supported. Finally, the finding that very effective promotions can have a long-lasting effect, both on those who experienced the campaigns as well as younger populations who only heard about it, is notable.

Retro branding is gaining unprecedented momentum. This study aims to empirically examine the moderating impact of nostalgia proneness on the relationship between retro branding and consumer behavioral intentions in the music industry. Nostalgia and retro branding are two paramount elements conceptually discussed in literature but rarely investigated together empirically despite their interconnections.

An experiment including four different scenarios blending retro and contemporary stimuli was conducted on 181 subjects. Two rock band variables were manipulated: song set list (i.e. list of songs) and band lineup.

The findings suggest that mixing the past and present for a retro brand impacts consumer behavior. A more nuanced explanation is suggested by showing that a retro brand has a strong effect on consumers’ intentions to attend and willingness to pay, but not on their WOM intentions, when these consumers are more prone to feeling nostalgia.

Nostalgia and retro branding appear to be interconnected concepts, but few studies have assessed how nostalgia proneness can impact consumers’ intentions toward a retro brand. Fewer have investigated consumers’ intentions toward an experiential, intangible retro brand.

The purpose of this paper is to expand our understanding of retro marketing in sport through the perspective of sport marketers.

Fourteen sport marketers involved in their team’s marketing and utilized retro participated in topical interviews. Interviews were transcribed and open coded to find themes around how retro marketing is utilized and why the marketers think it may be effective.

This study discovered prominent themes explaining how retro marketing is implemented (changing marks and jerseys, celebrating anniversaries, milestones and past players and retro nights) and why it may be effective (nostalgia, retro design appeal and connection to the team’s lived history).

Despite the coverage of retro marketing in popular press, little is understood in the academic field. This current study should expand our understanding of retro marketing in sport and be effective in aiding future scholars who investigate retro marketing in sport.

This paper aims to explore how traditional industries revert the trend of decline in sales through rebranding by analyzing the extended case study of the fountain pen industry.

This study analyzes the marketing in case study of the fountain pen industry through two coordinates – symbolizing status and branding nostalgia. The division of analyses in these categories is supplanted by data, such as linear regression to analyze changes in product characteristics.

This study finds that the rebranding of the fountain pen in multiple fitting images – status symbol, object of nostalgia and something scarce and unique – is successful in capturing consumer demand, shaping consumer perceptions and help the mature industry locate as well as enter a niche market.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first one to explore the business development of traditional industry as a case study of fountain pens from the perspective of marketing and consumer behavior.

The authors sought to examine how nostalgic feelings influenced purchase intentions of sport fans towards branded merchandise. Additionally, the goal was to test the childhood brand nostalgia (CBN) scale to see if it was an effective measure in this context. This was an important early step in understanding the way nostalgia may influence sport fan's merchandise preferences.

Surveys were completed by 601 fans of two professional sport teams in the USA. These consumers were targeted geographically through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) and half given a modern branded t-shirt and the other half a retro branded t-shirt. To examine brand nostalgia in this context, the CBN measure was evaluated and examined to see its impact on each group, using hierarchical regressions.

The results demonstrated that CBN positively impacted consumers purchase intentions in the retro logoed t-shirt group. However, in the modern logoed t-shirt group, CBN did not significantly influence purchase intentions.

The findings of this study suggest that retro merchandise is working as expected, as it is attractive to those who feel nostalgic about their team. Secondarily, this study's findings suggest it may be vital for marketers to be conscious that their retro materials are connecting to the past.

This study was an early examination of a measure of nostalgia and its impact on purchase intentions in sport. The findings suggested that this CBN instrument may be appropriate in retro marketing research, especially regarding sport merchandise. Further, the findings suggest that nostalgic feelings may be influential toward retro merchandise, but not modern merchandise.

Modernization and the rise of living standards have introduced new variants of traditional foods, from their tastes to the way they are enjoyed. This study aims to explore and examine the impacts of both traditional and modern marketing stimuli on restaurant choice intention for experiencing culinary traditions, hence answering the question of how traditional and modern aspects live together to bring about the most desirable experience for customers of traditional cuisine.

Based on the stimuli-organism-response (S-O-R) theory and mixed research methods, a model linking service quality dimensions, perceived value and restaurant choice intention is formulated and tested on quantitative data from 431 customers of Gen Y and Gen Z, given the case of Vietnamese Pho.

The findings show that food quality demonstrates the strongest impact on restaurant choice intention, followed by authenticity and nostalgia marketing. These relationships are partially mediated by perceived value. Hygiene risks and perceived value are also found to directly affect restaurant choice intention. Nevertheless, our findings are quite different between Gen Y and Gen Z customers.

This research provides crucial strategic implications for restaurant managers when it comes to serving traditional foods for different generations.

This study responds to the existing gap by examining and comparing the impacts of traditional and modern marketing stimuli on restaurant choice intention through the mediating role of perceived value. Our study also actively contributes to the ongoing multigenerational research stream by affirming the moderation role of generations (Gen Y and Gen Z) in those relationships.

This paper aims to examine the effect of three levels of historical nostalgia on respondents' cognitions, attitude towards the advert, attitude toward the brand, and purchase intention.

A total of 292 respondents exposed to broadcast‐style advertising containing nostalgic cues completed a measure of historical nostalgia, a thought‐collection exercise, and measures of attitudes and intention. Hypotheses are tested using ANOVA and other relevant analyses.

The findings show that historical nostalgic thoughts and the valence of cognitive reactions significantly improve when respondents experience a moderate or high level of historical nostalgia compared with a low level. However, no significant benefit is evident when moving from a moderate to a high level. Brand and message‐related thoughts did not significantly change. Attitude towards the brand is significantly improved only if respondents reach a high level of historical reaction. Attitudes towards the advert and purchase intentions however continue to significantly improve at each increasing level of historical nostalgia.

Increased predictive capabilities of managers utilising historical nostalgia in the marketplace are achieved, specifically relating to consumers experiencing varying levels of historical nostalgia and the expected cognitive, attitudinal and purchase intent reactions. The study provides relevant implications for advertisers and creative directors to ensure the appropriate intensity of historical nostalgia is elicited.

No prior empirical studies on the effect of varying levels of historical nostalgia on consumer responses have been conducted. This is the first paper to close this gap.

Due to the growing trend of consuming healthy food, which reproduces the ideal of the food the authors tried in their childhood, an increasing number of researchers have brought together the values of tradition, nostalgia and food. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between food and nostalgia in order to find out in which way they affect each other.

In order to explore the perspectives of traditional food in re-collecting and re-experiencing positive past experiences, both qualitative and quantitative techniques were used in two stages. First, focus group interviews were conducted with ten restaurant chefs in three different regions of Croatia. Then, a survey was carried out with 362 Croatian consumers.

Focus group results show that although traditional food creates new opportunities for differentiation, finding the right ingredients and time for cooking traditional food is still a problem. There is a low interest in traditional food in restaurants, as domestic patrons mostly worry about the high prices, while foreign ones do not know anything about such foods due to the inadequate promotion of Croatian gastronomic offer. Survey results indicate that consumers are familiar with traditional Croatian food, eat it regularly at home and consider it as food with high-quality aspects that reminds them of their childhood and positive past experiences.

The results presented in this paper give some directions for subjects involved in the manufacturing industry, tourism, the restaurant industry, etc. to devise ways of reminding their customers of childhood memories, family ties, etc.

A relatively small number of food-centred studies are directly concerned with nostalgia. Many more studies investigate food in social changes, related to ethnic elements, etc. Considering an extensive literature review, and the analysis of data in the qualitative and quantitative study, this paper addresses two multidimensional and complex concepts which are powerful predictors of customer satisfaction.