July 4th is one of those classic holidays that bring up memories and traditions everyone is familiar with – fireworks, hotdogs, red-white-and-blue everything, backyard games, pools, and beach days. This year as we sat around my friend’s pool taking down grill food and watching the Nathan’s hotdog eating contest (shout-out to Joey Chestnut for keeping his title) while the guys battled it out in some fierce wiffle ball games, we got to talking about our childhood memories from Independence Days gone by. Someone mentioned sparklers and we all had the “I loved those!” excited reaction. People talked about the places they would go every year or the food they would always eat (apparently I was the only one who had cheese stuffed deer dogs. Northerners don’t know what they’re missing).
As we talked in more and more detail about the things we loved about the 4th as kids, we started to bring up other childhood favorites. We got into toys, songs, foods, TV shows, and clothes. Every time someone mentioned some classic item from the 90s we would all get so excited. “Oh I had those!” “Yeah I remember playing that!” “Oh my gosh, I miss those!” The more we chatted the more I realized how powerful nostalgia can be as a marketing tool. We were all dying to get our hands on these crazy products simply because they related to memories from our past.
We ended up making a list of some of the best things from our childhood days. Here are just a few:
- Lunchables
- POGS
- Snap bracelets
- Tamagotchi Pets
- LLBean backpacks (the ones with your initials embroidered on the front)
- Heelys
- Dunkaroos
- Oregon Trail
- Warheads
- Bop It
- Are You Afraid of the Dark?
- Nintendo64
- NOW cds
- Beanie Babies
- Bill Nye the Science Guy
- Boy Meets World
- Fruit Roll Ups
- Little Giants
- The Sandlot
- Sock ‘em Boppers
- Bagel Bites
- Gushers
If you didn’t get embarrassingly excited over at least five of the items on this list then you, my friend, had a sorely deprived childhood. The Lunchables pizza that came with the chocolate and M&Ms was the best thing any kid could bring into the lunch room. The barter power that came with that chocolate covered crust was unbelievable! And why Bill Nye still hasn’t been awarded a Nobel Prize is beyond me. The man was a genius and had the catchiest science theme songs that will ever be recorded. To this day I can lose myself for hours in a heated N64 Mario Kart battle, and I still say jumping the wall in Mario Stadium is not cheating. It’s skill. And finally, popping all the lemon-flavored warheads from the bag into your mouth at once gave you so much street cred on the playground it was ridiculous, but it was a feat that few accomplished successfully.
I could sit here and reminisce all day, but the point is that this excited feeling we get when we are confronted with a nostalgic product actually has a lot of value for brands. We get attached to products that bring back memories of good times and are, consequently, more likely to gravitate toward those items. Many Millennials are still in the process of making those memories that will last a lifetime, and the brands who can be a part of that will benefit from it in the future. Twenty years down the road someone can look back on their college times and get that same yearning for a snack or a video game that current college students get for their childhood toys. A brand that takes the time to build those memories with current students has the chance to create a relationship that can last well into the next generation.
