I am a real geek about advertising. My house is decked out in adverts that span the decades. Often I find visitors malingering in the hallways, bathrooms and bedrooms staring at these wonderful nostalgic inducing adverts. There are two things I love about vintage adverts:
- The memories and feelings they create in people.
- They are a window on the soul of society.
Did you notice during the recent recession caused by the world wide banking crisis that many of the big brands and companies re-launched and reintroduced their old adverts? This is a highly effective way for companies to engage with their customers and more importantly remind those customers why they used to trust them and still should.
Do you remember?
- Fairy Liquid – Hands that do dishes can feel as soft as your face
- Heinz Baked Beans – A million housewife’s everyday pick up a tin of beans and say “Beanz Meanz Heinz”
- Milk Tray – And all because the lady loves Milk Tray
- Guinness – Guinness is good for you (can you imagine that today?)
- Nike – Just do it
- Mars – A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play
- MacDonalds – Lovin’ it…..
All of these companies during the recession reshowed and used old advertisements and in the case of Fairy Liquid and Hovis they ran TV adverts that showed you their adverts throughout the decades reminding you they had always been there for you. Very effective.
So what can we learn from this?
All of the aforementioned brands did a great job of communicating those highlight emotive values and ethics their brand stood for and it was those that chimed with customers.
What values and ethics does your brand stand for that will engage with your customers? How can you communicate those more effectively with them?
