Oldie television ads continue to prove how powerful retroactive advertising and appealing to fans along the lines of history can be.
The use of vintage footage featuring Orville Redenbacher in advertisements is the focus of Brian Steinberg's article in last Friday's Wall Street Journal entitled "Why Oldie TV Ads Make Comeback."
Sure, part of this is a drive on the part of advertisers, but the more important question is whether this is advertisers trying to create a trend or something that fans desire, and it seems to me that retro advertising and reviving old advertising lines remains very much in style and in demand from fans of brand communities.
What is the appeal of retro branding? There have been some great minds, including one of our partners Rob Kozinets and others, who have examined some of these very issues...It seems that honoring history is an important part of many fan communities and that such ads both reward longterm fans who have a memory of the brand at the point retro commercials initially aired and that newer members of brand community might feel rewarded with understanding the brand more by seeing its roots, so to speak...where it came from.
What do you all think?
