Nostalgia Squared

“Remember making toast in a gizmo like this?”

That line rings in my head as I think about the topic of nostalgia. To give credit where credit is due, I’m not the one that remembered this commercial; after bouncing this topic around with a couple of friends (yes, I’m that dedicated?), one of them brought up this commercial. I don’t think he understood what I meant when I said I was trying to find a commercial that properly represented the advertising philosophy, if you will, of nostalgia. But maybe he did, and I was overcomplicating it. Because this ad perfectly describes it.

First off, I’d like to note that the commercial is from 1981 – eleven years before my existence. In no way have I ever viewed this commercial on television. If it was on television now, it would basically be irrelevant to us because of the heaping amounts of nostalgia in it. With the style of the commercial (the dress of the old man, mainly), we would have our first level of nostalgia: “old” television. And then, while using the style of old television, the man nostalgically recalls toasters apparently from our parents’ (or possibly grandparents’) childhoods. It’s basically nostalgia squared for us.

But I can’t help but think that perhaps this “nostalgia-squared” principle applied even a little bit also to those viewing the commercial in 1981. I say this because I’ve never, ever seen pictures of my dad (who was 20 in the year of 1981 – not necessarily your stereotypical geezer, but an acceptable example of a relatively grown man, I’d say) wearing anything quite as..”nostalgic” as that man’s uniform. It’s pretty old school.

And then, of course, we have the main source of nostalgia from the commercial: the “gizmo” that apparently toasts bread. Now, having all read the chapter and probably most of us having been in class on Thursday, we all understand the basic power of nostalgia: it works in advertising. But, as if this simple presentation of an antique toaster wasn’t enough to conjure fond memories in the minds of our parents (or grandparents), the old man proceeds to pull out “homemade raisin bread loaded with plump raisins”…suggested to have been made by grandma, of course. Then he talks about the wafting, sweet aroma. Then there’s the visual of the creamy butter, melting instantaneously upon contact with the magnificent cinnamon raisin bread.

And now that all of your senses are firing, they’d also just like you to know – they remember, too. I mean, c’mon, how else would they be able to make bread just like your grandma did? It’s not like they snuck in to her house and stole her recipe or anything. (Maybe they did. I’ve never tasted their cinnamon raisin bread, or your grandma’s.)

And so, I’m left with the idea that people in 1981 definitely felt a double layer of nostalgia from this ad.

Ultimately, though, I think my point is this: we don’t need market researchers or psychographic information to tell us what works in advertising. Even in 1981, they were able to figure it out. All you need is some good sensory appeals, consumer relatability, maybe an adorably random child in your ad, and nostalgia. Suddenly, your company is Pepperidge Farms.

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Post-writing research led me to this paragraph in Wikipedia:

               “There was a long-running series of commercials promoting Pepperidge Farm that ran on television for three decades starring radio actor Parker Fennelly as the spokesman, playing the role of the often nostalgic philosopher, starting in the late 1950s and lasting through the late 1970s. Parker Fennelly died in 1988 at the age of 97. Several of the commercials he starred in played into the 1980s.”

I’d love to post more commercials from Parker, but YouTube is yielding no results. But, as I was not the most up-to-speed apparently on these commercials, I still wanted to point out that I find it interesting they not only did one of these commercials, but a whole series. Effective.