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Harking back to the old days

Posted in Advertising, Marketing, Creative, Latest reporters' blogs, Lucy Tesseras March 11th, 2008 by Lucy Tesseras

Has adland run out of ideas? In recent months an influx of old ads have been resurrected from the advertising grave.

Cadbury has relaunched the 2002 ‘Friday Feeling’ campaign for its Crunchie bar; Aquafresh has brought back its 1980s ‘Billy Boy’ commercial; Mars has revived its ‘Work Rest Play’ tagline; and the Honey Monster will soon be gracing our screens again to promote Sugar Puffs.

The ads for Mars and Sugar Puffs, although reviving old concepts have been reinterpreted and brought up to date, so they fall into a slightly different category, but for Crunchie and Aquafresh it literally just seems to be a case of hitting the repeat button.

Can advertisers not think of anything new, or is creating a feeling of nostalgia just their latest marketing ploy?

Everyone likes to reminisce and I for one have been sucked in, buying more Crunchies in the last couple of weeks than I have done since… well probably not since the ad was first run six years ago.

While it’s nice to be reminded of days gone, continually running old ads doesn’t exactly promote forward thinking or inspire imagination.

But maybe that’s the point. Maybe advertisers are reverting back to what is familiar to help consumers feel more settled in such uncertain times.

With the cost of living rising and the threat of an imminent recession looming, it’s nice to be reminded of things from a simpler time.

And seeing something familiar in such a saturated market does help it stand out.

It’s not just advertisers that are rehashing old ideas though. John McLean, Rocky and Rambo have all been resurrected in the past year and with remakes of films including King Kong, The Producers, Halloween, Miami Vice and Hairspray, among many others, it seems Hollywood is stuck for ideas too.

A world full of remakes and reruns could become very tiresome. As nice as it is to take a stroll down memory lane, it would be much more exciting to walk down an entirely new road.