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WHATT
5,1 Image, place and nostalgia in
hospitality branding and
marketing
14
Louise Hunt
Southampton Solent University, Southampton, UK, and
Nick Johns
School of Tourism, Bournemouth University, Poole, UK

Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of nostalgia, especially nostalgia
associated with place, and its potential in the development of branding and advertising images for the
hospitality industry.
Design/methodology/approach The paper achieves its aims by reviewing the relevant literature
and illustrating the extant theory with the results of a small pilot study.
Findings Nostalgia is an effective tool for developing brand and advertising images for the
hospitality industry. It is relevant especially to place and place-related aspects such as terroir and it
communicates with consumers of all ages. As well as evoking a direct response, nostalgic images also
bring to mind many related sounds, odours and objects, which may also be linked with expectation.
However, nostalgic images must be chosen with care, since some individuals may be negatively
affected by them.
Practical implications Hospitality organizations can make greater use of their links with place,
culture and food by incorporating nostalgic imagery in their branding and advertising. The effects of
nostalgia are felt by more age groups than is generally recognized.
Original/value There has been little, if any, attention to nostalgia as a marketing tool in the
hospitality industry. This article, which addresses this shortfall, will appeal to hospitality managers
and entrepreneurs who seek to improve the effectiveness of their branding and advertising.
Keywords United Kingdom, Hospitality, Branding, Advertising, Consumer behaviour, Railways,
Nostalgia, Image
Paper type Conceptual paper

Introduction
Hospitality organizations differentiate themselves from their competition through a
distinctive brand image that potential customers associate with a widely understood
set of symbols and concepts. Brand image is frequently linked to service and product
standards but also goes much further than this, also seeking connections to customers
aspirations, status and lifestyle (Alden et al., 1999). Brand images are intended to
trigger emotional responses (Bigne et al., 2001) and are often based on subjective
aspects such as beliefs, feelings, expectations and experiences as well as on knowledge
(Wang and Wang, 2011). In order to optimize their subjective impact, brand images
Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism often draw on aspects of place, increasingly including culture and especially food. The
Themes well known French concept of terroir is increasingly being adopted by other countries,
Vol. 5 No. 1, 2013
pp. 14-26 as they seek to distinguish themselves as destinations on the basis of their local cuisine
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1755-4217
(Hall and Sharples, 2003; Gyimothy and Mykletun, 2008). Even global brands which
DOI 10.1108/17554211311292411 have been previously castigated for a one size fits all approach to place and culture
are seeking to redefine themselves on image aspects of their location related to culture Image, place and
and food, a process that has been dubbed glocalisation (Kabbassi, 2008; Thompson nostalgia
and Arsel, 2004)
According to Entrikin (1991), peoples sense of place is located not only in
geography (i.e. the physical relationship with other places) but also the knowledge and
feelings that they have about it: the expectations, associations and stories it evokes, for
instance. Selby and Morgan (1996) categorize these aspects of image as projected and 15
organic. Promotion and advertising are examples of projected image, while
organic image derives from non-focused sources such as popular culture, the media,
literature and education.

Nostalgia
A potentially powerful aspect of image, especially that associated with place, is
nostalgia. Originally meaning homesickness, this concept has come to include any
longing for another place or time (Kessous and Roux, 2008). This can be rationalized by
considering that individuals in modern society are less attached to a particular place
than in historical times, and that rather than seeking the comfort of the familiar, those
experiencing nostalgia seek to escape from the modern, everyday world, from which
they feel alienated (Strangleman, 1999; Havlena and Holak, 1991). Transport to another
place or another time is, in essence, another form of escapism, facilitated by travel or by
touristic events (Bruner, 1991; Hennig, 2002). Kessous and Roux (2008, p. 204) suggest
that nostalgia is how individuals attempt to re-enchant a disenchanted world.
Nostalgia as a concept has proved difficult to pin down definitively. Kessous and
Roux (2008) note that the extant literature identifies nostalgia as a happy feeling, but
also implies feelings of pain, loss and sadness. This apparently conflicting picture may
partly be reconciled by considering that individuals view the phenomenon differently,
in different moods and at different life-stages (Kessous and Roux, 2008). It is also
consistent with the view that nostalgia is associated with moving from everyday life to
another place or time, since presumably if negative feelings are produced by
contemplating an alienating everyday environment, immersing oneself in another
place or time is likely to bring satisfaction. Nostalgia has variously been described as
an evocation (Davis, 1979), a mood (Belk, 1990), a preference (Holbrook and Schindler,
1991), an emotion (Bellelli, 1991) and an affective state (Stern, 1992; Divard and
Robert-Demontrond, 1997) all of which make it a likely determinant of consumer
satisfaction. From the perspective of brand image development, perhaps the most
appropriate definition of nostalgia is as: A sentimental or bittersweet yearning for an
experience, product, or service from the past (Baker and Kennedy, 1994, p. 169).
Turner (1987) suggests that nostalgia involves four dimensions of perceived loss:
(1) Loss of space or time.
(2) Lost references and values.
(3) Loss of individual freedom and autonomy.
(4) Loss of simplicity, authenticity and emotional spontaneity.

Nostalgia is said to be a reaction to the irreversibility of time (Hutcheon, 1998) and

Havlena and Holak (1991) claim that an important element of nostalgia is regret for the
passing of ones youth, combined with the fear of ones ever more imminent death.
WHATT However nostalgia does not relate to the true past. It attaches primarily to experiences, the
5,1 significance of which has only been realised as a result of many iterations of recall. The
sanitizing effect of memory, which removes many negative aspects of the original event,
ensures that the past is represented as an attractive place to go, where the referents and
values absent in everyday life may be rediscovered (Holbrook and Schindler, 2003).
Stimulus-organism-response (SOR) theory proposes that environmental stimuli
16 provoke emotional states in potential consumers, which give rise to approach or
avoidance responses (Ezeh and Harris, 2007). Positive emotions are considered to
encourage approach while negative ones promote avoidance. If, as discussed
previously, nostalgia in its modern sense is predominantly a positive emotion, events
giving rise to nostalgia are likely to encourage approach behaviour. Therefore it is
important for organizations to identify and exploit triggers of positive nostalgic
feeling, as these enhance the attractiveness of brand and advertising images.
According to Kessous and Roux (2008, p. 199) four types of meaningful moments
can trigger nostalgia:
(1) Everyday past ones day-to-day life.
(2) Uniqueness a reference point in ones life cycle such as coming of age or
having children.
(3) Tradition ritual occasions.
(4) Transition periods of transition.

These trigger-moments vary in their effect. They may make individuals feel more
secure, by offering a sense of tradition and permanence (Firat and Venkatesh, 1993), or
recall the (idealized) past (Divard and Robert-Demontrond, 1997). Miller (1995)
suggests that nostalgia is particularly prominent during transitional periods: times of
strife or change, where people tend to respond by holding onto the past for comfort.
Nostalgia is also reportedly more evident in stringent economic conditions (Baker and
Kennedy, 1994).

Nostalgia-proneness
According to Havlena and Holak (1991) nostalgia is most frequently associated with
older individuals, and Holbrook and Schindler (1991) observe that one reason nostalgia
has received increased marketing attention is the ageing demographics of developed
markets. However, these authors also claim that key memories, and hence triggers of
nostalgia form quite early in life (Holbrook and Schindler, 1991). For instance they
suggest that the music individuals prefer when they first reach maturity continues to
trigger memories for the rest of their lives. The fact that such triggers arise in the
relatively early years suggests that age may not have such an effect as Holak and
Havlena (1992) claim.
Holbrook (1993) notes that individuals vary in nostalgia-proneness, both in the
strength and the type of nostalgic feelings they are likely to experience. Davis (1979)
asserts that men are more nostalgia-prone than women, but Reisenwitz et al. (2004)
claim the opposite. However, the sexes typically differ in the type of stimuli that evoke
nostalgic feelings (Baker and Kennedy, 1994) as would be expected, given the private
and highly subjective nature of nostalgic feelings (Daniels, 1985) and it may account
for the differences observed in surveys noted previously.
The evocation of nostalgia Image, place and
Marchegiani and Phau (2010) note that nostalgia can be triggered by music, nostalgia
photographs, movies, special events, family members and even threatening stimuli.
Hirsch (1992) reports that odours can bring back past memories and researchers have
also identified foods, including sweets and biscuits, brands and experiences as triggers
for nostalgia (Schindler and Holbrook, 2003). Heirlooms and antiques also conjure up
the past, and Belk (1990, p. 670) notes the nostalgia-inducing power of possessions: 17
familiar transitional objects that [. . .] provide a sense of support as we confront an
uncertain future.

Nostalgia and place

Events are known to trigger nostalgic feelings, for example Holak and Havlena (1992)
discuss the nostalgia-provoking effect of celebrations such as Easter, Thanksgiving
and Christmas. These are often also associated with familiar places, which may evoke
nostalgia in their own right, as discussed previously. In terms of consumer literature,
place-nostalgia has largely been related to travel and vacations (Kessous and Roux,
2008; Baker and Kennedy, 1994). In this respect, Holbrook and Schindler (2003) identify
homeland and breaking away as emergent themes, associated with an urge to
travel and a nostalgic longing for objects associated with foreign countries. This is also
consistent with the idea that nostalgia is associated with escape from everyday life to
another place or time.
For Kaltenborn (1997) the term place denotes a space that has been given
meaning. Place may vary in territorial scale, including rooms, houses,
neighbourhoods, nations and continents (Rubinstein and Parmalee, 1992). The
nostalgic, evocative power of places varies in the extent to which they are tangible or
symbolic, directly experienced, or unknown and not experienced at all (Kaltenborn,
1997). Willink (2006, p. 501) writes that home is defined by the interpersonal exchange
of food and stories, acknowledging the importance of such triggers and placing home
in the same subjective area as nostalgia on one hand and brand image on the other.
Stedman (2002) similarly asserts that attachments to places are formed when humans
interact with their environment, but Rydman (1993) suggests that rather than just
simply interacting with places, people actually begin to define themselves in terms of
their perceived territory and that everyone tends to have this kind of attachment to the
place where they were born or grew up.

Railway stations
Staging posts for travel (airports, stations etc.) are especially powerful triggers for
nostalgia. This is partly because, at least in the popular imagination, transport
technology is relatively stable over time (and hence speaks of the past) and partly
because stations and airports are redolent of transition (one of the trigger-moments
discussed previously). In the UK there is perhaps no more powerful evoker of
place-nostalgia than the railway system (Strangleman, 1999). Railway stations are
often used as backdrops in television and film, where mothers wave their sons off to
war or lovers wait to embrace, and period nostalgia is evoked by the style of the
stations and of the trains themselves. The power of trains and stations is attested by
their use by organizations such as Virgin Trains as advertising images (Rohrer, 2009)
and their nostalgic effect is such that Strangleman (1999) recommends railways as a
WHATT fruitful way to explore notions of nostalgia. The study which follows described how he
5,1 adopted his approach in order to explore nostalgia as perceived by ordinary British
citizens. The overall aim was to determine the relationship between nostalgia and
place, within which three objectives were investigated, as follows:
(1) To examine the nature of nostalgia, specifically as evoked by images of railway
stations.
18 (2) To investigate if men and women experience nostalgia to different degrees.
(3) To investigate how age affects peoples nostalgic reactions.

Methodology
Unstructured interviews were carried out with three men and three women with the
aim of exploring peoples emotional attachments to railways and stations. New and old,
black and white photographs of stations and trains were used as stimulus material to
elicit responses in the interview process (Gordon and Langmaid, 1988). Informants
were presented with images and asked about the memories they evoked. They were
encouraged to tell personal stories evoked by the photographs and to go into as much
detail as they wished about their memories.
Interviews were recorded and transcribed and the stories they contained were
analysed by the use of I and we in the narrative and by the scope of the stories told.
Interviewees typically provided accounts of single specific episodes in their lives,
which were examined in the context in terms of contextual factors, including the age of
the interviewee at the time that was being discussed, the location of the event and their
feelings and emotions at the time. Finally the stories were synthesised into common
themes as presented in the following.

Data findings
Each interviewee produced a range of responses to the various images and it was soon
seen that four distinct themes emerged:
(1) Reliving experiences.
(2) Coming of age.
(3) Nostalgia evoked by smell.
(4) Objects.

Reliving experiences
Some photographs evoked very strong memories. Julie, 61, for instance was reminded
of going to see her father, who was stationed with the RAF in Germany and Holland,
when she was a child:
Of course the coming and the going from the stations was much more of a big thing, really,
because the steam engines had to, er, get primed up and then, you know, theyd, the hooters,
would go and off wed surge and the whole thing was quite different then because youd have
far more porters running up the platform with bags and closing doors, and then when the
train was ready to go youd have the station master come out and blow his whistle and wave
his flag, the engine driver would wave his hand and off wed go.
Clearly, the whole business of the trains preparing to depart and the departure itself Image, place and
made a powerful impression. Mike, 34, also had vivid memories, in his case of happy nostalgia
times from when he was a child going on holiday with his grandmother:
The first thing I think of is going on holiday when I was a lot younger with my Nan. We used
to go from Southampton out to Bournemouth on the train quite regularly in the summer
holidays. We used to go and stay with her for a week. Wed always be on the train. She didnt
drive, so it was always by train. She lived out near somewhere in the New Forest, New Milton, 19
so wed go on the train out to Bournemouth. Wed often do that, and because I was her first
grandchild I was, like, the special one. It was great! So I got all the treats. So, if I was to think
of a train station, thats what Id think of, really.
Joanne, 46, recalled times 30 years ago that she spent with her father, who is no longer
alive:
I used to spend a tremendous amount of time with my father, erm, looking at these things
(photograph) and, yeah, it was a very, very happy time. I was the only child, so I looked up to
him very much and ended up working for him for 12 years and, yeah, it was a period [. . .]
which I didnt appreciate at the time, but you do now. You think about the happy times it
brought, because unfortunately he didnt live very long, erm, within [. . .] Well, he was only 62
when he died, which is very young and, erm, we, after I left work, left the business, we didnt
really get on, which is a shame in many respects as we did have those happy times when I
was younger.
Joannes story speaks clearly of approaching death and irreversible time, as well as
regret that it is impossible to relive the past other than in memory.

Coming of age
None of the female interviewees were moved by the photographs to comment on their
adolescence, but two of the men were. The first of them, Mike, said:
Growing up [. . .] I used to catch the train a lot from Botley to Fareham or to town with my
friends and its not a station, its literally a platform with a bridge and a car park that holds
about four cars. It reminds me of when I was 15, 16, my first kind of freedom, when I was
allowed to go further than the end of the road or the rec to play football with my friends [. . .]
Reminds me, Be back by ten, Yes, Mum, then two a.m. in the morning and couldnt walk
straight.
One of the photographs prompted Mike to say:
And this one (photograph) run down, badly decorated train station it just reminds me of
some dodgy places Ive been when Ive been watching the football. That reminds me of when
youre there at some unearthly hour of the morning coming back from wherever and youve
missed the last train. That happened once or twice when I was a teenager.
From the expression on his face, Mike clearly remembered his youth with affection.
Simon, too, was obviously happy to remember his:
This reminds me of a similar, er, station set up as the London bridge exit to south
Bermondsey where Id catch the train to watch Milwall for football [. . .] It was probably three
or four years ago. I used to go a lot when I was in my late teens early twenties [. . .] excitement
as I was going to watch a football match. It was social. You didnt know what was going to
happen. Expectancy
WHATT This testimony shows how important feelings of expectation can be in provoking
5,1 nostalgia. It was also noticeable that Simon, who is 30, referred to his late teens/early
twenties as being three or four years ago which suggests the vividness of his
memories made the events remembered seem less long ago that they really were and
became more animated as his comment progressed. Overall, the memories recalled
under this heading were accompanied by the most powerful sense of nostalgia;
20 memories reported under other headings either had a more muted feeling of nostalgia
or were just stories.

Feelings of nostalgia evoked by smell

Three of the interviewees mentioned the significance of smell, confirming claims in the
literature.
Julie said:
I love the old stations because, you know, the minute you step through the door you smell [. . .]
100 years of steam and, erm, wood burning or coal burning. Its just pervaded the whole
building and thats what you, the minute you walk into the building, thats what you smell.
But in the new ones you dont get that.
Mike said:
The kids love it (old steam train at Swanage), just the noise it makes, the smell of the steam
[. . .] I do prefer the older ones, the noise, the smell, almost a ghostly thing about them.
Martin said:
I suppose one of the remarkable things now is if I go to Paddington [. . .] theres a smell to the
station and I always think, if nostalgia could be put into a bottle, it would smell like this.
While only Martin said so expressly, it was clear that smell evoked nostalgic feelings in
all three interviewees. Moreover, the two who did not mention nostalgia mentioned the
word love with regard to the smell of railway stations. It is important to bear in mind
that the smell itself was not present during the interviews. It was just summoned up by
the interviewees in response to the images.

Objects
Both Mike and Julie made interesting points that are representative of railway stations:
Mike said:
I chose the clock just because you wouldnt get it anywhere else other than at a train station
you wouldnt find a clock like that at a bus station or an airport or anywhere like that. Its just,
someone has obviously been paid a fair bit to do that and its cost a lot to do that its not just
some shabby thing from Argos, is it? And, again, they stand out in stations.
Thus objects associated with nostalgia needed to have features that could be
associated with tradition and established-ness.
Julie said:
If I go to a railway station I still look around to see if there are people under big clocks with
the Times newspaper folded up under their arm or a carnation in their lapel I dont know if
that was all fiction, really, but so many times you read about people meeting under the clock
where they try and meet their other half.
Thus objects evoked both moments actually experienced and moments that were Image, place and
derived from films or other imagery and might never have been personally experienced nostalgia
at all.
Another response worth mentioning was to the question If I say railway station to
you, what does it make you think of?
This was the first question asked of all interviewees. The most popular response
related to stations they had seen in films and television programmes (which was 21
actually the second question asked):
Joanne said:
Railway Children film, it was an iconic film of its time, erm, because I remember seeing it too
many times and it just evokes a memory of what times gone by were like with steam trains.
Joanne is only 46, so this memory is not her own, but relates to images previously
obtained from another source. In fact it could be argued that her comments do not
constitute true nostalgia because the emotional attachment they show is to a time that
she never actually experienced. This is the point at which nostalgia merges into
escapism and fantasy. It shows how organic images may displace projected images
so that the two types merge into one another and coalesce.

Discussion of results
One of the interviewees, Martin, described nostalgia as the bittersweet memory of
happier times. This fits well with several of the concepts discussed in the introduction.
For instance it voluntarily echoes Baker and Kennedys (1994, p. 169) definition that
nostalgia is a sentimental or bittersweet yearning for an experience, product, or service
from the past. Despite being bittersweet this referred to happier times and hence was
a positive evocation. Aspects of escape, of a better place and time and of longing to
relive youth are all evident here. Overall the interviewees testimony shows how
strongly a sight, sound, smell or feeling can recall the past. It also demonstrates the
filtering effect of memory; in almost every case the past episode, object or person
recalled was pleasant. Thus nostalgia can clearly be a powerful element of brand image
formation, as the positive emotions it evokes are likely to cause approach behaviour,
i.e. positive searching and purchasing behaviour in consumers.

Reliving experiences
Joannes comments about death, time and impossibility of reliving ones youth are
discussed previously. All the memories in this category were perceived as bittersweet,
but in some cases the bitterness seemed strong enough to overpower the sweetness. In
such cases it is presumably wiser not to evoke the memory. For example Joanne was
clearly distressed as she recounted the memories of time spent with her father when she
was a child: they had had a falling out and he died before they could be reconciled.
However, this was to some extent an artefact of the research technique. Photo-elicitation
forces the informant to remember all aspects of the depicted scenario, and rather in the
way that deep sea trawling catches unwanted as well as wanted fish species, informants
may be obliged to confront unhappy aspect of their past. Ordinarily, one imagines they
would be able to avoid such memories by avoiding contact with known triggers.
Certainly, Joannes memories stand in stark contrast to those of Julie, for instance, who
had very positive recollections of going as a child to see her RAF father in Germany and
WHATT Holland. This result highlights the differences between individuals experience of
5,1 nostalgia and suggests that brand and advertising images should be very carefully
chosen to avoid producing negative feelings in consumers.

Coming of age
This element was much more noticeable and significant in the younger male interviewees
22 Mike and Simon, who expressed fondness for the events they recalled and regretted that
they could not behave like that now that they have spouses and children. Holbrook and
Schindler (1991, p. 332) note that people feel nostalgic emotions about critical periods in
their life, one of which they claim is around the age of 24. They claim that first-time or
life-changing moments experienced at this age are more likely to stay with individuals
through their lives. The present study suggests that the critical age may be a little
younger than that reported by Holbrook and Schindler, 1991, since the two respondents in
question remembered these key events from their early-to-late teens. At the time of
interviewing they were 30 and 34 respectively, so that the key age is actually much nearer
to their present age than it is for Julie and Martin, who are in their sixties and are likely,
therefore, to have had many experiences that they might consider more important than
those of their adolescence. It was noteworthy that Simon and Mike remembered these
events as just a few years ago, when in fact ten to 15 years had passed. The message for
branding and advertising seems to be that all ages are susceptible to nostalgia and that
images should aim to evoke events of consumers teens or early twenties.

Nostalgia evoked by smell

Odours are considered key triggers of nostalgia, but it was not possible in the present
study to present informants with odours. It was noteworthy therefore, that
photographs could elicit the memory of a smell, which in turn evoked powerful
memories. However, the smell that informants remembered or imagined did not seem
to remind them of any occasion in particular, rather they were talking about an
emotional backdrop that they associated with railways and locomotives. Smell was
not the true stimulant here; the interviewees imagined what the smell would have been
if they were in the place shown in the photographs. This demonstrates the
effectiveness of the photo-recall technique used in this study. It also suggests that
brand and advertising images should seek to tap into such emotional backdrops;
collections of sensations that are interlinked so that each one recalls others,
consolidating both the brand image and the resulting consumer satisfaction.

Other points
Coming of age was the strongest memory and the only identifiable nostalgic feeling
evoked for the younger interviewees, while the older interviewees tended to place
importance on many different times in their lives. This can be explained in that
younger people have fewer reference points so their opportunities to feel nostalgic are
fewer. The photo-elicited memories of older informants like Julie and Martin extended
from the age of four to the quite recent past, the distance of the event having no
apparent bearing on the strength of the memory. It is interesting that older individuals
were nostalgic about other times, both earlier and later, than Holbrook and Schindlers
critical age and indeed suggests that older people are more concerned with nostalgia,
and perceive nostalgia in a wider range of life events than younger people.
Pseudo-nostalgia and escapism Image, place and
Julies comments about people under big clocks with the Times newspaper folded up nostalgia
under their arm or a carnation in their lapel and Joannes allusion to The Railway
Children were made as if they were memories, but in fact they were produced by
organic stimuli However Joanne is 46, so the memories this film has evoked are not
her own. Stern (1992) argues that such comments reflect historical nostalgia; an
emotional attachment or a fondness for an imagined time represented in the media. 23
Such feelings can be considered pseudo-nostalgia, the kind of emotion summoned up
by films, television, theme parks, tourist attractions. This seems to contradict the
notion discussed earlier that nostalgia is personal, but another possible view is that
nostalgia is a part of a wider phenomenon including escapism and fantasy. It
underlines the difficulty involved in determining whether or not what is being
experienced by a person at a particular moment is actually nostalgia, but if nostalgia is
to be properly understood, for academic or business reasons, that determination should
be made.
Simon and Mike, who both have children, talked about times in the future which
their children and they themselves would enjoy. Simon has memories of going to
London with his parents, which he says he cannot quite pin down or feel nostalgic
about. In the future, he hopes to be able to look back on taking his own son to London,
presumably in a way that draws from, and reinforces, his own childhood experiences.
Clearly future nostalgia belongs with pseudo-nostalgia and the images of film and
TV fantasy. At the same time it is apparently possible to plan ones own nostalgia in
advance. Mike enjoys remembering his first time on a train so much that he thinks his
daughter will do so, too. Indeed it is quite possible that together they will construct the
experience as a positive one. He knows he cannot recapture his own first happy time
and his memory of it is bittersweet for that reason. If, as he imagines, his daughter will
feel exactly as he does himself, her feeling will be nostalgic. He is looking forward to
her being in a position where she will remember her first time (on a train) while he is
remembering her first time, too, because he was there. This may be future nostalgia
that Mike has, in effect, planned in advance, just like Simon.

Conclusions and recommendations

According to the literature, nostalgia includes four main sensory elements: decline or
loss of space or time; lost references and values; loss of individual freedom and
autonomy; and a loss of simplicity, authenticity and emotional spontaneity. Together
these feelings combine to produce a desire to escape from the modern world to another
time and place, sanitized by memory and therefore more attractive than the modern
world.
Four types of situation typically trigger nostalgia: reflection on the everyday past
(i.e. items that become old with the passage of time; reflection on reference points in
ones life cycle (e.g. ones marriage or children); encounters with tradition in for
instance ritual occasions and experiencing periods of transition. Nostalgia is believed
to relate most strongly to experiences consumers had when they were in their teens or
early twenties.
All of these aspects of nostalgia have been demonstrated in the present study. In
addition it has been shown that individuals experience of nostalgia is qualitatively
different and that, although older individuals seem to draw more freely and widely on
WHATT their experience to evoke nostalgic feelings, younger age groups are also susceptible to
5,1 nostalgia. Of special significance is the concept of pseudo-nostalgia which links
nostalgic feeling to other forms of escapism such as fantasy or day-dreaming and even
to future expectations. Indeed expectations seem to be interlinked with nostalgic
feeling, as they are with brand and advertising images.
This study has the following messages for those developing brands or advertising
24 materials. First, nostalgia is an extremely powerful way to communicate with
consumers of all ages. It offers a way not only to evoke a direct response to a visual
stimulus, but also to tap into an individuals trigger system, such that an image may
bring to mind a whole world of sounds and odours related to nostalgic perception.
Links with expectation mean that nostalgia is, potentially, also relevant to the service
quality/ service consumption cycle (Brogowicz et al., 1990). However, great care must
be taken with images chosen for branding and advertising, since what will produce a
positive effect in some individuals may be perceived negatively by others.

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Louise Hunt can be contacted at: louisehunt7889@hotmail.com

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