Do you remember the taste of your favorite ice cream from your childhood? melodies of the old Nokia telefona or the smell of grandma's kitchen?
If your answer is yes - you are not alone. And brands know it well and they use it to make you buy more of them.
It is "a feeling of pleasure and sadness when we think about things that happened in the past", it says in the Cambridge University Dictionary.
"Nostalgia is no longer just a feeling that takes us back to the past, but a powerful marketing tool that encourages consumers to reach for their wallets," Voislav Bijelac, a brand marketing expert, tells BBC Serbian.
This marketing strategy gives a human face to the brand and allows the customer to identify with the product brand, even before buying or trying it, he adds.
Buying emotions
Nostalgia works by taking us back to a happier and simpler time, or at least to the version of the past we want to remember, Sunčica Jergović, a director and film theorist, tells BBC Serbian.
It is not a historical memory, but an emotional and melancholic one, she explains.
Recalling memories reduces stress and loneliness, increases feelings of connection, and makes us more likely to We buy on impulse., the study shows.
"When brands use nostalgia, they're not just selling a product - they're selling an emotion, a sense of security and belonging."
"This is why more and more companies are turning to retro design, the return of old products, and advertisements that remind consumers of their childhood," adds Jergović.
A cookie with a little girl, a candy with three cream-brown layers, milk with a cow drawn on it, pots with dots like grandma's enamelware, a chocolate-covered brother and sister - for many people from the Balkans, these descriptions bring back images from their childhood and send them to the first store.
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Returning the past to the shelves
It's the same around the world - famous food and beverage brands have repeatedly brought back the old designs of cans, bottles, and packaging.
Nostalgia sells both clothing and shoes.
Fashion houses again they make sneakers from the 1990s, but also entire collections from certain eras.
A few years ago, BSTN, one of the leading sporting goods retailers in Germany, in collaboration with the world-famous brand Adidas, created a limited edition of sneakers with the Jugoplastika logo, to commemorate the success Split basketball club.
Some retro products, like the flip phone, which was an absolute hit two decades ago, are now became fashion accessories.
Brands often offer consumers products from the past, changing some details or designing products to resemble a specific period, it says in work Nostalgic consumer trends and nostalgia marketing.
They use and motifs, slogans and jingles in advertisements, as well as images, films and music from earlier times.
Younger generations are more likely to drive today's nostalgic trends, latest research shows GVI Zeitgeist-a, a platform that deals with market trends.
Those born in the 1990s would rather think about the past than the future, the same research shows.
"What arouses nostalgia for one generation may be a complete unknown to another," says Voislav Bijelac.
For older people, landlines will make them smile, while younger people don't even know how to use them, so the brand needs to know exactly who it is addressing, he adds.
Popular culture and advertising
A snowy cabin with Santa Claus, a house where a gathered family sits in the dining room waiting for lunch, music from the middle of the last century - commercials try to remind us of the past and togetherness.
"People long for togetherness and emotional validation, so these kinds of images often attract them and have marketing power, like images of a mother, a meal, a large family," says Jergović.
Nostalgia plays an important role in the search for the ideal ancestor, director Saša Radojević tells BBC Serbian.
Nostalgia is used to create "an imagined community rooted in the past."
"Popular culture is of key importance for this purpose, because it is through it that we communicate with the broadest segment of the population that shares the same mentality, language, customs, and values."
"Because popular media and advertising foster the principle that historical order and the actual passage of time are irrelevant, nostalgia is a regular building block," he explains.
Watch a video about collector Las and his rotary phones
What is digital nostalgia?
From TikTok trends that imitate old computer programs, to Instagram filters that resemble footage from old handheld cameras - the internet seems to be fascinated by the past.
In a rapidly changing world, more and more young people are turning to the slower, "grainier" internet of the past.
But why are we so attracted to poor resolution and slower internet?
It's about digital nostalgia, scientists believe.
"Today, there are more and more applications that offer the ability to convert new digital photos and video content into old ones (with the help of various filters), the topic of streaming film and series content is increasingly placed in some earlier era, which has not bypassed the video game industry," the paper writes. Digital nostalgia - a marketing strategy for turning the new into the old Mladen Milić and Radoslav Baltezarović.
Nostalgic marketing is closely linked to social networks, they write.
Watch this video: Master Rajko and his amazing collection of wooden landline phones
Instagram and similar apps offer a whole set of nostalgic elements for photos - from sepia tones, retro fonts, and Polaroid frames.
All this did not bypass nor the video game industry, no matter how quickly technology advances.
"Consumers who once enjoyed the virtual world of video games as young people can now 'relive' the feelings of old times, albeit in a new way and mostly surrounded by younger generations, who also enjoy such achievements, only their motives are different, but still very strong," they conclude.
Today, we no longer wait ten years for something to become "nostalgic," adds Bijelac.
"It only takes a few months for us to see trends from the beginning of the year as time gone by."
"The past used to be far away. Today it's just a few scrolls away," he explains.
Movie remakes evoke bittersweet emotions
Almost nine decades after the first full-length animated Disney film about the girl poisoned by the apple, audiences are being treated to a new version. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Although it is an action film adaptation of a fairy tale, the basic motifs remain the same - the evil stepmother, the prince, and the poisonous fruit.
It's similar with the numerous remakes of the horror film about Nosferatu - a vampire who becomes obsessed with a married woman.
"Remakes of some of these films affect feelings of nostalgia and make us fondly recall past events."
"People generally experience it as a mildly positive, bittersweet emotion," He said formerly Wijnand Van Tilburg, professor of psychology and expert on nostalgia at the University of Essex.
Nostalgia helps us feel more connected to others who have the same experiences as us, Van Tilburg concludes.
How far can nostalgia go?
However, excessive use of nostalgia can also have the opposite effect, say marketing analysts.
When brands offer nothing new except sentimental value, consumers quickly become jaded.
"When large corporations try to force nostalgia, the result is often the opposite: the effect seems artificial and distances the customer instead of bringing them closer," warns Bijelac.
"The most successful products are not just copies of the old ones, but a combination of nostalgia and modern design or technology," he adds.
Whether it's the return of old brands, movie remakes, or retro fashion, one thing is for sure - nostalgia has become serious business.
And as long as people want to relive the good times from the past, companies will be happy to offer them a ticket for that trip, concludes Bijelac.
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