The power of reflection: an empirical examination of nostalgia advertising effects.

Perhaps it is no coincidence that at a time when Americans are becoming increasingly uncertain and anxious about the future, many marketers and advertisers are encouraging them to "return to their pasts." Nostalgia--an individual's "longing for the past, a yearning for yesterday" (Holbrook 1993)-is

a prominent theme underlying many of the marketing and advertising strategies of today (Cosgrove and Sheridan 2002; Ironson 1999; Lundegaard 2002; Poniewozik 2002; Naughton and Vlasic 1998; White 2002). Witness, for example, the popularity of oldies television channels such as TV Land and Nick at Nite; the reintroduction of the Cooper Mini automobile by BMW; the abundance of advertisements featuring characters, styles, and scenes from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s; and the resurgence of 1980s television icons such as Mr. T. and ALF as product spokespeople.

With the rise of nostalgia in popular culture, marketing research attention has been garnered with a focus to define, categorize, and/or measure the construct in an effort to understand more fully how it influences consumer behavior (e.g., Baker and Kennedy 1994; Havlena and Holak 1991; Pascal, Sprott, and Muehling 2002; Rindfleisch and Sprott 2000). Among these efforts have been a small number of studies examining nostalgia's influence within an advertising context. For the most part, however, simple assumptions that have been offered in this literature--for example, that advertisements containing visual or verbal nostalgic cues are capable of evoking nostalgic thoughts in individuals, that these thoughts will be salient and positively valenced, and that the downstream effects of such ad exposures (vis-a-vis exposure to non-nostalgic ads) will yield more favorable consumer responses--have yet to be empirically validated. The current study was designed to address this empirical research void.

Specifically, this investigation examines the following research questions:

1. Are advertisements, indeed, capable of prompting "nostalgic reflections" (i.e., the generation of nostalgia-related thoughts) in consumers?

2. If so, what is the nature of these thoughts? Are they prominent (relative to other ad-evoked thoughts)? Are they most likely to be elicited early in a stream of thoughts? Are they generally positively valenced?

3. What differential advantage may accrue from the use of nostalgic ads? For example, will nostalgic ads yield more favorable evaluations of the advertisement and/or advertised brand than will ads containing no such nostalgic referents?

While the managerial relevance of such an investigation is obvious (i.e., to test the relative efficacy of nostalgic ads), the findings of this study have theoretical significance as well, for they contribute to our growing understanding of how processes and factors related to nostalgia may influence consumer judgments.

NOSTALGIA: A BRIEF BACKGROUND

Although its origins can be traced as far back as the mid-seventeenth century (i.e., Hofer's 1688 "Medical Dissertation on Nostalgia," a psychological explanation for "homesickness"), nostalgia has also become a topic of increased research interest within the marketing academic community. More than just a passing research fad, nostalgia has been implicated in a variety of behavioral research contexts, including self-concept (Belk 1990, 1991; Davis 1979), brand loyalty (Olsen 1995), brand meaning (Brown, Kozinets, and Sherry 2003), the human senses (Hirsch 1992), consumption preferences (Holbrook 1993; Holbrook and Schindler 1991, 1994, 1996), literary criticism (Stern 1992), collective memory (Meyers 2001), and emotions (Holak and Havlena 1992, 1998), and has been touted in numerous business/trade publications as a highly effective and persuasive marketing/ advertising tactic (see, e.g., Naughton and Vlasic 1998).

Defined by Holbrook and Schindler (1991), nostalgia is generally considered to be "a preference (general liking, positive attitude, or favorable affect) toward objects (people, places, or things) that were more common (popular, fashionable, or widely circulated) when one was younger (in early adulthood, in adolescence, in childhood, or even before birth)" (p. 330). Stern (1992) and others (e.g., Havlena and Holak 1991) have clarified this conceptualization by proposing that nostalgic thoughts may be generated from either a personally remembered past (personal nostalgia) or from a time in history before one was born (historical/communal nostalgia).

Although most views of nostalgia stress the construct's affective and emotional underpinnings, it is evident that memory processes (i.e., thought processing and retrieval) are also relevant in understanding its effects (e.g., Belk 1990). It should be noted, however, that nostalgia is distinct from autobiographical memory, that is, memories about the self and events in one's life (also referred to as episodic or personal memory; Baumgartner, Sujan, and Bettman 1992). In particular, the nature of affect or emotion associated with nostalgia is distinct in that it is often viewed as an idealized recollection of the past, manifested as a distinctive and often bittersweet association with a past to which we can never return (Baker and Kennedy 1994; Havlena and Holak 1991; Hirsch 1992; Holak and Havlena 1992). In addition, nostalgia may be associated with vicariously experienced events (i.e., historical nostalgia), which, by definition, are not contained in autobiographical memories.

As might be expected, the emergent body of literature on nostalgia has offered a number of propositions and findings regarding the nature of the nostalgic experience. Among these are that nostalgic thoughts may be evoked by a number of different sources, including music, movies, family members, and special events (Holak and Havlena 1992); nostalgia is capable of eliciting a variety of emotional responses, including warmth, joy, gratitude, affection, and innocence, mixed with bittersweet emotions such as sadness and a sense of loss (Holak and Havlena 1998); individuals' nostalgic memories tend to be selective and generally positive, that is, they are filtered through "rose-colored glasses" (Belk 1990, 1991; Havlena and Holak 1991; Holak and Havlena 1992; Stern 1992); some individuals may be more prone to nostalgic impulses than others (Holbrook 1993); and the possession of objects deemed nostalgic by an individual may serve to help define his or her own sense of self (Belk 1991; Davis 1979). Despite the insights gained as a result of past research efforts, surprisingly little attention has been devoted to empirically examining nostalgia within an advertising context. With the exception of a handful of studies, the effects of nostalgic advertising on consumer responses and the mechanisms by which nostalgia may influence consumer decision making have gone largely untested.

Initial empirical research indicates that nostalgic themes are used in advertising. In particular, a content analysis of television advertisements conducted by Unger, McConocha, and Faier (1991) identified seven dimensions of advertising that have nostalgia-evoking qualities, with "period-oriented symbols" and "period-oriented music" being the most prevalent. (Other dimensions included references to past family experiences, the olden days, old brands, and patriotism.) Ads for food and beverages were more likely than other product categories to contain nostalgic elements. Early research has also documented that responses to nostalgic-themed advertisements are distinct from generalized affect. In an exploratory study, Baker and Kennedy (1994) exposed 86 college students to a nostalgia-themed print ad and found that the feelings of nostalgia evoked by the ad (measured by Likert-scaled items) could be separated from general positive affect toward the ad. In another study, Neeb, Faier, and Unger (1989) tested the communication effectiveness of nostalgic and non-nostalgic radio commercials. Their findings provided some support for the notion that nostalgic-themed ads may produce greater recall and preference for the ad. More recently, Pascal, Sprott, and Muehling (2002) examined individuals' responses to nostalgic print ads, and observed a positive relationship between ad-evoked nostalgia (measured by a 10-item Likert scale) and attitudes toward the ad ([A.sub.ad]), brand attitudes ([A.sub.b]), and purchase intentions (PI), with A d mediating the effects of nostalgia on [A.sub.b] and PI. Thought protocols were not collected, however, thereby making any prediction of the thought processes undertaken by consumers during ad exposure speculative. In addition, non-nostalgic ads were not employed as a comparison point, leaving open to interpretation questions regarding how consumers may differentially process nostalgic and non-nostalgic ads.

The current study was designed to extend past nostalgia research efforts by using a commonly accepted method of examining individuals' thought processes, that is, thought verbalizations (Wright 1980) at the time of ad exposure. These insights, along with data obtained from attitudinal measures, should provide a better understanding of the thought-generating and affective mechanisms underlying consumers' reactions to nostalgia-themed advertisements.

HYPOTHESES

The literature often associates nostalgia with the evocation of complex emotional (feeling) responses (Baker and Kennedy 1994; Belk 1991; Davis 1979; Holak and Havlena 1998; Holbrook and Schindler 1991), and makes the assumption that nostalgic thoughts are generally positive (filtering out thoughts that are unpleasant to maintain or serving to enhance individuals' self-identities) (Belk 1990; Davis 1979; Stern 1992). As an advertising strategy, we might assume, then, that ads containing a nostalgic cue where retrieval of pleasant rather than unpleasant memories/associations is encouraged (hereafter, referred to as nostalgic advertisements), are more likely to generate positively valenced feelings than would ads devoid of such a nostalgic referent (hereafter, referred to as non-nostalgic advertisements). Unger, McConocha, and Faier (1991) have identified such a possibility when they suggested that nostalgic ads may create an emotional response that enhances consumers' receptivity to an ad.

In addition, Havlena and Holak (1991) have suggested that through the use of ad executional elements (music, jingles, visual images), advertisers may be capable of explicitly encouraging "nostalgic reflection" (i.e., retrieval of memories of past times). Related research has shown that advertisements encouraging retrieval of autobiographical memories evoke more thoughts about those experiences, higher levels of net positive affect, and fewer thoughts about the advertised product's features than advertisements not encouraging such memory retrieval (Sujan, Bettman, and Baumgartner 1993). Given the self-referencing nature of nostalgic responses, that is, their connection or association with an individual's real or idealized past (Belk 1990; Holak and Havlena 1992), one might expect ads containing nostalgic cues to be capable of evoking a more salient group of these responses than would non-nostalgic ads. The literature on memory accessibility, for instance, suggests that salient thoughts (i.e., those thoughts most instrumental in affecting consumers' responses to stimuli) should be more easily retrieved and produced in greater quantity than would less salient thoughts (Bettman 1979; Craik and Lockhart 1972; Wright 1980). However, this focus on the nostalgic elements of an ad may come at a cost--acting as a distractor, such that fewer brand-/message-based thoughts would be elicited during exposure to a nostalgic ad (cf. Sujan, Bettman, and Baumgartner 1993). In light of these findings, we hypothesize:

H1: As compared with a similar, though non-nostalgic, advertisement, a nostalgic advertisement will generate at the time of ad exposure:

(a) a greater number of nostalgic thoughts as well as a greater proportion of nostalgic thoughts to total thoughts, and

(b) a more positively valenced set of these thoughts, but

(c) fewer brand-/message-related thoughts.

Consistent with affect transfer models of persuasion (MacKenzie, Lutz, and Belch 1986; Zajonc 1980), the affect generated at the time of ad exposure is expected to have a significant impact on consumer evaluations. The advertising literature provides considerable support for the relationship between ad-evoked emotional responses (feelings) and consumers' attitudes toward the ad (Aaker, Stayman, and Hagerty 1986; Batra and Ray 1986; Machleit and Wilson 1988; Stayman and Aaker 1988) and brand attitudes (Edell and Burke 1987; Holbrook and O'Shaughnessy 1984; Mitchell 1986; Ray and Batra 1983). Given the proposed positive nature of nostalgic thoughts, the second hypothesis is posited:

H2: As compared with a similar, though non-nostalgic, advertisement, a nostalgic advertisement will produce:

(a) more favorable attitudes toward the ad, and

(b) more favorable attitudes toward the advertised brand.

METHOD

Research Participants

One hundred fifty-nine undergraduate students (53.5 % male, 46.5% female), ranging in age from 18 to 35 (M = 21.4), participated in the study.

Experimental Design and Procedures

Study participants (in groups of 4 to 10) were randomly assigned to one of two experimental ad treatment conditions: nostalgic (n = 79) versus non-nostalgic (n = 80). Subsequent analysis of the sample indicated there were no demographic differences across treatment conditions on age ([t.sub.157] = 1.37, p = .17) or gender ([[chi square].sub.1] = .005, p = .94) dimensions.

Participants were involved in several unrelated data collections at the same time, thereby reducing their ability to guess the intent of any individual study. For the present research, individuals were handed a packet of materials containing an instruction sheet, a color print advertisement, and a survey. Participants were given the same ad treatment as others in their assigned lab group, to eliminate the possibility of individuals in the room being exposed inadvertently to ads from the other treatment condition and to reduce the likelihood that participants would be able to guess the intent of the study. After a brief orientation session, participants were instructed to view the ad and complete the survey at their own pace. The survey included items placed in the following order: a thought elicitation and evaluation exercise, attitudinal measures, manipulation check items, and demographics. It is important to note that the first exercise participants were asked to complete after exposure to the ads was the thought elicitation exercise, which made no mention whatsoever of nostalgia or nostalgia-related notions. Relatedly, participants were exposed to the manipulation-check (nostalgia) items only after the dependent measures ([A.sub.ad] and [A.sub.b]) were collected, again to reduce the likelihood of any potential contaminating effect.

Stimuli

To isolate specifically the effects of nostalgic themes in an advertising context, several test ads (for brands of toothpaste, bicycles, shampoos, telephone services, DVD players, and a clothing retailer) were created and pretested for inclusion in the main study. The ad stimuli ultimately used (fictitious ads for Kodak brand film) were selected due to their significant mean differences on a seven-point (nostalgic/not nostalgic) manipulation-check measure ([t.sub.21] = 2.17, p < .05) and because the means were appropriately above ([M.sub.nostalgic] = 4.83) and below ([M.sub.non-nostalgic] = 3.54) the scale midpoint. Furthermore, the ads were deemed desirable because they featured a product associated in the literature with an outcome (photographs) linked to nostalgia (Holak and Havlena 1992). The ads (shown in Appendices A and B) were comparable in visual format, color, illustration, length of ad copy, description of product features, and placement of brand logo, but differed in several important ways. Nostalgic cues replaced comparable, though non-nostalgic, cues in the headline ("Re-live" versus "Capture" the Moment), in the date inserted below the dominant picture ("August 28, 1985" versus "August 28, 2001"), in several statements placed in the ad copy (e.g., "It was a time like no other.... Remember?" versus "A moment just like this.... A stop in the action"), and in the tag line ("And, Kodak was there" versus "And, Kodak is there"). It is important to note that references to product features (versatility, DX-coding, appropriateness in a wide range of conditions, etc.) were held constant in the ad treatments.

Measures: Thought Protocols

In the main study, research participants were asked to list (in separate boxes on the survey instrument) all thoughts that came to mind as they viewed the ads. Consistent with the literature (Wright 1980), participants were then instructed to evaluate these thoughts as either positively, negatively, or neutrally valenced by placing a "+," "-," or "0" next to each thought they listed.

Thought coding was conducted by two trained judges (Ph.D. students) who worked independently and were blind to the treatment conditions. Upon completion of training, judges practiced on a subset of thoughts, and then commenced with formal coding. The judges were provided with detailed definitions of the primary categories (similar to those used by Sujan, Bettman, and Baumgartner 1993). Each thought received one of the following codes: brand-/message-related ("Kodak makes high-quality film"), ad execution-related ("The picture in the ad seemed rather dark"), nostalgia-related ("Brings back childhood memories"), or miscellaneous ("I like Autumn"). Interjudge reliability (as indicated by Perreault and Leigh's [I.sub.r] [1989]) for the four thought categories was .76, with disagreements resolved by discussion between the two judges.

Simple counts (e.g., the number of nostalgia-related thoughts), ratios (e.g., the number of nostalgia-related thoughts to total thoughts), and valenced indices (e.g., the number of positive nostalgia-related thoughts minus the number of negative nostalgia-related thoughts) were used to test the first set of hypotheses.

Measures: Attitudes

Standard measures of brand attitude ([A.sub.b]) and attitude toward the ad ([A.sub.ad]) were used to assess responses to the advertisements. Cronbach's [alpha] for the four-item [A.sub.b] index (good/bad, like/dislike, favorable/unfavorable, valuable/worthless) was .90, and was .95 for the four-item [A.sub.ad] index (good/bad, favorable/unfavorable, positive/negative, pleasant/unpleasant).

Measures: Manipulation Check

In the main study, a 7-point, 10-item, Likert-scaled index of "evoked nostalgia" (adapted from Pascal, Sprott, and Muehling 2002) was used to further test the viability of the nostalgia/ non-nostalgia ad manipulation (Cronbach's [alpha] = .96). Sample items from the scale included: "The ad ... reminds me of the past," "helps me recall pleasant memories," and "makes me think about when I was younger."

RESULTS

Manipulation Check

Results of the manipulation check (using participants from the main study) justified the use of our ad stimuli. Similar to earlier pretest results, research participants in the main study perceived the nostalgic ad to be more nostalgia-evoking (M = 5.40) than did individuals exposed to the non-nostalgic ad (M = 4.94; [t.sub.157] = 2.06, p < .05).

Hypotheses 1a, 1b, and 1c

Consistent with our expectations (H1a), the nostalgic ad evoked a greater number of nostalgia-related thoughts (M = 2.84) than did the non-nostalgic ad (M = .56; [t.sub.157] = 8.07, p < .001). In addition, the proportion of nostalgia-related thoughts to total thoughts was greater in the nostalgic ad condition (M = .43) than in the non-nostalgic condition (M = .09; [t.sub.157] = 8.12, p < .001). These differences between ad treatments, however, were not reflected in the total number of all thoughts generated. On average, participants exposed to the nostalgic ad produced approximately the same number of thoughts (M = 6.77) as did individuals exposed to the non-nostalgic ad (M = 6.35; [t.sub.157] = 1.16, p > .10), suggesting that nostalgic ads may prompt a certain type of thought production, as opposed to simply prompting more thoughts in general to be produced. A sampling of nostalgic thoughts from the nostalgic ad condition (noted in Table 1) further illuminates the nature of thoughts generated by the nostalgic advertisement. As can be seen, thoughts were varied, and ranged from simple references to the past (e.g., the "good old days") to more elaborate and detailed nostalgic references to people, places, and/or experiences from the past (e.g., "I remember my own friends from the neighborhood").

Regarding the net valence of the nostalgic thoughts, our expectations (H1b) were supported in that the nostalgic ad condition yielded a more positively valenced index of nostalgic thoughts (M = + 2.28) than did the non-nostalgic ad condition (M = +.53; [t.sub.157] = 6.93,p < .001). This finding emerged even though the nostalgic ad produced significantly more negative nostalgia-related thoughts (M = .11; [t.sub.157] = 2.42, p < .01) and positive nostalgia-related thoughts (M = 2.39; [t.sub.157] = 7.32, p < .001) than did the non-nostalgic ad (M = .01, negative thoughts; M = .54, positive thoughts).

Contrary to our expectation (H1c), the number of brand-/ message-related (product) thoughts generated during ad exposure was not significantly different between treatment groups. Individuals who viewed the nostalgia-themed ad produced no fewer brand/message thoughts (M = .75) than did individuals who were exposed to a similar, though non-nostalgic, ad (M = .56; [t.sub.157] = 1.20,p > .10). Moreover, the valenced index of brand/message thoughts was not significantly different between ad treatments (M = +.33, nostalgia condition; M = +.26, non-nostalgia condition; [t.sub.157] = .57, p > . 10).

Figures 1 and 2 provide a graphical representation of participants' thought processes during ad exposure. In addition, Table 2 provides a sampling of the nature and sequencing of thoughts observed for participants across the two ad treatment conditions. As indicated in Figure 1, nostalgia-related thoughts were the predominant thought for individuals in the nostalgic ad condition (especially the first three thoughts elicited in the sequence of thoughts), whereas thoughts related to ad execution and miscellaneous thoughts were more prevalent in the stream of thoughts of individuals in the non-nostalgic ad condition. The most salient thoughts among those thoughts elicited by respondents exposed to a nostalgic ad were ones that made a connection (often a personal connection) to something from the past. Beginning with the first thought that came to mind, participants produced a greater proportion of nostalgia-related thoughts to total thoughts when exposed to the nostalgic ad than when exposed to the non-nostalgic ad (see Figure 2). This difference in proportions was significant throughout the ninth thought (95% of all thoughts) in the sequence of thoughts (all z values > 1.65, p < .05), thus providing some indication of the salience of these nostalgic thoughts.

[FIGURE 1-2 OMITTED]

Hypotheses 2a and 2b

Considering the downstream effects of individuals' thought processes, our findings supported the notion that respondents' attitudes toward the ad ([A.sub.ad]) and advertised brand ([A.sub.b]) would be differentially affected by the ad treatment condition. Individuals who were exposed to the nostalgic ad held more favorable ad attitudes (M = 5.68; [t.sub.157] = 1.82,p < .05) and more favorable brand attitudes (M = 5.91; [t.sub.157] = 2.14, p < .05) than did individuals exposed to the non-nostalgic ad (M = 5.29 and M = 5.58, for [A.sub.ad] and [A.sub.b], respectively). In addition, follow-up analyses regarding the potential moderating effects of age or gender on individuals' brand and ad attitudes yielded no significant interaction results ([p.sub.Aad] > .38, [p.sub.Ab] > .59, for the gender x ad treatment interactions; [p.sub.Aad] > .36, [p.sub.Ab] > .09, for the age x ad treatment interactions).

DISCUSSION

Though exploratory in nature, the current research provides useful insights into consumers' thought processes and attitudinal responses to nostalgia-themed advertising (a summary of the hypotheses and results is provided in Table 3). In particular, evidence was provided that indicated an advertisement with a nostalgic theme (as compared with a nearly identical ad without nostalgic cues) is capable of prompting nostalgic reflections in consumers. Moreover, process evidence indicates that nostalgic reflections were the predominant type of thought evoked and maintained throughout the stream of thoughts elicited during ad exposure. These findings, when considered in light of consumers' information-processing tendencies, suggest that nostalgic cues in an advertisement may enhance the production and concomitant rehearsal of self-referencing, nostalgic thoughts (or "personal connections," Krugman 1967), and thus may influence mental-processing activity when attitudes are formed or retrieved (e.g., Greenwald 1968). Consistent with this notion is our finding that exposure to a nostalgic ad (as compared with a similar, though non-nostalgic, ad) yielded more favorable attitudes toward the advertisement and advertised brand. In general, these findings support the relatively widespread use of nostalgia in advertising and marketing campaigns, and are consistent with the growing body of research literature regarding nostalgia's influence on consumer responses to advertising. Three results of the current research, however, deserve particular attention from academic researchers investigating the effects of nostalgia and/or firms employing (or desiring to employ) nostalgia in their advertising campaigns.

First, our results indicate that thoughts evoked by nostalgic advertisements are not always positive. In particular, the nostalgic advertisement generated significantly more positive and negative thoughts than the non-nostalgic ad. This finding corresponds with the view of nostalgia as a bittersweet emotion (Baker and Kennedy 1994; Havlena and Holak 1991; Hirsch 1992; Holak and Havlena 1992), such that consumers may strongly desire to return to their pasts, but realize that this cannot occur. Although results of the current study suggest that negatively valenced nostalgic thoughts appear to have no damaging effect on attitudinal responses to the ad, managers may wish to consider this aspect of nostalgia when designing promotional materials.

For obvious reasons, advertisers typically develop nostalgic ads while keeping an eye toward the positive aspects of nostalgia. Only future research can tell for sure, but there might be certain advantages for advertisers to consider negative aspects of nostalgia as well. For example, the influence of nostalgia may be enhanced by reminding consumers that the nostalgia represented in the advertisement is not attainable. When faced with such a situation, consumers may have a more favorable response to the product by transferring their unfulfilled desire to return to the past to a desire for the product. Of course, caution must be exercised in such matters, since there may be a point at which negative aspects of nostalgia (such as when someone gets "homesick") may have a deleterious effect on outcome variables. It would seem reasonable to assume, for example, that psychological reactance (Clee and Wicklund 1980; Festinger and Maccoby 1964) may be one undesirable outcome when someone feels sufficiently restricted from "reliving" his or her past.

A second issue worthy of further consideration relates to brand-/message-related thoughts generated while viewing a nostalgic ad. Research by Sujan, Bettman, and Baumgartner (1993) suggests that advertisements encouraging the retrieval of autobiographical memories may make product-related thoughts less accessible, as compared with ads not encouraging such memory retrieval. Assuming that a similar pattern of effects emerges regarding nostalgia, there may be serious costs associated with the use of nostalgic cues in advertising, namely, decreased access to product information. Our study, however, does not support such a process since the number of brand-/message-related thoughts was not significantly different between experimental conditions. These results thereby call into question the notion that the evocation of nostalgic thoughts may somehow interfere with the production of product-/message-based thoughts--those thoughts expected to have a significant influence in shaping consumer brand perceptions. It is interesting to note that further examination of the nostalgic thoughts in our study revealed very few instances where individuals made a direct link between nostalgia and the advertised brand or product. Most nostalgic thoughts were references to friends, neighborhoods, and memories of days gone by, rather than how the use of the advertised product may help them relive a nostalgic moment. Such a finding (with appropriate caveats associated with the advertised product used in the study) reinforces the notion that affect transfer rather than a more cognitively based processing of ad elements may be driving consumer brand attitudes in nostalgic ad conditions.

Third, preliminary evidence from our study suggests that a nostalgic theme may not significantly influence the incidence of support arguments (i.e., positively valenced brand/ message-related thoughts) or counterarguments (i.e., negatively valenced brand-/message-related thoughts). First, the net valence of the brand-/message-related thought index was no more positive (or negative) in the nostalgia ad condition than in the non-nostalgia condition. Relatedly, the number of positive brand-/message-related thoughts was similar across treatment conditions ([t.sub.157] = .72, p > .10), as was the incidence of negative brand-/message-related thoughts ([t.sub.157] = .27, p > .10). These findings suggest that if the advertiser's primary objective is to have consumers ponder the benefits of using an advertised product (e.g., critically evaluating the central message of the ad), nostalgic cues would appear to provide little if any additional value in this regard. As such, it may be difficult for advertisers to create higher message-response involvement (Batra and Ray 1983) by simply introducing a nostalgic theme in their advertisements--even when the product (as in our study) can be associated readily with outcomes (photographs) consistent with nostalgia.

The current research provides a clear starting point for additional research on the use of nostalgia in advertising. In addition to the areas outlined above, there are a number of other worthy directions for future research. As with any single study, generalizability is of concern. As such, future research may wish to replicate the current study in different product contexts (e.g., products without an inherent nostalgic component), with fictitious (as opposed to existing) brand names, and with different (i.e., nonstudent) populations. Although we found no evidence to suggest that the use of a well-known brand name (Kodak) may have influenced the results of our study (in that there were very few references in the thought protocols tying Kodak to a nostalgic theme in either ad treatment condition), the potential for a confounding effect should not be overlooked.

In addition, more research is clearly warranted on the processes by which nostalgia influences consumer brand perceptions and behaviors. Moderators such as nostalgia proneness (Holbrook 1993) and involvement (Muehling, Laczniak, and Andrews 1993) may be worthy starting points for such work. The continued use of thought protocols also seems warranted as an effective tool in understanding the complex relationships between nostalgia-based self-referencing thoughts and their linkages to product use (Belk 1991), the formation and/ or modification of consumer brand identities (Aaker 1996), and in understanding the efficacy of employing nostalgia advertising strategies in low-involvement learning conditions (Ray 1973).

As demonstrated by Holbrook and Schindler (1989, 1991, 1994, 1996), consumers have strong preferences for aesthetic products (such as movies and music) associated with their youth (preferring products that existed at the time when consumers were in their early to mid-twenties). Such stable, time-dated preferences suggest an opportunity for marketers who are able to target specific age segments; specifically, it should prove beneficial for marketers to target segments of similarly-aged consumers by making reference to things these consumers personally experienced when they were younger. Research by Krishnamurthy and Sujan (1999) suggest some caution with such an approach, given their findings that individuals viewing ads in the context of their pasts (as opposed to their futures) had less favorable ad evaluations. Moreover, retrospective self-referencing of ads that are discordant with expectations (i.e., ads that don't "ring true" with one's own past) are likely to result in less favorable ad and brand evaluations. Such findings would suggest avoiding the use of "personal" nostalgia (Stern 1992), with preference given to strategies evoking "historical" nostalgia. Of course, only future research can provide guidance on the relative benefits and costs of personal versus historic nostalgia.

Finally, research by Holbrook and Schindler (1989, 1991, 1994, 1996) suggests further examination of the moderating effects of age and nostalgia. Unfortunately, our data precluded us from determining whether a more mature audience would have been similarly affected by the nostalgic cues embedded in the test advertisements. However, given the challenges faced in developing appropriate ad stimuli designed to isolate the effects of nostalgia-based advertising themes, we felt justified in tapping from a more narrow range of participant ages (i.e., college students) in this preliminary investigation, rather than incorporating participants who represent a much broader age range (and a potentially diverse set of experiences). An empirically testable question is whether nostalgia is a relative concept that varies depending on the age of research participants. For example, the use of a sample representing a wider range of ages would be helpful in empirically verifying Davis's (1979) and others' contention that nostalgia is especially salient m one passes through various stations in life.

While marketers, advertisers, and scholars have devoted considerable attention to the use and study of consumption-related nostalgia, research within the context of advertising is perhaps best described as nascent. The present research provides a needed contribution to this area by demonstrating the nature of thoughts associated with nostalgia-based advertising and by providing causal evidence that nostalgia-themed ads (as compared with non-nostalgic ads) result in more favorable evaluations of an advertisement and an advertised brand. Although further research is certainly warranted, the results of our study offer preliminary support for the notion that causing consumers to "yearn for yesterday" may be an effective strategy to get them to "yearn for advertisers' goods" as well.

APPENDIX A

Nostalgic Ad

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

APPENDIX B

Non-Nostalgic Ad

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

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The authors, who contributed equally to this manuscript, thank Ronn Smith and David Wallace for help with the coding of thought protocols, as well as the three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.

Darrel D. Muehling (Ph.D., University of Nebraska) is a professor of marketing, Washington State University, College of Business and Economics.

David E. Sprott (Ph.D., University of South Carolina) is an associate professor of marketing, Washington State University, College of Business and Economics.