‘Spooky’ AI tool brings dead 💀 relatives’ photos 🖼️ to life

Like the animated paintings that adorn the walls of Harry Potter’s school 🏫, a new online tool promises to bring portraits of dead💀 relatives to life, stirring debate about the use of technology to impersonate people. Genealogy company MyHeritage launched its “Deep Nostalgia” feature earlier last two week, allowing users to turn stills into short videos showing the person in the photograph smiling 😊, winking 😉 and nodding.

What is Nostalgia Marketing?

Brands from all industries are experimenting with nostalgia marketing - tapping into positive cultural memories 💭 from previous decades, designed to drive 🚗 energy to modern campaigns. As the years go by, we all develop a certain degree of nostalgia for our younger days. Aligning marketing strategies with emotion has already proven to be successful, but tapping into fond memories can be an invaluable tactic, especially for engaging millennials. 

In a an experiment conducted for a study shows that designing products and promotions that elicit feelings of nostalgia in perspective customer should encourage them to buy 🛒 and spend 💸 more. The experiments specifically examined how nostalgia evoked a feeling of connectedness and community, probably because of childhood memories linked to friends and family. In another experiment, subjects displayed a willingness to give money 💰 to others when reflecting upon a past event in their lives.

The key 🔑 to nostalgic marketing is in understanding what motivates your audience, thinking about how they were raised and where their deepest emotional receptors truly lie. A little research goes a long way, and by looking into the generational breakdown of your customers, you can much more easily learn what might make each of them tick ✔️

Why does it work so well with millennials?

Reliving positive memories and beloved icons from the past feels good 👍. When we feel or care for something, we are much more likely to act. Share a compelling blast from the past with a millennial, and you are likely to reach them on an emotional level - the holy grail of brand marketing.

In an age of impersonal digital media, building social connectedness through nostalgia is an easy way for companies to leverage the optimistic feelings that often accompany walks down memory lane. Associating brand messaging 💬 with positive references from the 90s, 80s - and even the 70s - humanises brands, forging meaningful connections between the past and present.

Why should you create an emotional hook?

While nostalgia-centric tactics clearly have some important benefits to contribute to marketing in the 21st century, they are not without risk. Brands who rush into employing retro strategies without placing the modern world 🌍 in context may be seen as out of touch - or worse, irrelevant. The key 🔑 is to create an emotional hook using nostalgia while also offering something new. Nostalgia-centric marketing succeeds when brands keep a finger 👆 on the pulse of modern culture, listen 👂 to what people are talking 🗣️ about, and plug 🔌 into those ideas 💡 to create new marketing campaigns.

Here are some ways to create a winning emotional hook via the nostalgic marketing strategy 👇

🗝️ Pay attention 🧐 to the finer details - those nuances that will really strike a chord 🎶 with your customers. This could be anything from a backdrop to an accent.

🗝️ Mix it up a bit - use nostalgia within your social media posts - maybe make nostalgic posts part of your regular content, like #tbt.

🗝️ Do some research and find out what makes your audience feel something special. Look at dates 📆 in history or even your own timeline.

🗝️ Go through the archives and dig out those old photos 🖼️ and film clips – marketing gold 💛 dust!

🗝️ Maybe look at how your own brand has evolved over the years? It’s a fun 🥳 project to do for the business.

Looking ahead

After years of desperately trying to understand the millennial audience, marketers may have finally stumbled onto something that works. It is hard to miss what is clearly shaping up to be one of the most exciting trends in the field of modern marketing. Done well, nostalgia marketing strikes a chord with millennials that other tactics just do not. The best campaigns are timely and relevant but must also be authentic with a strong 💪 emotional hook to capture the heart ❤️.

So, what do you think about nostalgia marketing?

References:
Umberto Bacchi, 01 Mar 2021, The Star
Aubrielle Billig, Dec 31, 2018, Small Business Trends
Kate Everett, twi