Heritage marketing – nostalgia or a resourceful state?

Marks & Spencer Penny Bazaar Ad. Click Here.

How many of us have noticed some of the recent advertising & marketing by companies such as Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury & Hovis aiming to capitalise on pedigree and a bit of nostalgia?

I was in Marks & Spencer this week and they have produced some products from the 50s and 60s that seem to re-create those halcyon post-war years of  being carefree, money was better than during the war and there was food aplenty.  It whipped up in me comforting feelings of safety with new fashions, new, exciting foods from other countries and new possibilities. Constancy yet change.

And of course this is the whole idea.  It probably reminds us as well that even if we think things are bad at the moment, well, we’ve been there before and we’ll get through it and there will be more good times.  Essentially, they are creating a resourceful state for us to be in, to access their advertising messages.  And if the feedback is to be believed, then they are succeeding.

So, for those of us trained in NLP, simply go back to a time in the past when you felt really great & confident and bring back all those memories; see those sights, hear those sounds and feel those feelings of feeling great and confident.  Stay in that place and turn up all these modalities – the richness and the volume of the sounds, the colour & vividness of the sights and the warm & vibrant feelings of feeling great & confident.  Now anchor them to you, holding together the middle finger and thumb of your right hand.  Continue to turn up the intensity and richness of all those sights, sounds and feelings of greatness & confidence with our fingers touching tight and then release.  Practice makes possible, so do that as often as you can to embed it in your neurology.

And when you next find yourself in a situation that you want to feel great & confident again, use that anchor, the finger & thumb and recall those feelings.

Yes, heritage advertising is anchoring us to the resources of Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury.  Take a leaf out of their book and use heritage, nostalgia & our past experiences & succeses to create a resourceful state for you to use in the future.

The future is bright.  The future is orange (another anchor)!  Happy shopping.