Getting Nostalgic with Comfort Marketing; Macy’s Makes a Movie

Copyright 2012 The New York Times Company

Comfort Marketing...aka "using nostalgia to woo consumers during uncertain times" is one our fav topics, if only because the "times" have been particularly uncertain for a long time now, and specifically, for most of the past 10 years(!) that we've been blogging here.

If you are first time visitor, I'm a big fan of this type of advertising (go ahead, you can call it branding if you want), and the NY Times presumably piggybacked on our opining about this topic after they [coincidentally] ran on a piece on this very topic last January, immediately after we talked about it..

They're baaackkk! Courtesy of a great piece in today's NYT written by Stuart Elliott, Macy's is set to launch a TV ad campaign (and presumably, complemented by an online and a mobile-device compatible version) which "artfully co-mingles" Boy Bieber, Donald "You Can't Trump This!" Trump, Martha Stewart and Taylor Swift with clips of Edmund Gwenn aka Kris Kringle from the 1947 iconic film, "Miracle on 34th Street."

“The Macy’s campaign is indicative of a trend on Madison Avenue known as comfort marketing, using nostalgia to woo consumers during the uncertain economy. Other examples include revivals of familiar brand characters like Speedy Alka-Seltzer as well as campaigns that commemorate milestone anniversaries.”

For all of you marcom gurus and talking heads that have the attention of corporate sponsors, this is a strategy that always works well, if executed with creative thinking..