How nostalgia in advertising increases brand love: a cross-country study

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the extent to which nostalgic advertising can foster brand love. It examines the effects of two common forms of nostalgia in advertising—i.e. personal and historical nostalgia—on consumers’ love towards a brand in both a developed (the UK) and a developing country (India). Design/methodology/approach: A pretest-posttest quasi-experimental study was conducted with two representative samples of consumers (i.e. 277 British and 255 Indian). Respondents were randomly exposed to one ad evoking either personal or historical nostalgia, or a non-nostalgic ad. Findings: The results indicate that the use of nostalgia in advertising increases brand love in both countries. However, the effectiveness of each type of nostalgia varies depending on the country considered. In the UK, personal nostalgia increases brand love more than historical nostalgia, whereas, in India, historical nostalgia was found to be more significantly related to brand love than personal nostalgia. Practical implications: The primary implication for marketers is to consider nostalgic advertising as a critical lever to building longer-term value for a brand (i.e. brand love) whilst being mindful of the country-specific differences regarding how such a lever should be executed to achieve effectiveness be effective. Originality: The paper contributes to the advancement of the brand love literature by clarifying whether, and under what circumstances, the use of specific types of nostalgia in advertising increases consumers’ love towards a brand.