Brands are reinterpreting the past to win over Generation Z

Can a company founded before its youngest consumers were even born suddenly become appealing to them too? The *Financial Times* posed this provocative question a few days ago whilst reporting on the new strategy of Yahoo, an icon of the early Internet era, founded in 1994 and committed to achieving something seemingly impossible: transforming over thirty years of digital history into a competitive advantage in the age of artificial intelligence. Indeed, the new CEO, Jim Lanzone, has decided to sign up the American rapper and performer Cardi B – one of the most recognisable figures in pop culture and a Grammy winner – making her the star of Yahoo Mail’s new campaign for Planner, an AI-powered assistant. Ah, the eternal youth of the internet: after all, the tech giant has decided to rejuvenate itself by appealing to new audiences. ‘There’s something inherently trustworthy about being the original in this industry. We were the first, and we want to look out there again,’ said Lanzone. A strategy that transforms history from potential dead weight into a lever for repositioning.

This is not an isolated case. According to the international study “Then is now” carried out by Vevo, a global music video network, 65 per cent of Generation Z say they feel nostalgic for eras they have never experienced, and one in three young people even claim to feel as though they were born into the wrong generation. The survey involved 1,800 consumers across the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. Thus, other people’s past becomes one’s own emotional memory. YouGov notes that for 65 per cent of American Zoomers, the 1990s represent a trendy era. And nostalgia can even affect one’s wallet: under controlled conditions, Generation Z is willing to pay for access to old brands. In short, this is far more than just a trip down memory lane: the past can generate economic value in the present.

But how can they feel nostalgic for something they’ve never experienced? To the rescue comes a study published just a few days ago in the *Journal of Consumer Marketing* with a rather telling title: “But you weren’t there!”, or “But you didn’t even live through that era!”. Complete with an exclamation mark – an anomaly even for the savviest of researchers. In short: there is a generation under 30 that is re-evaluating eras predating their own personal memories. At stake is ‘historical nostalgia’, that is, nostalgia for past experiences. Through qualitative interviews with young people aged between 18 and 24, the study shows that aesthetics and representations of the past can generate emotional attachment, idealisation and consumer behaviour even in those who did not experience that past. This is well understood by premium brands which, rather than desperately chasing youth, have decided to celebrate their own wrinkles. This is why we talk about the heritage economy.

“For decades, being a tech giant of the past was almost a death sentence: the internet favoured the new, the disruptive, the start-up that replaced the incumbent. Now, technological saturation and the quest for authenticity are turning that perspective on its head,” writes Daniel Thomas, also in the Financial Times. The past is once again becoming a competitive asset, but on one condition: it cannot simply be rehashed. Because the brands that come out on top are those that decide to remix it: they take recognisable codes and transform them into contemporary languages. Digital technologies make it possible to preserve and recreate the past, bringing elements together in a temporal short-circuit: brands become both old and new at the same time. This is the ‘forever young’ effect. In this way, established brands win over the very young and capture new market segments. Reuters explains how they are doing this by combining heritage with innovation. By 2030, Generation Z could account for around 25 per cent of global luxury spending. So much for scrapping the past. In the economy of eternal youth, memories become assets, transforming into competitive capital. Thus, in the economy of nostalgia, an archive can be worth as much as an innovation lab. A formula that unites generations: what is a memory for parents can become a discovery for Gen Zers.

There are a myriad of new marketing campaigns in the pipeline. First and foremost, we’re seeing the return of the pioneers. Polaroid has transformed what seemed like a limitation – namely, analogue photography – into a new experience for a generation that has grown up surrounded by screens: in an Out-of-Home campaign, the single, imperfect snapshot becomes almost revolutionary.