Teaching Old Brands New Tricks: Retro Branding and the Revival of Brand Meaning

2003/07/01 by Stephen Brown, Robert V. Kozinets, John F. Sherry · 132 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Advertising #Aesthetics #Antinomy #Arcadia #Art #Brand management #Business #Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification #Element (criminal law) #Epistemology #Law #Literature #Meaning (existential) #Media, Gender, and Advertising #Nostalgia and Consumer Behavior #Philosophy #Political science #Revels #Sociology

paper · doi:10.1509/jmkg.67.3.19.18657

published in Journal of Marketing 67(3), 19-33 (SAGE Publishing)

openalex publication_date 2003/07/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/11

Abstract

Retro brands are relaunched historical brands with updated features. The authors conduct a “netnographic” analysis of two prominent retro brands, the Volkswagen New Beetle and Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace, that reveals the importance of Allegory (brand story), Aura (brand essence), Arcadia (idealized community), and Antinomy (brand paradox). Retro brand meanings are predicated on a utopian communal element and an enlivening paradoxical essence. Retro brand management involves an uneasy, cocreative, and occasionally clamorous alliance between producers and consumers.

Citations

• The Field behind the Screen: Using Netnography for Marketing Research in Online Communities
• Conceptualizing, Measuring, and Managing Customer-Based Brand Equity
• Hedonic Consumption: Emerging Concepts, Methods and Propositions

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• BRAND: Brand recognition and attitude norms database. [europepmc]
• Overview of the brand journey and opportunities for future studies [europepmc]

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