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
Psychology · Social Sciences · Business, Management and Accounting · #Nostalgia and Consumer Behavior #Media, Gender, and Advertising #Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification

paper · doi:10.1509/jmkg.67.3.19.18657

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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