I'd like to take the last section of this module on learning and memory, to focus on one particular aspect of memory that's quite interesting and really quite powerful from a marketing perspective. And that is the power of nostalgia. So in this section, we're going to focus on the idea that products help us to retrieve memories from our past. And this can be a very potent way to market what you sell. This focus on the past is a strategy that is often called not to surprisingly, nostalgia, marketing. And essentially, as the name implies, it focuses on our tendency to look at the past that is, past errors of our lives.

Through rose colored glasses, we tend to remember certain areas very fondly, and so the feelings that get elicited when we think about these past times, often are very positive. And that's why marketers often find it helpful to attach their brands to these prior memories in order to bathe themselves in the warm glow of nostalgia. So we see many nostalgia based campaigns by one estimate about 10% of all marketing campaigns reflect some aspect of nostalgia. For example, Pepsi recently launched its throwback campaign. It sells Pepsi throwback, Mountain Dew throwback, and Doritos taco flavored chips in authentic packages from the past. hostess brought back its 1970s characters Twinkie the kid, Captain cupcake, King, Ding Dong, and happy Whoa, whoa, to adorn its snack packages.

I slightly different twist. That is other than just bringing back a product that literally was sold in the past is to come out with what marketers call a retro brand. And this means an updated version of a brand from a prior historical period. Retro brands inspire consumers to think back to an era when, at least in our memories, life was more stable, simple, or even utopian. Simple takeaway here, does your brand have any retro appeal? If you've been around for a while, there probably are warm memories associated with your products from an earlier era.

So if you're lucky enough to actually have that retro appeal, use it. In one study, people who were asked to think about the past, were willing to pay more for products than those who were asked to think about new or future members. Another study created what the researchers called a nostalgia index. And this measures the critical ages during which our preferences are likely to form and endure over time. So, the researchers found that for different product categories, there are very specific ages where memories tend to imprint on us very, very strong. So for example, a good predictor of whether a person will like a specific song is how old she was when that song was popular.

And you might be interested to know that on average, were most likely to favor songs that were popular when we were exactly 23 and a half years old. The researchers reported similar findings for movie stars. And in this case, they reported that we tend to like movie stars the most who were popular when we were 26. Six years old.