Nostalgia can drive sales. Sometimes, all it takes for a retailer to get a customer’s attention is to bring back a classic brand name, even if it’s in a new style.
“Nostalgia-focused promotions had a 75% success rate, compared to purely price or value-based promotions that only had a 57% success rate”, Circana Senior Vice President David Portalatin said during a session of Go2MarketEdge, the Food Way from Home Association shared.
Leveraging familiar brand names can significantly increase consumer interest and purchase intent.
“We are seeing very broadly across the consumer landscape [that] anything nostalgia-driven is creating a lot of demand,” he added.
That consumer behavior is rooted in a deeper psychological driver.
“Memory empowers people, and in select markets, such as the food and drink industry, a significant amount of consumers enjoy things that remind them of their past, making nostalgia, or the sentimental longing for the good times of an idealized past, a strong selling point,” according to a Mintel report.
ALSO READ: Discontinued Mountain Dew flavor returns exclusively at Walmart
As a consumer who has covered retail for 30 years, I’m not immune to nostalgia marketing. I’ve purchased Count Chocula, mostly because I wasn’t allowed to have it as a kid, and am at least tempted when I see Coca-Cola bring back flavors such as Cherry Coke.
Walmart has never been shy about using nostalgia. Now, its new partnership leverages Nerds candy, an iconic treat from the 1980s and 90s, to create a new treat.
Walmart adds a new Nerds snack
Mother’s Cookies shared the details of the new Walmart exclusive on its Instagram page.
“Introducing our NEW ultimate cookie candy mashup: Mother’s x @nerdscandy Sweet & Tangy Frosted Cookies! Nostalgic frosted animal cookies + bold rainbow NERDS crunch = a colorful, sweet & tangy experience. Unleash Your Senses and find them at select @Walmart locations in June,” the company posted.
And while Nerds might be the nostalgia-driver for Generation X shoppers, Baby Boomers might actually be drawn by the cookie company.
“Mother’s Cookies has been delighting fans with its cookies for well over a century. In fact, its sprinkled pink-and-white iced Circus Animal cookies can still be found gracing school cafeteria trays, vending machines, gas stations, and office kitchens all across the nation —proving that people of all ages enjoy animal crackers,” according to All Recipes.
Technomic analysts say consumers are increasingly gravitating toward familiar, comfort-driven food choices as economic pressure persists, a trend operators are responding to with nostalgia-driven menu innovation.
“Legacy brands are living large. We’ve seen consumers embrace nostalgia for brands like McDonaldland, Toyota, Nintendo and Polaroid, for example, and Technomic data shows that nostalgia-driven marketing can boost purchase intent,” Restaurant Business reported.
Mother’s Cookies has a deep history
Mother’s Cookies actually predates the 1962 founding of Walmart by nearly 40 years.
Mother’s Cookies has been in business since 1914. The cookie brand, once one of the largest in the United States, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2008.
“The company that made Mother’s cookies at the end was the Archway & Mother’s Cake and Cookie Co. of Battle Creek, Mich. It was owned by Catterton Partners, a private-equity firm in Greenwich, Conn., which in 2005 purchased it from an Italian firm, Parmalat Finanziaria, which was plagued by scandals at home,” SFGate reported.
Kellogg bought the brand after its bankruptcy and sold it to The Ferrero Group in 2019 along with its entire cookie, fruit and fruit-flavored snack, ice cream cone, and pie crust businesses in a $1.3 billion transaction, according to a press release.
Related: Forget chicken fingers, Costco quietly adds new food court item
