Nostalgic Consumption: Does It Also Work for Services?

Abstract

Nostalgic cues can be identified in many areas of consumption (Cui 2015) such as nostalgic brands of toys and cars (Barnes 2008), as well as in advertising (Reisenwitz et al. 2004; Muehling and Sprott 2004). The decision to use nostalgic cues relies on the assumption that nostalgic symbols induce nostalgic memories, which in turn evoke positive (sometimes negative) emotions in consumers (Wildschut et al. 2006). These responses are expected to influence consumer behavior in the marketplace (Chebat and Michon 2003; Cui 2015). Most of the studies on nostalgia have been conducted in the context of marketing, and specifically product advertising (Muehling and Sprott 2004). The issue of whether and how nostalgic cues actually work in the context of services remains largely unknown. In this work, we present a set of five experiments aimed at studying differences between goods and services in terms of the impact of nostalgic cues on customers.