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The Fleecing of the Alternative Nation
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace:
The Most Important Financial Journalist of Her Generation
Dean Starkman
DrugReporter:
The Supreme Court Resists Drug War Hysteria
Krystal Quinlan
Environment:
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Sarah van Gelder
Health and Wellness:
10 Dangerous Household Products You Should Never Use Again
Immigration:
Huron, California May not Exist in a Year
Viji Sundaram
Media and Technology:
Michael Jackson's Death Was Tragic, But He Was Little More Than an Icon of Mediocrity
Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez
Movie Mix:
Up: This Time, Pixar Has Gone Too Far
Eileen Jones
Politics:
Hunter Thompson Knew It Well: Robert McNamara's Vision for America Was Imperial and Elitist
Joe Costello
Reproductive Justice and Gender:
My First Abortion Party
Byard Duncan
Rights and Liberties:
Why the FBI Squelched an Investigation of a Post-9/11 Meeting Between White Supremacist and Islamic Extremists
Mark Levine
Sex and Relationships:
Why the Left Looks Like a Big Hypocrite in the Sanford Affair
JoAnn Wypijewski
Take Action:
Ending Indefinite Detention is AlterNet's Top Take Action Campaign of the Week
Byard Duncan
Water:
Energy Industry Threatens Water Quality, Sways Congress With Misleading Data
Abrahm Lustgarten
World:
Robert McNamara Was Never Really in Touch with His Role in Causing Atrocity in Vietnam
Andrew Lam
What, in the name of all that is good about America, were Mary Lou Retton, Mr. T, George Hamilton, and Loni Anderson doing on my television in a commercial for something called Sizzle & Stir?
This is where it all began: the questions, the searching, the gnawing doubts. It was bad enough when John Travolta's career lurched back into zombie reanimation, but watching Mr. T hawk a packaged dinner mix just brought the terrible truth of it all home:
My childhood was becoming marketing fodder.
Sweat-Shopping to the Oldies |
Not old enough to have a memory associated with hippie culture? No problem. The commercial, with a soundtrack, a few strokes of atmosphere and a minuscule story line, creates what Douglas Coupland termed "legislated nostalgia" -- defined by online dictionary Word Spy as "nostalgic images or ideas presented in such a way that even people who weren't yet born seem to 'remember' that time."
Nostalgia marketing and legislated nostalgia are such potent marketing techniques that they're being used by everyone from politicians to McDonald's with increasing frequency. The tactic is especially effective during difficult economic or socially stressful times. After all, as Business Week noted in a cover story about "The Nostalgia Boom," "Social experts say much of the appeal of nostalgia stems from a longing for a return to simpler times."
Well, as third-graders everywhere would say, "Duh." Nostalgia marketing isn't exactly subtle. It tugs at the basest emotional nerve center: happy memories of childhood. It's no surprise that images of '50s and '60s culture worked on the Baby Boomers: they're a sentimental generation, anyway. Generations X and Y, on the other hand, are supposedly so disinterested, disaffected and hard to pin down that the only label suitable for us is a nonlabel. We're used to advertising's games. We're pop-culturally world-weary. Nostalgia couldn't possibly work on us, right?
Wrong, says Peter Johnson, strategic account manager at 3 Marketeers Advertising in San Jose. And you don't have to look very far for proof: "I would only go to the very popular television programming on some of the music channels; one, for example, being I Love the '80s ," Johnson says. "I haven't seen the Nielsens, but I know that show is incredibly popular with people our age [Gen-Xers]."
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| More News and Analysis: | ||
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Huron, California May not Exist in a Year Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace: The unemployment rate in Huron in recent months is “off the charts.” By Viji Sundaram, New America Media. July 9, 2009. |
Energy Industry Threatens Water Quality, Sways Congress With Misleading Data Water: The industry is misleading the public into a false choice between the economy and the environment. By Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica. July 9, 2009. |
Summer Downsizing: 31 Ways to Jumpstart Your Local Economy Environment: Here's how to make more with less, put people before profits and cut down on waste. By Sarah van Gelder, YES! Magazine. July 9, 2009. |