Conceptualizing and Measuring Nostalgia for Eras

Nostalgic advertisements transport consumers back to specific eras, like the 1990s or Roaring Twenties, yet existing scales and methods were not designed to study nostalgia for discrete time periods—that is, eras. Instead, existing scales were designed to measure nostalgia either for specific stimuli, such as an advertisement, or for the past in general. We help align research and practice in three ways. First, we reconceptualize nostalgia as a complex response frequently experienced while recalling basic-level categories of the past: eras. Second, drawing on qualitative analysis of existing scales, consumer narratives, media articles, and nostalgic advertisements, we define nostalgia as consisting of three dimensions: warmth, loss, and simplicity. Finally, we develop a scale that measures nostalgia for eras and helps answer practical questions about nostalgic marketing. Across five studies, we demonstrate the validity of this scale and show that it predicts which consumers will respond more favorably to nostalgic ads and cultural products that evoke a given era. This research empowers advertisers to elicit nostalgia more effectively and provides researchers a framework to investigate how consumers respond to these efforts.