Nostalgia and Its Powerful Effect on Products
Nostalgia: A sentimental longing or wistful affection for a period in the past.
As we all know, Pokémon Go came out about a week ago. I currently live in Amsterdam and this news didn’t break to me until Monday morning when I started reading my daily blogs; I could not escape articles about Pokémon Go. It is a phenomenon. I needed to find out what all the hype was about. Because I still use my US iTunes account in Amsterdam, I was able to download it and play here before others in The Netherlands.
I downloaded Pokémon Go at work and immediately started playing it around the office. Even after 5 minutes of playing, I was obsessed just like everyone else on the internet. I picked Charmander as my starting Pokémon (obviously) and was quickly reminded of playing the Gameboy game. There was no learning curve and I didn’t need any onboarding because of my familiarity with the Pokémon world. I was able dive in and just start playing. I was very excited about the game and turned to my colleagues to see if they felt the same way about it. Spoiler alert: they didn’t.
Without them wanting to know more, I proceeded to explain, more like ramble, how the game worked. It made sense to everyone but most people just didn’t understand why I was so excited and the hype around it all. I work at Booking.com and we are a very diverse company. In my team alone there is someone from Israel, Kenya, Russia, India, and Japan. After I explained how the game worked and one of my colleagues said, well isn’t that just like game X or game Y. He showed me the games he was talking about and I said “Well yeah I guess, but its not the same.” He was right, they were basically the same.
As the day went on, I tried to find other colleagues that were just as excited as I was about Pokémon Go. Instead of talking to my international colleagues, I thought, oh the Americans must be loving this game. I went up to one of my American colleagues that sits close to me and asked him, “So how many Pokémon have you caught already?” His response was that he didn’t understand all of the hype around the game. I was taken aback by his response. A fellow American isn’t excited about Pokémon. What is happening here?
I started to think why was this game an instant hit with me? I began to realize that it was the close connection that I’ve built with Pokémon over the past 15 years. Positive memories immediately resurfaced when I started playing the game and I was instantly obsessed. I remembered coming home from 4th grade and watching the Pokémon TV show while I ate Nesquik chocolate powder out of a cup. I have memories playing the Pokémon Gameboy game in the back of the car while on a family road trip to Florida. I recall buying packs on packs on packs of Pokémon trading cards and trading them with other kids at elementary school during recess on rainy days. Even in college we played a drinking game where you have to go around in a circle naming one of the 150 original Pokémon. The first one to repeat a Pokémon name or if you couldn’t come up with another name, you had to drink. Yes I did go to a pretty nerdy school, Georgia Tech, but we weren’t that nerdy. Because of all of these positive memories, I was instantly immersed in the game and couldn’t wait to see what new memories Pokémon Go would create.
This understanding got me thinking: some of the products and experiences that I love the most are rooted in a connection with past memories and feelings. From using an app like Timehop, to buying a ticket to a Backstreet Boys reunion tour, to reading an article from the Rewind section on Buzzfeed, to watching a 90s Nickelodeon cartoon on their dedicated timeblock called The Splat, to listening to a throwback playlist on Spotify. All of these products and experiences provoke positive memories from different points in my life. It’s like a little trip down memory lane.
Nostalgia awakens a positive memory, experience, or emotion. Because of it’s positive nature, nostalgia is powerful. People are drawn to using products that give them this feeling and they will want to share it.
As designers, if our products or experiences can evoke positive memories from our users’ past, we will be able to attract new users, keep them engaged, connect them with others that feel the same, encourage them to share their experience, and build a positive relationship with them. There are many products and experiences utilizing nostalgia currently:
- Facebook’s “On This Day” feature allows users to share old posts and photos with their friends. Google Photo’s has a similar feature.
- Clubs and bars are having dedicated throwback 90s nights
- The film and TV industry are rebooting films and shows from the past. For example, Hawaii Five-O or the new Ghostbusters.
- Diaries or photo albums are ways that people can reminisce about the ‘good ole days’
I hope that somewhere in this post, you felt the effects of nostalgia and thought about a positive memory or experience from your past. Use that as inspiration and figure out how will you evoke nostalgia into the products you design?
