With the world continuing to be an unpredictable place, consumers are looking for brands and experiences that make them feel secure and good about themselves. And retailers are looking to place safe bets on tried and tested IPs. This is where evergreen and nostalgic brands can really benefit.
The nostalgia trend was given a boost by consumers rekindling childhood interests during the pandemic. The kidult market, where adults buy toys and games for themselves, has helped toy sales surge over the past few years, and continues to do so. This has been driven by collectibles and we’ve spoken about this trend previously here.
Nostalgia is also very prominent in content, especially with streamers looking for guaranteed hits from proven IPs. Disney is mining its library - with live action remakes of animated classics and new spin off shows in its Star Wars and Marvel universes. Peanuts is prominently placed on AppleTV, Barney the Dinosaur and Dora the Explorer are making come backs and Peacock has re-iminaged The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. In many instances original classic content itself is remaining a staple, from Friends to Bing Bang Theory and Avatar The Last Airbender, providing cozy viewing alternatives to the news cycle.
Some new shows have done well to tap into fandoms and nostalgia such as the 1980s an Dungeons & Dragons with Stranger Things, 1950s style and late 90s/early 00s video games with Fallout, and late 90s anime with One Piece. And this has then led on to great product sales for these brands. LEGO just announced a One Piece set is imminent and Fallout created a collection with Magic: The Gathering.
In just the past few months a third Gremlins film has been green lit - 35 years after the previous film released, a Goonies sequel/reboot, 40 years on since the original, and a potential Buffy the Vampire sequel series at Hulu, 20 years on since the show ended, have also been announced. The success of late-coming sequels such as Top Gun Maverick and Bettlejuice Beetlejuice has shown that, if done right, creating new content for ‘classic’ IPs can not only deliver at the box office but also generate additional revenue through licensing and promotions, with both of these films seeing big promotional and licensed product pushes, that saw original and new fans buy into the fun.
One film franchise doing this incredibly well is Jurassic Park. The original trilogy came out between 1993 and 2001, the follow up trilogy 2015-2022 and this year will see the first film in a proposed new trilogy. The franchise will carefully cater to a wide audience but will weave in nods and call backs to earlier films to pull at those nostalgic heartstrings to get original fans into theatres and sell products tied to the whole film series.
This nostalgic ‘trend’ has been around for a long time in licensed apparel, with 80s and 90s brands doing incredibly well. MTV t-shirts using the channel's iconic ident logos from the 80s and 90s seem to always be in store, as do band tees from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Bruce Springsteen and The Beach Boys, and brands like adidas, Fila and Ellesse are bringing back their classic 80s looks for the 2020s consumer. But nostalgia is growing in popularity in other categories as well, particularly toys and collectibles. Now kids of the 80s and 90s have ‘adult money’ they are buying products related to their favourite films and TV shows.
All of this offers huge opportunities to manufacturers in all categories to partner up with nostalgic and evergreen brands to speak to new consumers, help grow their business and gain listing at retailers.