How nostalgia can offer clarity in an overstimulated industry

When I think about creativity in advertising from the ’90s and 2000s, I think about the context we were in as much as the content itself. 

In approaching their work, creatives didn’t have to dilute a concept or endlessly adapt it for a multitude of formats and devices. They didn’t have to respond to trends coursing through social media five minutes ago. A strong idea could properly incubate, stand on its own, and have the ability to be seen and stick around without all the noise and urgency to move on.

For those that are old enough to remember it as consumers, we’re missing a simpler time and simpler, deeper, and more patient forms. 

Today, the task for creatives is obviously much more complex. Campaign ideas are shoehorned into a barrage of platforms, each with its own subsets, tendencies, and half-lives that have to be addressed. Finding the common denomination of ideas that effectively fit all of these categories is incredibly challenging. So if creativity in advertising has been putting up lower numbers in cutting through the zeitgeist and yielding true, widespread cultural phenomena, it isn’t because of a lack of talent but a constant splintering of focus.

Today, the task for creatives is obviously much more complex, as campaign ideas are shoehorned into a barrage of platforms. 

Indeed, the transformation of marketing and advertising into a data-driven reach-you-anywhere-and-everywhere apparatus for brands has largely constrained creative freedom. But I suspect, as our consumption has stabilised around a few social media platforms and non-linear programming (hopefully for a while), we’re realising how exhausted we all are by the gatling gun of modern marketing. For those that are old enough to remember it as consumers, we’re missing a simpler time and simpler, deeper, and more patient forms. 

As our consumption has stabilised around a few social media platforms and non-linear programming (hopefully for a while), we’re realising how exhausted we all are by the gatling gun of modern marketing. 

I’m talking about a time when effective engagement began with the idea and spread outwards, as opposed to beginning with a spread of platforms and fitting an idea into all of them, and everyone was in on the trend. And for creatives, this may be the moment when the need to do deeply thoughtful work for its own sake returns, when the strength (not the flexibility) of ideas is what matters.

Above: Gap's Everyone In campaign had no copy, no call to action. It went viral before “viral” was even a word. Everyone remembered it.

Enter “retro.” My definition of “retro” is anything that conjures a universal sense memory for an audience or consumer base. Whether a piece of music, a typeface, a graphic, or a film grain, if you feel nostalgic for it - and most importantly if it effectively makes you want to stay in that feeling - it’s retro. I find the interesting thing about retro content and style is that the same piece of material that feels “dated” or “cliche” or “campy” in one cultural moment can suddenly feel current and relevant and cool in another. Why is that? 

 Today, we’re fractured into our own silos of preferences and self-curated content.

Again, the context matters as much as the content itself. I’d venture to say the thing many of us are missing in this moment is when there was a unified culture, when even if we disagreed on what was good and bad, cool and not cool, we were at least all commenting on the same, limited number of things. Today, we’re fractured into our own silos of preferences and self-curated content. In the modern world, we can all listen to different music, watch different shows, follow different influencers, and have very little overlap with each other in what we consume. A lot of what is considered “retro” right now are simply things that nearly all of us can recognise, which has somehow become rarified in this world.