Nostalgia in Product Design - Essay Example

Nostalgia in Product Design: Introduction Nostalgia is the feeling of longing for an idealized past. This emotion is often elicited as a method of motivating people to buy products. As a marketing technique, the use of nostalgic iconography is often implemented in product design. Some of the more striking examples are the new Dodge Challenger, retro clothing trends, and even revived food items. Like the Dodge Challenger, some new products approximate styles in antiquated iterations of a product line, but in other cases, such as clothing, new product design is a matter of reintroducing industry trends from previous fads.

Think modern 1970s chic. In still other product designs, like food, the maker simply reintroduces a product or product line into the market using the original formula wholesale. This was particularly evident in the mid-1990s with the reintroduction of nostalgic gum. Sometimes, companies reinvent products as a method of keeping the product line alive. In the event a new product formulation does not do well in the marketplace, companies sometimes reissue the previous iteration in a classic form.

Perhaps the most memorable example of such practice is that of New Coke and Coke Classic. New Coke was not received well by the marketplace, and Coke-a-Cola enthusiasts worldwide clamored for the original Coke formula. As a result, Coke-a-Cola reissued the original Coke-a-Cola formula under the Coke Classic package. It is helpful for delineate the methods of reimplementation of previous product design to apply in product development. Here, we present examples of nostalgic influence on product design.