Bias Binge #5 - Those were the days

Rosy retrospection refers to the psychological phenomenon of people sometimes judging the past disproportionately more positively than they judge the present. 

Now I had briefly covered the need and impact of nostalgia in my post during the early days of COVID-19 and the lockdown. Do have a read for more on the subject.

For the Bias Binge series I am going to stick to the format where I showcase how communication and advertising has leveraged this bias.

My first example is that of Microsoft. This campaign was an attempt to capture the attention of the tech-savvy millennials. The brand did that by reminding the viewers of the early relationship with Microsoft in the good old days. Take a look at the ad before I get into how it did.

As you may have noticed the ad is leveraging rosy retrospection to win over a skeptical Millennial audinece. Playing on their childhood nostalgia started new dialogue with Gen-Y through the tagline You grew up, so did we and inviting them to the BrowserYouLovedToHate.com website. 

The campaign was very successful in shifting consumer perception and leading to an 18% increase in Microsoft’s brand power index. The spot garnered 7 million views within its first week, and ranked #3 in Adweek’s Top 10 Most Watched Ads on YouTube in 2013.

Now let's take a look at another ad. Nintendo here doesn't use the bias as directly as Microsoft but nonethless is based on the same emotion.

I can think of an example much closer home when on the subject of Nintendo. While we have stocked the home with board games from Monopoly to Cluedo and Trivial Pursuits. We actually got that feel of yester years when the experience shifted to the Nintendo. Be it a good family quiz game or ruling the world in Risk it surely hits a special spot because of the rosy retrospection. Don't even get me started on the option of playing Super Mario in 2D even as the newer versions offer you a whole new world to indulge in.