Emotional Advertising around Christmas

Brands like M&M’s, Hershey’s, Pampers, and Campbell’s Soup are profiting off of nostalgia and memories from everyone’s past. During the holiday months from November to January, these brands re-release decades-old commercials from the 80’s and 90’s to television screens across America.
Why would these brands use commercials made with old technology and aged camera work to represent their brand? Emotional Advertising. Examples of these commercials are the Hershey’s Kisses Bells, M&M’s Santa Clause, Pampers Satellite, and the Campbell’s Snowman.  The marketing teams for all of these companies realized that tapping into the past could bring up good feelings in potential customers to make potential profit. A quote from a Forbes Leadership article claims,
“Emotion and nostalgia are consistent themes throughout some of the best holiday ads…”
The appeal to tap into the holiday spirit can actually be explained with science. When the average person experiences the emotion “nostalgia,” it has been developed by
“Stockpiling information into the brain [in a] critical structure called the hippocampus. Without it, we would be blank slates with no past.This region of the brain is highly connected to the emotional region of the brain, the amygdala…[these] two structures work together and combine information from the different senses. Consequently, an experience becomes intertwined with feelings.” quote from BrainDecoder.com.
These feelings and behaviours that associate good times with brands is a valuable connection to the companies that own them, and they enjoy exploiting this behaviour for profits.
When someone wants to buy holiday candy, they reach for a bag of Hershey’s Kisses and hum the memorable “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” jingle as they put in their cart. If a family is purchasing their groceries with soup and diapers on the list, they may be more inclined to buy Campbell’s or Pampers instead of other brands. Retail sales across America increases by 15 percent every year during the third and fourth quarters, and emotional advertising is the red herring used for big profits during the holiday season.