A Call for Intergenerational Marketing

2020 was truly the year of nostalgia marketing, as we sought comfort and escape to a time before lockdown and relentless Zoom calls. And no cultural era saw the biggest nostalgia boost than the ’90s. 2020 marked major anniversaries of seminal cultural cornerstones from the era, from albums by Oasis, Tupac, Mariah Carey, and Alanis Morissette to Windows 95 to the 25th anniversary of the iconic film Clueless. 

When it comes to ’90s nostalgia, we can divide generations into different camps: Gen Z likely have no distinct cultural memories of the ’90s; younger millennials were children or young teens in the ’90s; and Gen X built the ’90s. And yet, as our SVP & Principal of Strategy and Culture Nic Allum notes, Gen X is usually left out of the current ’90s discourse, an erasure that’s a little more than ironic.

In her recent piece for Media Post, Nic shared her thoughts behind this erasure and the latest wave of nostalgia marketing and how brands (and invididuals) can move away from generational marketing towards intergenerational marketing. Doing so would give Gen X their due and help unpack the culture for other generations to create something wholly new, blending the past with the present for creative cross-pollination.

 Read her full download in MediaPost here.

Considering the way culture alludes to and references the past, the communities that can be built between Gens X, Y, and Z wouldn’t just revolve around information sharing — they’ll build the culture of the future. Brands who enable those conversations will be key culture makers, right at the center of the zeitgeist as it’s being created. 

With love, 

New Moon