Nostalgia for Eras scale aims to predict which past sells
University of Arizona researchers created a tool to measure which eras make audiences feel nostalgic, with tests in ads and film trailers.
By Priya Raghavan · Science Reporter
3 min read
University of Arizona researchers have developed the Nostalgia for Eras scale, a marketing tool meant to identify which periods of the past specific audiences respond to most strongly. The work could help advertisers, studios and brand managers choose period settings more carefully when they use nostalgia to shape consumer attitudes, according to the university.
Caleb Warren, a marketing professor and Robert A. Eckert Endowed Chair at the university’s Eller College of Management, created the scale with Matthew Farmer, a former University of Arizona doctoral student who is now an assistant professor of marketing at Utah Valley University. Their study was published in the Journal of Advertising.
The researchers focused on a common problem in nostalgia-based marketing: a brand may spend heavily to evoke the past, including in high-profile settings such as Super Bowl commercials, while choosing an era that does not match the audience it wants to reach. Warren said marketers often assume people are most nostalgic for their teens or early adulthood, but the study found that assumption can miss how people actually attach meaning to different periods.
What is the Nostalgia for Eras scale?
The Nostalgia for Eras scale is a research measure designed to assess how strongly a person feels nostalgia for a particular period, such as a decade or a personal stage of life. According to Warren and Farmer, nostalgia for an era includes warm memories, a sense that the time is gone, and a belief that life then seemed easier or more carefree.
To build the measure, the researchers reviewed consumer essays, prior academic work, news coverage and more than 200 advertisements, according to the University of Arizona. That review led them to treat nostalgia as more than a general fondness for the past or a reaction to one event.
Warren said people can feel drawn to collective eras, such as the 1950s, the 1980s or the Old West, as well as to personal periods. He said that makes audience research more useful than assuming a target group will respond to the years when its members were young adults.
In one part of the research, hundreds of participants identified the decade they felt most nostalgic about, according to the university. Less than half selected their formative years, which Warren said shows that life experiences outside youth can become the strongest nostalgic reference point for some consumers.
How did the researchers test the scale?
Warren and Farmer tested whether the scale could forecast responses to marketing by studying people who reported nostalgia for the 1990s. Those participants viewed both current and period-specific eBay advertising, and the researchers found that the older-style ad led them to view the brand more favorably, according to the University of Arizona.
The same 1990s-themed material did not have that effect among people who favored other decades, the university said. The researchers also reported that the scale predicted which movie trailers different audiences preferred to watch based on their nostalgic leanings.
Warren said the findings could apply to producers planning period pieces for defined audiences, including global viewers or Baby Boomers. His view, as described by the university, is that content makers can use the scale to test which era their audience associates with the strongest feelings before deciding what period to portray.
The study, “Conceptualizing and Measuring Nostalgia for Eras,” was authored by Matthew Farmer and Caleb Warren and carries the DOI 10.1080/00913367.2026.2686662.
This story draws on original reporting from Phys.org.