Bringing You the Best of the 80s, 90s and Today!

I was trying to decide what stage in my life I was nostalgic about, and I had almost settled on when I was about 14, but then I started to youtube nostalgia and found the below video. So the 90s it is, with great TV like Banana Man and Penny Crayon, brilliant music from The Spice Girls and Will Smith, and not least of all, the amazing fashion sense and hair. This is my own trip down memory lane, scary stuff.
I always assume that it would just be old biddies with their walking sticks who wondered around saying things like "the youth of today" and "in my day children had manners" and shaking their heads. But more and more often I find myself, and others my age, saying very similar things. Society is changing more and more rapidly, kids are growing up faster, and so people are beginning to feel more nostalgic about parts of their life that have happened more recently- because it was so different "back then". Part of the reason, I believe, that people are nostalgic is due to selective retention and selective distortion.
In The Principles of Marketing, Kotler et al. defines selective retention as the tendency for people to retain only part of the information to which they are exposed, usually to coincide with their attitudes or beliefs.
Kotler defines selective distortion as the inclination people have towards adapting information to a personal meaning.
As selective retention causes people to be more likely to remember information that backs up their beliefs about the society that they live in, it is a useful tool for advertisers. Many people in our culture believe that Christmas should be a lovely time of year, full of the joys and happiness of having family around. For this reason people often remember the good things about Christmas, and view the Christmas' of thier childhood with particular fondness. Magazines and newspapers make use of selective distortion when writing horoscopes. The way that they are worded means that they are open to interpretation- and the writers count on people distorting the meaning to their own beliefs and attitudes, and to what's relevant to them.

Consumer Behavior, Solomon et al. defines Nostalgia as a bitter sweet emotion when the past is viewed with sadness and longing. It then goes on to say that many 'classic' products appeal to the consumers memories of their younger days.
I am quite nostalgic about being a kid, and how different my childhood was to so many of today. When I was at primary school there were several crazes that went around, and never mind street cred, you didn't have any playground cred if you didn't indulge wholeheartedly in the fad of the minute. Whether it was pogs, tazos, yo-yos, pokemon cards it was a must have, to collect, to swap. And it was only weeks before they got banned because some of the children got a little over enthusiastic about being the winner, or the loser.
Now they must have toy is a Nintendo DS where you can sit in a room full of people and not interact with any of them. Unless they happen to have the same console, with the same game and you are in an area with wireless, and you actually want to play with them. As is described by journalist Giles Whittell in an article in The Times Online, the assortment of entertainment available and the diversity of the platforms that it is available on has utterly eradicated any quality, especially in terms of TV programmes, due to the ease with which programmes can get on the air. For this reason it is highly unlikely that any particular programme will get any loyal following, and, therefore, there will be no nostalgia for it in the future for today's generation of youngsters. It's certain that even the big names of today such as Big Cook, Little Cook, Lazytown and The Fimbles will be remembered by the future generations of nostalgic consumers.
Meg Carter recognises the use of nostalgia in advertising as effective because it is harping back to a "safer and simpler time", in her article The Return of Retro Treats. This is especially true in times of economic difficulty, such as the recession. Carter illustrates that there may be an element of escapism from the stress and worry of the modern, chaotic lifestyle when using products from the past, that have stood the test of time. Maybe that's why so many major, well-known brands and conglomerates are bringing back age-old strap lines, adverts, jingles and even products. Even the use of TV characters, styles and themes from shows of the 60s, 70s and 80s has become popular in advertising, says David Sprott, such as Snickers' new spokesperson, Mr. T. The relaunch of Whisper was huge, Mars has reverted to their "Work, Rest and Play" line, there are plans to relaunch Snickers as Marathon, and Starbusrt to Opal Fruits, Coca-Cola always updating old adverts, such as the revival of the Diet Coke Break ad from the 80s, jingles and lines; which, inevitably, brings to mind their Christmas advert.
Coca-Cola have had a string of excellent adverts, most notably is the Christmas one with the trucks driving through the country, bringing joy and happiness to all who have to fortune to see such a wonderful, magical sight. A whole generation has been brought up to believe, as a Facebook group over 7,000 strong and another few similar over 2,000 strong combined, It's Not Christmas Until You've Seen The Coca-Cola Lorries Advert. Now that's culture! Coca-Cola must be proud. Each advert brings warm-fuzzy feeling for different people all over the world about different eras, different stages in their life. Generations of people remember scores of tunes, straplines and adverts. The most memorable for me is a South African Coca-Cola advert, a must see. It became a cult classic when I was there. Brrrrrrrrrrrrilliant.
Christmas is a time when the use of nostalgia in marketing is highly prevelent. But as Sprott illustrates,

"this focus on the nostalgic elements of an ad may come at a cost--
acting as a distractor, such that fewer brand-/message-based thoughts would be
elicited during exposure to a nostalgic ad".

Global Entrepreneurship Week 2008

Entrepreneurship- "the state of being an entrepreneur." An entrepreneur is an individual who owns, organizes, and manages a business and, in so doing, assumes the risk of either making a profit or losing the investment.

Enterprise week at Bucks consisted of series of optional lectures and challenges put on by the Enterprise Dept and the Business School. Many influential people with much experience in various industries came to Bucks to share their thoughts and advice with the students. All the events put on throughout the week were free, and all were of a very high standard.

Women in Business Day falls during Enterprise Week, and a workshop was put on for that day. It was a mixture of students studying various Business disciplines and some older women who had their own companies, and wanted to improve their business. It was a very enjoyable, interesting day- and the food provided was fantastic! The first lecture of the day was run by two women who were image consultants. They ran a simple exercise about first impressions and how it is estimated to takes at least eight positive exposures to change some one's opinion of a person/product/brand/place after a negative first exposure. Another fact that came across strongly in their lecture was that looking confident can not only make you feel more confident, but it gives others confidence in you.

The second lecture of the day was on presentation skills. This was the most interesting lecture of the day, in my opinion, as well as the most beneficial for me, as standing up in front of people is not one of my strengths. She gave some wonderful, if slightly odd, hints and tips on being confident, how to project, on engaging the audience and how to structure a presentation most effectively. One of the best aspects of this lecture was that because it came very early on in the day everything she said, the rights and wrongs of presenting, were all illustrated by other speakers during the day. For example, she mentioned a speaker who she had been to see who had stood in front of the projector throughout his speech this was also done by a presenter later in the day. Being told how to do it and what not to do was great, but then being able to see it in action just cemented what she was saying in my memory.

There were lectures through the day on different brainstorming techniques, Meyers-Briggs testing, and many other subject that were all useful and motivational. I had the chance to talk to women with many years of experience and to ask them how they felt about different issues. It was a good extension of what I have been and will continue to learn in the classroom. The speaker who I felt that I got the most out of was the Buckinghamshire Entrepreneur of the Year, Caroline Kinsey, who founded PR company Cirkle in 1998, which is a mostly female team. She shared many of her experiences as a woman in business, as a boss, as a PR in the world today and many other relevant issues with us. She was inspirational. One of things she said that most struck a cord with me was that the time where women have to try and compete with men in the workplace by trying to be like them was over, and that the way forward was now to embrace your femininity and realise that there are things that you can, perhaps, do that men can't, or aren't as good at.

All in all I feel that it was a fabulous day, that was brilliantly organised and it was immensely useful. I can't wait to see who will be speaking next year- and hopefully I'll be able to come back in a number of years and speak to the female students studying business then. That's exciting.

Micheal Dell's advice to entrepreneurs,

"Be willing to fail and learn from mistake
you make, and that others make."

The second event that took part in was The Bucks Apprentice Challenge. This event was a lot of fun, and during it I sustained a huge learning curve, as well as earning £50 profit for each of our six team members. Our team, The Dream Team, did extremely well and I am very proud of them all. We got through the first round, but, unfortunately, didn't make enough profit in the second round to get through to the final stage.

For our first challenge we were given £50 and had to buy doughnuts, and then sell them on for a profit. In the second round it was organised with The Eden Centre that we could set up a market with in the centre, and each team got given a lovely, old-fashioned barrow style market stall. We used the profit from the first round, and were given a further £200 to create a stall. We decided to sell hand decorated gingerbread men. This went down very well, but, regrettably, I over ordered on the gingerbread men, and we were unable to sell them all.

Had we of gotten through to the final showdown, our team would have had four days to design and put on an "event" at the Union in High Wycombe. The catch being that the event had to be during the hours of 5-8 in the evening, therefore not a student event. This would have been a huge challenge and, in a way, I am very glad that we didn't get through, as we had a lot of work on at the time. But mostly because it was quite a stressful process. Despite this I learnt a great deal, I had a wonderful time, I got to know people that I wouldn't otherwise have met- and I will definitely be entering next year. Long live The Dream Team!!