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The Milky Bars are on him ... all over again
Ellen Widdup13.05.09
The Milky Bar Kid and the Hovis Boy are back on our television screens as household brands turn to nostalgia to get consumers buying again.
Retailers who have seen the recession take a bite out of profits have plundered their advertising archives for their latest campaigns. Some argue that the concept is in part driven by the need to “make do and mend” with recycling old campaigns cheaper than conceiving new ones.
Others claim customers like to hark back to days gone by and embrace memories of childhood. Advertising executives call it “heritage mania”.
Now, Hovis's “boy on the bike” — created 35 years ago by Ridley Scott — is back on his cycle.
The move has seen the brand's market share climb from 22 per cent a year ago to nearly 26 per cent. And the Milky Bar Kid is again toting his white chocolate to win friends 45 years after his first appearance.
Steve Sharp, marketing director of Marks & Spencer — which is marking its 125th year with a new Twiggy advert shot in a Victorian street — said: “Nostalgia always becomes more important when times are tough.
“That is a natural human reaction and advertisers play to that.” Sainsbury's is using its 140th anniversary to transport customers back to a time when it sold butter and eggs from a shop in Drury Lane.
Customer director Gwyn Burr said: “Customers are telling us that history is very important to them.”
In the US, brands such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi and McDonald's are all reviving decades-old slogans or running nostalgic campaigns.
