Learning, Memory and Nostalgia

Nostalgia is defined as a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one’s life. A sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time. It is described as a bitter-sweet emotion.

Nostalgia is used when an advertiser wants to evoke a feeling of happiness to sell their products so that it is linked to your happy feeling. A number of things can trigger a feeling of nostalgia:

• Sound (music - John Lewis using Billy Joel’s “Always a Woman”)
• Taste (an old beverage one used to drink in the park in summer)
• Touch (the feel of rough wood reminding one of helping their dad do DIY)
• Images (iconic people or fashion from teenage years)
• Smells (the smell of petrol or stale cigarette smoke).

The behaviourist approach to learning involves stimulus response connections; classical conditioning (Pavlov) and operant conditioning (Skinner). The cognitive learning theory involves using conumers as complex problem solvers; latent learning and observational learning.
A common objective of advertising is to ensure the viewer has not only learned something but also remembered it.

Memory - “learning is the acquisition of kowledge and memory is the storage ofinternal representations of that knowedge“ - Blakemore, 1988. 
The memory process:
external inputs —> encoding (information is placed in memory) —> storage (information is retained in memory) —> retrieval (information stored in memory is found when needed).

To create a greater emotional tie between the consumer and the product sensory branding is used. This involves using senses that are linked to our memory - as discussed previously - sight, smell, sound, touch, taste.