A Conceptual Framework for Retro Marketing in Sport

Abstract

Retro marketing has become a staple in sport marketing practices. Teams and leagues are attempting to connect their fans to the past in a magnitude of ways. Despite the influx of retro marketing in sport, there has been no examination of it to date. This study examined the various usages of retro marketing in sport and through an inductive approach created a framework that categorized and broadly defined each usage. The five practical areas of retro marketing in sport were constructed: imagery, merchandising, venue, gameday promotions, and advertising. The authors shaped and framed retro marketing in sport through these five dimensions, as they encompassed the retro marketing practices examined and are often relied upon marketing elements. Further, the authors suggest multiple avenues for future research on this topic, including understanding a sport organization's usage of these practices and the impact they have on sport consumers.

Understanding the Relationship between Past Experience of a Sports Mega-Event and Current Spectatorship: The Mediating Role of Nostalgia

“…Commonly referred to as retro marketing, this strategy is used by professional sport teams, leagues, and the media. They incorporate past memories into marketing strategies, involving images, merchandising, venues, promotions, and advertising in order to communicate with fans, suggesting that nostalgic feelings evoked by objects or past experiences generate a positive influence on consumer responses [47].…”

“…In both domains, nostalgia is seen to have cognitive and affective states, evoked by external stimuli. This generates strong positive responses [37,[46][47][48]. In sports, nostalgia acts as an important communication channel with consumers, and is mainly found in the fields of tourism, consumer marketing, and SMEs.…”

“…Scola and Gordon [47] conceptualised retro marketing practices by categorising the key elements that can be realistically leveraged and marketed based on sport consumers' nostalgia. This provides useful insights into the ways in which sport marketers can leverage their existing assets to connect with consumers.…”

“…This provides useful insights into the ways in which sport marketers can leverage their existing assets to connect with consumers. According to Scola and Gordon [47], the five practical areas of retro marketing in sport are imagery, merchandising, venue, gameday promotion, and advertising. Imagery refers to the figures of symbolic entities that are relevant to sport properties.…”

“…Finally, advertising messages are also effective marketing vehicles. As one of the most actively used and long-lasting marketing tools, messages linked with a positive past memory have a lasting impact on fans [47].…”