The Good Ol’ Premium: How Nostalgia Gives Legacy CPG Pricing Power

The moment a consumer picks up your CPG indulgence brand and smiles with the memory of a cherished time, something remarkable happens to their price sensitivity: it weakens.

That instinctive smile—the one triggered by childhood rituals or holidays past—represents much more than fleeting sentimentality. It's an advantage that established brands facing dreaded plateaus can use to fend off constantly-emerging challengers and their newer, more novel products.

Research confirms that when consumers associate products with positive memories (think Oreos dunked in milk), price considerations lose their primacy, overtaken by the cognitive effects of remembering and reliving those moments.

For brands feeling stagnant or under competitive price pressure, the insight is both timely and ripe for activation. You don’t necessarily need to formulate entirely new products or find entry points with new buyers to claim a more profitable position.

Your heritage, properly activated, can become a powerful pricing lever.

The Memory Lane Markup on Cadbury Creme Eggs

Consider the Cadbury Creme Egg, Mondelez International’s flagship confectionary and the UK’s favorite Easter indulgence.

It’s been around since 1971 (technically 1875, if you count Cadbury’s original Chocolate Easter Egg). But the Cadbury Creme Egg remains such a strong performer that Mondelez wisely innovates through extensions: the Cadbury Creme Egg Tablet, Cadbury Mini Eggs, Cadbury Caramel Eggs (the list goes on).

These treats are priced higher per gram than standard chocolates. Yet they sell at an average of 3.7 packs per second over the brand’s generously-expanded Easter season of January to April. Why? Because the ritual of cracking into a Cadbury Creme Egg transforms a simple confection into a tradition that transcends ingredient costs.

It’s a strategy that’s still driving growth. Easter 2024 was Mondelez's best-performing season yet.

We have to give a nod to scarcity here; offering a product for a limited time enhances its appeal whether or not a product has history. But the Cadbury Creme Egg does—generations of it. And Mondelez has long calculated its price point based on the value of the memories it triggers.

Nostalgia’s Proven Influence over Willingness to Pay

In 2014, Dr. Jannine D. Lasaleta and her colleagues at Grenoble École de Management studied nostalgia's impact on people’s financial decision making.i

Lasaleta's team primed participants by inducing nostalgic feelings. They then tracked participants’ willingness to part with money across various life scenarios, including purchases.

The results were clear and striking. Compared to control groups, those experiencing nostalgia consistently demonstrated lower price sensitivity—greater willingness to pay premium prices.

M1’s Consumer Behavior Lab on Nostalgia’s Role in Premiumization

In a recent episode of the Behavioral Science for Brands podcast from Method1’s Consumer Behavior Lab, hosts MichaelAaron Flicker and Richard Shotton discussed the same price elasticity that Lasaleta demonstrated with her research.

They explained how nostalgia creates emotional connections that establish "value beyond function"—that intangible but very real sense of worth that buyers place on feelings over features.

It makes intuitive sense, as we’ve all experienced nostalgia’s irresistible pull.

Consumers who buy products while experiencing nostalgia are not purchasing a drink or snack. They’re accessing a bridge to an important place, time or moment. And these emotions create a halo effect around the products that drives up their perceived value.

What makes nostalgia particularly valuable for established brands is that its effects can't be manufactured overnight. The emotional equity a brand builds over decades represents a competitive moat that new entrants can't cross easily, no matter how clever their campaigns.

Not that some aren't trying. You've likely noticed new brands working to capitalize on nostalgia for nostalgia—particularly when targeting Gen Z, known for its love of retro vibes.

When even startups try to tap nostalgia by infusing collective cultural memories into their brands or campaign creative, it confirms the psychological power that Flicker and Shotton described. It also points to real opportunity for established players who actually own such memories.

The Profitable Implications for Legacy CPG

We all can't be irresistible chocolate egg brands with storied history. But for many established brands caught between maintaining margins and meeting demands for competitive pricing, nostalgia offers the rarest of opportunities—the chance to command a premium without:

• Radical reformulations that risk alienating core customers
• Chasing unsustainable innovation cycles
• Abandoning or compromising the brand’s core legacy

These recent success stories all demonstrate nostalgia's power. In each case, note how the brand innovated as they revived—reimagining memorable parts of their history for today's consumer.

Mars’ Introduction of Peanut Butter & Jelly M&M's
Mars introduced Peanut Butter & Jelly M&Ms by ingeniously combining a berry-flavored shell with a peanut butter center. The product triggers the memories of anyone who ever carried lunch to school—and was produced without significant R&D or changing core ingredients. As a bonus, it also appeals to Gen Z, which loves to indulge in classic tastes remixed.

The “Return” of McDonald’s CosMc
By mining their own archives and reviving an obscure brand mascot from the 1980s (a six-armed alien who loves cheeseburgers!), McDonald’s created a beverage spinoff that feels both fresh and authentically rooted in the brand. Retro-themed branding, combined with innovative drink offerings like Churro Shake Espresso, appeals to those who remember the character and those who don’t.

General Mills’ Dunkaroos Revival
In 2020—just when we all needed small indulgences—Dunkaroos returned eight years after the brand had been retired. General Mills built on their ‘90s formulation to introduce new flavors like cereal and pancake mix—evoking positive memories of childhood and lazy weekend mornings. By sharing their favorite childhood snack with their own kids, Millennials then sparked a new wave of Dunkaroos memories—ensuring the beloved brand's legacy lives on in a new generation.

How to Put a Premium on Nostalgia

While putting nostalgia to work might involve repurposing vintage campaigns or packaging design, a straight recycle from yesteryear won’t necessarily create a brand premium now. Follow these steps to discover the greatest areas of potential—including smart chances to innovate.

1. Audit your brand’s nostalgic assets

Commission consumer research focused specifically on consumers’ emotional associations and the existing memory structures associated with your brand and/or product. Teams within the brand may not have the best perspective on its most nostalgic elements.

2. Balance heritage with relevance

Nostalgia is most effective when it connects past emotional associations with current needs. The risk isn't in looking too old-fashioned—it's in failing to make the historical elements feel meaningful to the people experiencing them today.

3. Integrate nostalgic elements across your consumer’s journey

Pricing power comes from consistent emotional reinforcement rather than isolated nostalgic moments. From retail environments to digital touchpoints, deliver nostalgic cues at entry points, moments of consideration or choice—whenever price sensitivities usually emerge.

4. Measure nostalgia’s impact on pricing power

Traditional measures like awareness or preference can't fully capture nostalgia's impact on price sensitivity. Instead:

1. Track price elasticity over time, using controlled campaigns across markets to test varying levels of nostalgia in your creative communications
2. Assess sentiment specifically about pricing; consumer feedback that references value ("worth paying more for") rather than cost ("expensive but...") indicates whether nostalgia is justifying your price premium by tapping into emotion
3. Monitor social conversation through your preferred social listening tool, looking for emotional terms like “memories” or “tradition” that suggest nostalgia is creating perceptions of value

The Past as a Premium Asset

The counterintuitive insight for legacy brands may be that their most valuable pricing lever isn't necessarily innovation but the strength of memory.

While challengers sprint toward "new and improved," established brands own something far more difficult to replicate: emotional equity compounded over decades of consumer experience.

The strategic brilliance of nostalgia isn't that it lets brands look backward effectively—it's that it transforms a perceived weakness (being older, more established, less novel) into a source of strength. Activated with insight into consumer emotions and associations, the brand's history becomes the very thing that justifies a premium future.

For CMOs under pressure, this offers something increasingly rare: a pathway to premium pricing built on a strategic advantage that only time can create.

This isn't sentimentality—it's strategy.

Because the same consumers who notice what's new will pay more to be reminded of what once was.

To see emotions in action driving preference and premiumization, explore Method1’s work.

To learn more about nostalgia’s impact on price sensitivity, listen to Episode 39 of The Behavioral Science for Brands Podcast from the Consumer Behavior Lab here.