The role of retro marketing in brand topicality and the continuity of brand heritage a research on generation Z that has no personal nostalgic experience

Technological innovations and the digitalized world caused people to make a comparison between the past and the present. Because of the fast changing living conditions, people find the present more artificial and the past more sincere. The person who is discontent towards current living conditions and who concerns for the future, begins to feel nostalgic towards the ideal past, especially the ones who have personal nostalgic experience. By the help of retro marketing and the brands who are able to adapt their heritage to today's innovations and who are able to reproduce and relaunch their iconic products with cutting edge technology, people realized retro brands and products. And they began to buy them to relieve their longing for the past. In this master's thesis, it was studied the effects of retro marketing on generation z that has no personal nostalgic experience and the contributions of retro marketing to brand topicality and the continuity of brand heritage. The study was conducted by e-interview technique, which is one of the qualitative methods. Semi- structured, open-ended questions of e-interview are sent to the respondents via electronic mail. Among 45 people, 19 people participated the study and the people between the age of 20-26 answered all of the questions in detail. By the help of these questions, the effects of retro marketing on generation z, the buying motives of generation z for retro brands and products, their ideas about the past and the present and the effects of generation z on brand topicality and the continuity of brand heritage were able to be studied in detail. In this study it is clearly seen that retro brands or products are noticed by the generation z that has no personal nostalgic experience about the periods that are emphasized by retro brands or products. And also seen that retro marketing has an effect on generation z and some of the respondents own retro brands or products. The results showed that the generation z finds these brands or products authentic, and they find the past more sincere than the present. Finally, generation z thinks that their generation has an effect on brand topicality and the continuity of brand heritage. Key Words: Nostalgia, Retro, Retro Marketing, Brand Heritage, Generation Z