The role of social media in communication of nostalgic brands

The aim of this article is to evaluate the role of social media in communication of nostalgic brands. We concentrate especially on the possibilities of using virtual brand communities to reinforce relations between nostalgic brands and consumers' identity. The data collection was carried out based on the direct and indirect methods of gathering information, using one-to-one interview technique (1st stage) and online survey technique (2nd stage). Research was conducted among 1000 Polish consumers. The research results prove that nostalgia is important in creating and expressing consumers' identity especially thanks to the belonging to the virtual brands communities. It was confirmed that the brand relationship with the consumer's identity is higher for nostalgic brands than for non-nostalgic brands. The research results show also that the willingness to belong to virtual brand community is higher for nostalgic brands than for non-nostalgic brands. The results of this study illustrate the importance of the brand communities and social aspects of nostalgia in social media communication. (C) 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://crativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0) Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of KES International.