Teaching old brands new tricks: Retro branding and the revival of brand meaning

Retro brands are relaunched historical brands with updated features. The authors conduct a "netnographic" analysis of two prominent retro brands, the Volkswagen New Beetle and Star Wars: Episode I-The Phantom Menace, that reveals the importance of Allegory (brand story), Aura (brand essence), Arcadia (idealized community), and Antinomy (brand paradox). Retro brand meanings are predicated on a utopian communal element and an enlivening paradoxical essence. Retro brand management involves an uneasy, cocreative, and occasionally clamorous alliance between producers and consumers.