A typeface borrowed from the Art Deco or Victorian era can make a product feel safer. In a series of experiments, people rated brands set in vintage lettering as safer than the same brands in a plain font, and the effect persisted even after they were told the product contained unsafe ingredients.
The research is by Alicia Kulczynski of the University of Newcastle in Australia and Margurite Hook. It was first published online on November 6, 2023 in the Journal of Marketing.
Nostalgia for a time you never lived through
The authors build on “anemoia”, a recently coined word for nostalgia for a time one never experienced. They propose “vintage anemoia”: a warm, nostalgic response to old-looking design that does not depend on personal memories of any particular era. Because nostalgia is linked to feelings of comfort and security, they predicted it would spill over into judgments of safety.
Across the studies, vintage typography meant typefaces with features from the Victorian, Art Nouveau, Art Deco and Bauhaus periods, compared against a control font.
From mystery boxes to paracetamol
The first study was literal. 166 marketing students faced two mystery boxes, one hiding a flower garland and the other rubber spiders and a snake, and had to put a hand into one. 58.4% chose the box labelled in vintage type.
Online experiments then used fictitious brands: a bicycle maker, a vegetarian food brand, a paracetamol, cosmetics, laundry detergent and a car. Vintage type consistently raised safety ratings, and the authors’ new seven-item vintage anemoia scale explained why. Perceived brand longevity and expertise did not. Nor was it a general halo: the vintage logo did not make food seem tastier or more innovative.
In the paracetamol study, with 171 participants, the safety boost carried through to more favourable brand attitudes, higher purchase intentions and greater willingness to pay.
A warning label did not undo it
The most striking result came from a cosmetics study with 614 participants. Some were told the product had safe ingredients, some that it had unsafe ingredients, and some were told nothing.
Vintage type raised safety perceptions in all three conditions. With the vintage font, people rated the product described as unsafe just as safe as the one with no safety information. With the control font, safety information made little overall difference.
The effect has limits. In a detergent study with 604 participants, it disappeared when the ad stated a founding year, whether 1920 or 2020. Spelling out a date seemed to break the vague, timeless nostalgia the lettering evoked.
It also vanished for futuristic products. Among 406 participants, vintage type made an ordinary car seem safer but did nothing for a self-driving one.
Study Details:
- Title: Typography Talks: Influencing Vintage Anemoia and Product Safety Perceptions with Vintage Typography
- Authors: Alicia Kulczynski, Margurite Hook
- Journal: Journal of Marketing
- Publication Date: November 6, 2023
- DOI: 10.1177/00222429231215357