Episode 18, Season 2 examines why a brand’s history is one of its most valuable assets, offering a behavioural science case for heritage and consistency for marketers, brand leaders, and anyone building a lasting brand.
Casual has released the eighteenth episode of its second season of the Audience Connection podcast. The guest is Phill Agnew, host of The Nudge, the UK’s number one marketing podcast, returning to the show as Casual marks its own 20th anniversary. Hosted by Oliver Atkinson, the episode examines a tension every heritage brand faces: the instinct to look future-focused collides with evidence that talking about your past is one of the most persuasive things you can do.
Central to the conversation is the history heuristic, the bias that makes people trust, enjoy, and even taste things more when they believe they are old. Agnew opens at the Guinness Storehouse, where the original 9,000-year lease sits under two-inch bulletproof glass and the date is etched into the harp logo, despite the lease being legally invalid for decades. He explains why brands lean into age: “if you are a company, if you’re selling a product, if you’re a store that has been around for 266 years, like in the case of Guinness, it is natural to assume that that company must be of extremely high quality to have survived all of that time.” He walks through the 2010 Eidelman, Pattershall and Crandall studies, where acupuncture was rated 16.6% more favourably when described as 2,000 years old rather than 250, chocolate judged 16.2% more flavourful as a 1950s recipe, and a Louisiana oak rated 15.9% more beautiful when aged up. Levi’s stamps an 1873 patent date on every pair, and vinyl sales have climbed for 18 straight years since 2006.
The second thread is the mere exposure effect, Robert Zajonc’s 1968 study where made-up “Turkish” words seen 25 times were rated 48% more positively than words seen once. Agnew connects it to Coca-Cola keeping a logo no rebrand would sign off today, and to the New Coke disaster, where the real lesson from the Pepsi Challenge was missed: “as soon as it is served in a glass bottle with a Coca-Cola logo on it, people prefer it.” Oliver brings it back to film, noting that in 2019, 82.5% of Hollywood box office revenue came from remakes, reboots, sequels and spin-offs, and to the nostalgic Super 8 texture Casual used in a film for GSK. Agnew’s sharpest takeaway is a warning against constant reinvention: “if you’ve got something and you’ve A/B tested it and you’ve proved that you’re actually getting some traction with it, stop bouncing around on different ideas.” Consistency, he argues, beats cleverness.
This episode is available now on all major podcast platforms. Show notes, guest links, and additional resources can be found at Casual’s website.