Chapter 8. These are the good old days

The McDonald’s fast-food chain is riding a nostalgia wave as the nerdy Ronald McDonald and other icons from the 1960s became hot with young hipsters who are scrambling to score T-shirts emblazoned with the clown or other Mickey D’s characters such as Mayor McCheese, the Hamburglar, and Grimace. This peak in nostalgia was no accident, however. The company recently launched a word-of-mouth marketing campaign to boost its uncool image among fashion-conscious young people. It hired the same company that revived other nostalgia figures, such as Strawberry Shortcake, and for the first time licensed the use of its old ad slogans and characters on merchandise. McDonald’s sold retro T-shirts in trendy boutiques and ...

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