Guess what was the fastest growing audio product category at Amazon during the end-2015 holiday season? If one were to ask me, my spontaneous response would be a Bluetooth speaker. After all, every home wants one now. If probed further I would have ventured into the ubiquitous wireless headphone. So I actually looked up the number one product and it was neither of these. It was a product that went out of our frame of reference , perhaps in the Seventies. A product that we largely associated with black-and-white photographs and an object in the homes of our grandfathers and great-grandfathers. Amazingly on Amazon, the top selling audio product was a Jensen JTA 3 speed-stereo turntable.

The fact that a long forgotten relic of the past had streamed or rather played its way back into our consciousness struck me sometime last year when a very close friend invited me to dinner. His idea of a perfect evening with friends was. of course, good food and wine, but also an evening spent listening to records. Records or vinyls as they are called in the west. One did not even know that they existed. And the record collection that he was building included not just songs but even a dialogue record of Sholay . He used to make regular trips to a shop at Chandni Chowk in Delhi, from Dubai, where we lived then, to search for and purchase old records. When I asked him why he was investing in vinyl and in changing records to play music in this era of unlimited songs on a hard drive or through a streaming service, he said it simply sounded better. And like him millions of people with huge music collections and audio equipment in MP3 and other such formats are rediscovering the bygone magic of records and the turntable.

Marketing mix Nostalgia and heritage are two elements in a marketing mix that can revivify and revitalise categories rather than make them fade away. And just as it is happening with the revival of turntables, there have been brands that have a rich heritage and have used it to not just resurrect their category but make it even more relevant to generations that have never experienced it but only know about it. One great example of constantly reinvigorating a past category is the Adidas Stan Smith Originals series. Launched as a tennis shoe in 1973, the brand is still going strong. It has evolved from a tennis shoe to a sneaker to a customisable sneaker. Reintroduced in 2014, with strong modern day features such as customisations, partnerships with new-age designers and with contemporary singers. Singer Pharrell Williams who appeals to a totally different generation than the one which grew up wearing the original Stan Smiths, was roped in to create his own line of hand-painted Stan Smiths which was a sell-out in 2015. The series continues to grow and to appeal to a whole new generation that was not even born when it was first launched.

Take Converse All Star, another brand founded in 1917 that had its best period between the 1940s and 1960s. With the entry of Nike, Reebok and Adidas in the 1970s, the brand had lost its relevance to both athletics and basketball. Even in India, the white tennis shoe or the so called “canvas” shoe, our equivalent of Converse, gave way to sneakers from Reebok and Nike. The brand has successfully resurrected itself in recent times with Nike’s astute marketing prowess and has extended its relevance not just to the generation that was used to wearing it while growing up but to today’s youngsters as a shoe that makes a fashion statement . It is a billion-dollar-plus brand in today’s rapidly changed world.

Heritage clearly has an enduring appeal and can easily be resurrected and contemporised. And the same applies to this emerging but long forgotten category of turntables. The appeal of this category need not be restricted to a generation craving a bygone era and immersed in nostalgia. It can actually be made relevant to an entire new generation. Record companies are already doing this by releasing new albums, not just on iTunes but also on turntables.

Technology has also evolved to make today’s records clearer and turntables much more sophisticated compared to the screechy sound coming from an easy-to-bend e pin during the Seventies.

Waiting for rebirth And iconic but forgotten Indian brands are waiting to be reborn. Recently in Delhi, Keventers Milks Shakes, bestsellers of the ’60s and ’70s have been relaunched. And social media is abuzz with people born during that period introducing this drink to their children born in the 21st century. And perhaps, the Murphy Radio will return with a 21st century baby as its mascot and with full FM functionality. After all despite the Buggles signing it loud in 1979, video never really killed the radio star. Radio just returned as mainstream FM.

Marketers can rejoice at this whole new social phenomenon that has the power to revive and revitalise and revamp a forgotten category. Meanwhile I am discovering the joy of rediscovering Sholay just through its dialogues. And the tables have turned back again for turntables.

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