EMERGE recently went to see the newest addition to the Chelsea Market, The Milk Bar.  The once-typical Roneybrook Dairy storefront has been converted to a nostalgic space that conjures up images of Milk Bars of the past that reached the height of popularity in the late 1930’s.  Milk Bars were once a space where people could meet over milkshakes and play pinball; this soon gave way to fast food spaces that replaced the simple space and menu.

The newest interpretation of a Milk Bar has a menu filled with both new and old time favorite treats, Milk and Cookies and Macaroni & cheese is just two of the many feel good options.  The contrast of the vintage milk crates and modern fixtures creates a space that evokes memories of a childhood place one only imaged, or thought they always wanted.  We're nostalgic for the Milkman who never brought us milk.

 In doing so the Milk Bar symbolizes what Baudrillard refers to in SIMULACRA, "signs of culture and media that create the reality that we perceive".  We live in a world where our memories of childhood are mixed up with our interpretations of what is the perfect childhood. 

The media and in turn marketing has directly correlated with our desire and need to escape back into a past that is safe and secure. Although as Baudrillard quickly points out there is a distinct difference between what is reality and what is our perception thereof.
 

For the last couple years we have seen the success of products and services that capitalize on our need to reclaim a childhood that in truth very few of us have experienced.  The success of Build a Bear, Dylan’s Candy Bar and the Hershey Experience Store was achieved not through allowance money but through adults looking for their favorite childhood candy and long lost replacement stuffed animal. 

We have also never let go of our fascination with toys, Kidrobot just made it cooler to admit and display in our home and around the office. Besides the plastic characters, Tinker Toys are slowly making a comeback, as there is something about that old-fashioned feel of metal and wood in a world filled with plastic. 

A fellow marketer recently spoke about the fact that men's barbershops are making a comeback due to the fact that men seem to love an old-fashioned shave. Witness the runaway success of Freeman's Barbershop on Manhattan's Lower East Side, which incorporates the straight razor into its logo. We may not of necessarily have seen our fathers doing this but we're nostalgic for the idea of it.


Very few of us had a mother who baked cookies and made cupcakes, yet there is a line for a "homemade " cupcake at Magnolia's that never ceases to end.  The bakery is a NYC institution and has spawned several imitators around the city and elsewhere.
Along the same lines, Pinkberry may be garnering a lot of attention with its East Coast expansion, but it catches plenty of flack from blogs like Gawker, while people continue to celebrate the Summertime tradition of the old-timey ice cream truck, be it the music festival favorite Ice Cream Man or the neighborhood Mr Softee truck

The lesson here is that there is a market opportunity for products and services that capture a memory or experience for a generation who is craving comfort but who has not necessarily experienced it.






































































By Amy Daroukakis for EMERGE
 

Posted by James Friedman

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