Nostalgia-Powered Social Media Drives Lisa Frank’s Resurgence


August 29, 2013

bdd brand snapshot

Ah, the 90s. Tamagotchi, Fruit Stripe, and Slime Time Live. Times were simpler; the dot-com bubble hadn’t burst yet, and books were printed solely on paper. For better or for worse, some of our most beloved products (ahem, Doritos 3Ds) are no longer available and remain a mere memory. And then there’s Lisa Frank. 

For those of you who don’t remember, Lisa Frank was a household name in any family with young girls, offering a slew of school supplies decorated in vibrant rainbows, unicorns, and hearts. Although Frank’s company has faded away to near nonexistence, the brand began activity on Facebook in the fall of 2010, hoping to capitalize on Facebook’s biggest and most sentimental market, the Millennials.

The brand now boasts over 60,000 likes, 2.6 thousand Twitter followers, and 3.4 thousand Pinterest followers. Its Facebook presence is predominantly the most active, with some posts garnering over a thousand likes and even more comments.

The company has also released two themed apps for Android and iPhone: Pic n’ Share, which allows the user to add stickers to their own photos, and Zoom n’ Color, an electronic coloring book. Lisa Frank cell phone cases are soon to come as well.

lisa frank app

Nostalgia is a powerful emotion – and might explain why TeenNick began airing popular 90s TV shows on its nightly segment, “The 90s Are All That!” and MMMBop boy band Hanson is releasing a beer, cleverly named Mmmhops. We’ll stay tuned for the Facebook page development.

What brands would you like to see brought back to life on social media? Can your brand leverage nostalgia to appeal to your customer’s strong memories?

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is a strategist, speaker, educator, and author of Brand Now: How to Stand Out in a Crowded, Distracted World and Get Scrappy: Smarter Digital Marketing for Businesses Big and Small. He is the Chief Brand Strategist at Brand Driven Digital, an educator at the University of Iowa, and host of the On Brand podcast. More about Nick.