About a month ago, Mark Tanseco del Rosario, creator of food community Let’s Eat Pare, thought that a Filipino throwback community was just what the country wanted. Fast forward to today and he was proved right. The Facebook Group Classic Pare Titos and Titas of Manila has exploded to more than 700 thousand members. And it’s still growing!
The meteoric rise of this group has been noticed – not just by the online community, but by the mainstream media. 24 Oras, Esquire Philippines, and even Abante Tonite are a few that spread word of the group to even more Titos and Titas in the Philippines.
But what made this seemingly niche Facebook group incredibly successful?
The Nostalgia Factor
The first, and most powerful, reason is nostalgia. The Titos and Titas of Manila’s posts heavily reference 70s, 80s, and early 90s Filipino culture. Members reminisce which actor dated who or wonder if anybody else still remember incredibly obscure candies and toys. It is a treasure trove of obscure trivia.
Nostalgia works across generations. Gen Xers are old enough to look at their childhood with rose-tinted glasses. As for Millennials, they are nostalgic by default. As children, they grew up in a tumultuous upheaval of technology as computers and telecommunications shrunk and became more powerful. Lastly, the Gen Z is just curious what the fuss is about.
The effectiveness of referencing the past has given rise to nostalgia marketing. Many brands have already jumped on it. Coca-cola is once again selling coke in its iconic glass bottles while Adidas repurposes old ads. Like them, Classic Pare Titos and Titas of Manila touched a rising sentiment.
Influencer Kick-start
But while nostalgia was the main force behind the Facebook group’s popularity, its initial push came from something more practical: influencer marketing. As its founder said in the Esquire interview, the group began by adding his ‘friends and a couple influencers’. Influencers with their huge networks have become a crucial component in every online campaign because they can recruit legions of followers to act for their causes or brands.
King Content
But the presence of nostalgia and influencers needs to be supported with content. Fortunately, mining the past is a great and easy way to create it. Content is organic and engagement is immediate. Titos spontaneously ask trivia questions while Titas come up with answers and vice versa. More importantly, they don’t restrict themselves to text; they engage visually with photos and even videos. The result is an eclectic range of posts that mixes nostalgic memories and modern internet slang as mga lumang lodi are brought to life again.
By capturing an era of the past, throwing the idea around influencers, and continuously producing engaging content, Classic Pare Titos and Titas of Manila has triumphantly mixed the perfect formula for success.
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