The Museum is a charity dedicated to educating and entertaining the public on how branding and packaging permeates our lives.
The Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising has relocated and expanded to a new Notting Hill location. It was originally opened in Gloucester in 1984 and moved to London in 2005. It now has a new home on Lancaster Road, a 2-minute walk from Ladbroke Grove tube station.
The relocation has taken a year to realise and is estimated to have cost around £1.6 million, providing a valuable exceptional resource for those studying and working in the advertising, marketing, business, design, packaging and branding industries.
The Museum provides a fascinating insight into how everyday lives have changed over the past 200 years through the evolution of consumer brands. Through exhibits showcasing historic and contemporary household packaging, toys, magazines, newspapers, technology, travel, fashion and design, a fascinating picture emerges, creating a visually stimulating and thought-provoking experience, and for many an emotional and nostalgic reunion with their past.
Consumer historian and Museum founder Robert Opie said, “We’re proud to unveil the new Museum of Brands. With increasing visitor numbers, the new space has provided the opportunity to vastly improve the visitor experience and to present a brand new way of understanding British culture and lifestyle since the Industrial Revolution. With such a mass of material, it enables a variety of subjects to be put into context.”
Remember Lyon’s individual fruit pies? Spangles? Watney’s Party Seven? The new look museum will display over 14,000 items of daily life spanning 200 years of British consumer culture.
A new look extended Time Tunnel will transport visitors through wars and coronations, changing fads and fashions, the coming of cinema, radio and television, the dramatic rise of branding and marketing, the spread of cheaper travel, the evolution of magazines and newspapers, and an endless stream of innovations that have made things more convenient for millions.
British multi-national Diageo, owners of heritage brands that include Guinness, Pimm’s and Gordon’s Gin, are supporters of the exhibition space “Channels to the Consumer”, which features a case study exploring two hundred years of promoting the Johnnie Walker brand and an advertising cinema charting 60 years of iconic TV campaigns.
“Remember when Marathon bars became Snickers and Opal Fruits were renamed Starburst?”
The Museum has a section dedicated to the history of the British brand told via its packaging.
The Brand Origins space tells the story of the UK’s best-loved brands. What makes a brand resonate with the public? Is it the name, colour, shape? Where do brands get their names from and what happens when a brand changes its name? Remember when Marathon bars became Snickers and Opal Fruits were renamed Starburst?
Listening to consumers’ needs, manufacturers have made their products faster to open and better to re-seal, quicker to dispense and easier to dispose of. Packs have become attractive objects kept for pleasure and even adapted for ongoing use when empty. Yet, in our competitive society, manufacturers have continually strived to reduce their costs and keep packaging to a necessary minimum, while maintaining the primary need to protect the product through each stage of its journey, ultimately delivering good to the consumer.
The new Museum of Brands is a unique venue for a variety of venue hire and events. DS Smith, a leading provider of corrugated packaging, recycling services, paper and plastics, are confirmed as a founding sponsor. With innovation at its heart, DS Smith are keen supporters of the Museum of Brands conference venue, a destination that provides inspirational and stimulating spaces that help brands succeed.
The Museum now has a dedicated learning space and can now offer creative sessions on weekdays. Sessions last one hour and are followed by entry into the Museum with subject-specific worksheets. The DS Smith Charitable Foundation has also confirmed that it will sponsor learning activities at the Museum.
The new Museum café and garden offers a quiet haven away from the bustle of Portobello Road.
The Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising is an educational charity that works with the local, national and global community to deliver engaging learning experiences related to its displays. More than half of the funding needed for this project has been raised thanks to corporate founders Diageo and DS Smith, along with grants from the John Lyon’s Charity and the Garfield Weston Foundation.
The World Branding Forum is a supporter of the educational efforts of the Museum.
Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising
111-117 Lancaster Road
London W11 1QT UK
www.museumofbrands.com
