Free «Museum of Brands» Essay

In modern conditions of market employment, high competition, extensive supply to business aid have come a creative approach. Culture can give business much, since it is not only money for it. Today a large part of the price is paid for intangible assets such as a brand. Each solid company is proud of manufactured products, regardless of their size and type of activity, given the fact that the product is of high quality. In the period of its existence, in addition to the production process, the company expects the changes and exciting developments, the environment and human history. Therefore, many companies create a museum named after them, both to store important information and entertain consumers, thereby glorifying themselves. And of course, the corporate culture, which keeps the company, consists not only of the immediate work and the end result, but also of the people, history, change, and exciting twists. Thus, the emergence of the Museum of Brands being on the verge of the past, the present and the future is indirectly connected with the promotion of this culture. Due to the brands collected in the museum it has become possible to realize and understand the past in order to investigate the present.

The Museum of Brands is one of modern museums. It presents the private collection based on Robert Opie’s works. He started to embody his idea at the age of sixteen with a packet of Munchies and created the collection that now includes all aspects of daily life: toys, magazines, technology, travel, souvenirs, fashion and design. Opie stated, “The first item was a “Munchies” wrapper (a confectionery still popular now) but I soon realized that you could find earlier things” (Spiegel, 2007). Originally, the museum worked in Gloucester, but after its closing, it reopened in London. Its funds number 12,000 exhibits reflecting the history of advertisement from the Victorian era to the present days. There are mainly everyday consumer goods, games, toys, posters and packaging products. Watching the exposures of the Museum of Brands, it is possible to trace the development of sales technology, media resources, methods of transportation, storage, packing, and the impact of the world wars, emancipation, and changes of fashion on these processes. There is a tearoom in the museum where conferences, meetings and dinners were held. Therefore, everyone can enjoy a cup of tea after visiting the museum.

Since the museum is the place which walls keep secrets of the whole centuries, before its visiting everyone has an unusual feeling about the forthcoming meeting. In order to understand the unusualness of the Museum of Brands, it is necessary to visit it. It shows people the development of the well-known brands through their creative use of packaging and advertisement and the growth of people together with them. The museum cannot be visited in silence without any emotions. Every object tells its own story evoking a great number of recollections in visitors’ memory. Watching people who visit the museum, it is easy to notice that they can laugh looking at some packaging or advertisement without any reason. It is great because laughter prolongs life. When surveying the exhibition, people can carry from their workday life to their childhood or youth, and feel like a child. People come here in order to recollect important events of their lives and feel the atmosphere of that time. Sometimes it pushes people to call those ones whom they have not seen for ages. In addition, this museum demonstrates packaging, toys, posters and journals relating to the retail industry and advancement of consumer products to people. Therefore, everyone can find there old-fashioned journals, confectionary products, the world-famous tinned-food “Heinz”, a camera “Kodak”, powered detergent, household chemistry and even drops for asthmatics. There are also tobacco goods in it, thus it is possible to see what packs of cigarettes were in the past. People can find such a big choice of goods not only in the first room. The next room is the world of chocolate products and the last room is the most unusual named as “Evolution of brands” (Figure 1). It is a very interesting room because there is a vast number of brand packaging of different years. For example, having examined each packaging of Nesquik it is possible to watch the changes of design, colors, forms of products and pictures on it. Watching the brand of Rowntree’s Cocoa it is difficult not to notice some changes of size, color and label location. Thus, this museum is a real treasure because it can return everyone in the past and give an opportunity to evoke memories.

Thus, modern museums and the Museum of Brands in particular, become a place of meetings and cultural and human intercourse, connect the world of a man living today with historical and cultural continuum. Dialogue is the main form of interaction of a person with the museum. The high concentration of human experience, intellectual, physical and mental efforts, which distinguish one museum from another, demand from a visitor the ability to interpret the proposed space creating personalized meanings. The modern paradigm of the museum allows every person to treat it as a kind of symbol of culture. Today the Museum of Brands is considered as a creative “laboratory”, “treasury”, “time machine”, transferring people to other times and countries. Thus, the Museum of Brands presents how the ordinary life of people has transformed due to consumer brands evolution. It can help everyone to understand a great progress the world has made. Its goal is to teach and divert the public. The museum represents how daily life has altered as a consequence of the arrival of innumerable modern brands from powered detergent to chocolate. The Museum of Brands is not only the source of information about the consumer community but also the way of transferring our memories placing people in the historical context, to which we all belong. Therefore, it is a real trip into the memories where everyone can turn into a child. Thus, the Museum of Brands is a place for everyone who is interested in how things looked many years ago and how her/ his parents and grandparents lived (Figure 2).