A fair bit later than planned...
One of the best things about the Museum of Brands, Packaging & Advertising was the way the exhibits prompted chat between different groups of visitors. Rather than speaking only to each other, we got chatting to lots of other people there. The content created conversation starters.
Robert Opie was a benevolent host: ensuring each of his guests enjoyed their stay; dazzling us with stories and trivia; asking us about ourselves and how we ended up there so he could ensure we were getting the most out of it. He was just charming, and so generous. I rather worry that we were hogging his time, so to honour it here's a record of some of the stuff I learnt from him.
Brands like those featured in the museum (mostly domestic consumer goods) get into our homes and become the fabric of our lives, so we have a natural intimacy with them - whether we're aware of it or not
Keeping the collection up to date in our innovation-focussed world is impossible. In the 1970's Kellogg's only launched one new cereal (Country Store), yet Robert was eating 3 bowls of cereal a day to keep up to date with the latest packaging. These days he doesn't stand a chance, so needs to pick his battlegrounds. Though increasingly, brand owners who’ve come to see his collection help out by passing stuff his way.
The Allsorts here are not as old as the tin (which I think was from the 1930's). Robert put them in here in the late 80's, intending to keep them fresh. They turned into a talking point, so he's kept the same ones there ever since.
Robert believes that should Prince William get married, we'd see a similar proliferation of commemorative goods from household brands as we did in the past for national events like Jubilees, Royal Weddings & National Festivals. I hope he's right, but I'm not so sure.
Robert is currently working on a special exhibition on sustainability. It sounds really good, he's going to look at the lessons that can be learnt from the past when we've previously been in a cycle of cutting back and making what we use go further. He's also going to look into the future. The exhibition will be on show in the museum some time in the summer.
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