“This is a museum that never should have existed,” says Robert Opie, director of the Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising. “Why would you display the things that everyone else is chucking away?”
Since 1984, that is exactly what the museum has been doing – showcasing a 12,000 strong collection of packaging and branded objects from First World War Oxo Cubes and 1930s Mars Bars to cult nostalgia items like Spangles and Fiendish Feet Yoghurts.
This summer, the museum is moving from its current premises in London’s Notting Hill to the London Lighthouse Building on Lancaster Road, formerly owned by the Terence Higgins Trust.
Opie founded the museum following a 16-year career in market research. A lifelong branded packaging obsessive, in 1975 he held an exhibition – The Pack Age – at the Victoria & Albert Museum.
He says: “At the time there was nowhere in the UK where you could go and see commercial art – nobody seemed to be keeping a record of this sort of thing.”
Since 1984, that is exactly what the museum has been doing – showcasing a 12,000 strong collection of packaging and branded objects from First World War Oxo Cubes and 1930s Mars Bars to cult nostalgia items like Spangles and Fiendish Feet Yoghurts.
This summer, the museum is moving from its current premises in London’s Notting Hill to the London Lighthouse Building on Lancaster Road, formerly owned by the Terence Higgins Trust.
Opie founded the museum following a 16-year career in market research. A lifelong branded packaging obsessive, in 1975 he held an exhibition – The Pack Age – at the Victoria & Albert Museum.
He says: “At the time there was nowhere in the UK where you could go and see commercial art – nobody seemed to be keeping a record of this sort of thing.”
