INTERVIEW

a ‘tiger’s tail’ that could be wrapped around the petrol cap on the car, thus giving the impression of literally having ‘a tiger in your tank’. At the time, petrol brands were vying with each other to gain motorists’ loyalty with all kinds of giveaways and

enticements. “Shell had a campaign a few years later where it issued half of a banknote and you

had to match it with the other half to win a prize,” he recalls. When I ask what is the oldest item in his collection, he claims to have a dinosaur egg. “It’s the ultimate piece of packaging,” he jokes, and then goes on to explain: “Ancient civilisations of course had their own forms of promotion and packaging, but the Victorian age is really where it all started.” He refers

to mass production and distribution as the chief driver of this trend. Someone who has studied so many promotional campaigns must surely have a good insight into what makes the perfect promotional item. “It’s getting the right mix that captures the popular mood of the moment – something that’s cheap but fun,” he says. “Take the yo- yo for example – this is a phenomenon that reinvents itself every ten years for a new generation of children.” There are

undoubtedly promotional techniques that are on the wane, however.

“Things like collecting tokens that you save up for,” he says. “The idea of laboriously filling up a book of stamps - we now

want instant gratification and we have the ability to do things electronically which meets this need.” It seems then that while promotional items come

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and go with as much frequency as they ever have, they still remain a powerful marketing tool. “We all like collecting things, without necessarily being ‘a collector’ – it’s part of our human instinct,” he says. “People like to be completist and get the whole set, which increases the perceived value (not necessarily in terms of money) of the missing object.” Here, he cites the Pokemon craze and the ‘Gotta catch ’em all’ slogan. While the desire to collect these things as they come out help sales, their subsequent value as objects of nostalgia (even potentially, antique) in the future can give them a whole second life. Opie has reservations about collecting items in the hope that they may become future antiques, however. “Now, people put things away because they recognise there may be value in them in twenty years’ time,” he says. “But if everyone is doing that, they may be stuck with sacks of items of little value because so many people are doing the same thing.” The cultural importance of his ephemera, however, hasn’t gone unnoticed. As early as 1975 the V&A featured his collection in a show titled The Pack Age: A Century of Wrapping It Up. It was such a success that he went on to create a museum to house his growing inventory, opening first in Gloucester in 1984 and then moving to Notting Hill in 2005. Opie has even greater ambitions for the museum, however. “It is difficult to understand why recognition for this part of our national heritage cannot at the moment obtain the status it deserves,” he writes on his website. “It remains the poor relative alongside the established works that fill our national galleries and museums. Our mission is still to change this perception.” If he succeeds, today’s promotional items will be far from being throwaway objects; rather they will form a little piece of history.

The Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising can be found at 2 Colville Mews, Lonsdale Road, Notting Hill, London www.museumofbrands.com Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80