Podcast Summary

This podcast explores the Museum of Brands in London, which features a timeline of the evolution of consumer brands and advertising over the past century. The hosts examine how brands have adapted their packaging, messaging, and strategies to appeal to changing consumer tastes and cultural trends, from the rise of women's smoking in the early 20th century to the emergence of own-brand supermarket products in the 1980s. They also discuss the museum's exhibit on the representation of women in advertising, noting the shift from stereotypical portrayals of women as domestic caregivers to more nuanced depictions. Overall, the hosts conclude that studying brand history provides valuable insights for modern marketing and communications, as many ideas have been "reinvented" over time.

 

Transcript

Transcripts are auto-generated.

Kiran Kapur - host (00:04):
Hello and welcome. This week we are in the Museum of Brands, which is in Notting Hill at London, and I'm delighted to have with me Christian Pratt, who is the founder of the Clarity Company. This is a marketing consultancy that helps business leaders solve problems that they know they have but can't find a way to resolve. Christian, we last met and down at the Watercress line and did a wonderful podcast From there. We're doing another offsite podcast at the Museum of Brands, and I dunno about you, but I'm very excited.

Christian Pratt - the Clarity Company (00:31):
I am too, Kiran. This is lovely. Our little days out rather good fun, aren't they? And I think the Museum of Brands can not be a greater contrast of what we had down at the Watercress line last year, but immediately walking in here, our brains are fizzing and we've been chatting away furiously. There's so many fantastic exhibits here. So I think we can have a good little walk around some good conversations. Excellent.

Announcer (00:50):
You are listening to the Cambridge Marketing Podcast from Cambridge Marketing College.

Kiran Kapur - host (00:57):
So the Museum of Brands is quite literally what it sounds like. It is collection of brands and packaging, mainly consumer brands. And a lot of it started with brands that you would've bought at supermarkets. And apparently the very first item was from 1963 and was a Munchies wrapper from a vending machine, which I just think is fantastic. And Christian and I have just come to the Time Tunnel, which takes us through from brands from the Victorian age - and I've got cycling maps and amateur gardens magazines - and we're going to walk through the time channel looking at the way that brands have changed over that time.

Christian Pratt - the Clarity Company (01:33):
So the thing that strikes me looking at these cabinets is actually the first thing is, and we are in front of a cabinet full of Victorian railway memorabilia, is the mediums. It's almost exclusively with a couple of exceptions being some ceramic jugs, which illustrated with railway scenes. It's print, it's paper, they are little booklets, magazines, pamphlets, which had wonderful expression from the age, some illustrated pen and ink pictures. So much of the early communication as a way of advertising your business was quite limited in its format because this is all they had available. So actually a lot of it was quite long form copy. We've got some pamphlets here with a single black and white illustration. The Penny magazine, for example, the illustration of a railway siding and really quite dense copy in front of it. So early doors, the form that communications, brand communications took were very simple.

Kiran Kapur - host (02:31):
You are right, the long-form copy is really, really striking. But what also intrigues me is you do have some quite interesting ideas. So we've actually got what's caught my eye is the railway alphabet, which talks about indexes and journeys and keepers and it's illustrated with the locomotive engines themselves. So there's some colour coming through and also some explanation. And that's one of the things you and I were spotting that some of the early brands, they've got to explain what they're for.

Christian Pratt - the Clarity Company (02:58):
Actually, that's a really good point. And just picking up on the alphabet, if you'd never used a railway before, and actually in Victorian era, that's quite plausible. So looking at this pamphlet in front of me, and it's a lovely illustrated, the letter W with a train passing on a behind it. WW stands for the whistle that often we hear when a tunnel is NI or a station is near. So it's literally explaining what the product is and what will happen when you are using or around the product. It's great. We're just standing in front of a cabinet now full of Hudson's soap extract soaps and other brands that we're familiar with. And it's just occurred to me is the very earliest emergence of what we now recognise as FMCG. So these are the things that you buy in your supermarkets, but again, the packaging is ceramic, it's car, it's wood, it's paper, and they're quite austere, aren't they, Kiran. There's relatively limited colour palette but strongly use colour palettes. And it's quite underwhelming in a very, if you look at it through contemporary eyes, it's quite underwhelming but actually also exquisite. There's some lovely details and the graphic design is really intense and well thought through.

Kiran Kapur - host (04:08):
The other thing that always strikes me when you look at older brands is how many brands we still have. So we're at a cabinet, I've got Lifebuoy soap, I've got Sunlight soap, I've got Coleman's. These are names that we still recognise and yet we are at a cabinet that's still Victorian. It's later Victorian, but it's still recognisably Victorian. And there is a brand that have just stood the test of time.

Christian Pratt - the Clarity Company (04:32):
So we've just actually taken one step to our left to a second cabinet, and you're right ki and I can see Frys, Chocolate Delight, we've got Lipton Tea, We've got advertising for Borvil, we've got some wonderful Cadburys cocoa and chocolate display. So these are brands that have figured out their products and their markets and endure to this day. And we recognise the names, even if the form may be a little bit unfamiliar

Kiran Kapur - host (04:54):
As you may be able to hear behind us, we've got some very excited school children on a day out. We are all agreeing that our days out were never this exciting. And it's lovely to hear people, they're wandering around, they're trying to do a trail looking for things, and it's lovely to hear the excitement.

(05:10):
So we're towards the end of the Victorian era at the moment in our time tunnel and we've just come to cigarettes and tobacco and apparently in the 1880s and 1890s manufacturing of cigarettes became more mechanised. So therefore prices came down and it became more affordable. What's interesting to me is the way that they are displayed very much using women's faces. So we've got Murray's Mottled, Flake 'always cool and sweet' with a lady in the most amazing hat, Players honeydew, another lady, Players, Dreamland cigarettes. But at this point women were not smoking. It wasn't cool for women to smoke for another 30 or 40 years. So it's very much at a male marketplace, but advertised with, I mean they're not sort of roaring beauties, are they? They're just women carefully put together.

Christian Pratt - the Clarity Company (06:03):
One posters caught my eye, I'm just going to drop to my knees and describe it to you, says this is for Ogden's Guinea Gold Cigarettes. And the pitch on the poster is each packet contains one real photo and I'll tell you what the photo is of. It's of a young lady, a named young lady, Vesper Tilly or Miss Julie Mackay. So you are buying a packet of cigarettes and you're getting a photo of a woman. It's just an astonishing way to promote your goods, but there we go. That's what they did.

Kiran Kapur - host (06:32):
But I should point out they are fully clothed, apart from one possibly, they are fully clothed women. We are not in a sort of smutty world here.

Christian Pratt - the Clarity Company (06:41):
No high neck lines, very well presented,

Kiran Kapur - host (06:44):
Nearly all in hats.

Christian Pratt - the Clarity Company (06:48):
So we're just on the cusp of I think the 20th century. And I'm standing in front of a cabinets which is full of Peak Freams and companies biscuit tins. And what struck me is that early on these manufacturers realised that one way to create shelf appeal is to put your product in an attractive decorative piece of packaging. In this case a tin, a very highly decorative, in some cases shaped tin. So there's a lovely grey duns biscuits, sha bang, there's a clock, there's a windmill. Of course, the idea is you then you buy the tin because it looks exciting and pretty in the shop. You take it home, you eat the biscuits with a cup of tea, and then you leave the product on your shelf, your mantlepiece in the kitchen as an embedded reminder of the brand and the salience that comes from that is impressive. And actually brands still do that today. And we were discussing how, for example, Marks and Spencer's you can buy will still sell you a box of biscuits in a nice tin that is branded and then would then be something you'd keep at home and use for something else. So it's not a new trick. They've been doing it for a long time. The Browns.

Kiran Kapur - host (07:53):
So we've just come around the corner into the Edwardian era and we've been struck by the changes that are going on in society at this point. So we're just into sort of the early 19 hundreds and we've got the rise of the box brownie cameras. So suddenly people can afford to have their own cameras and they're not going to take the photos that we are used to. But nonetheless, it's democratising that you can suddenly have your own camera. We've got a big movement in transport, in flight and so on. And this seems to be reflected in what we're seeing around us.

Christian Pratt - the Clarity Company (08:26):
Absolutely. I'm in front of a cabin full of children's games and what struck me is how the manufacturers are building games products, if you will, around common cultural themes that are capturing the public's imagination. So there's three games that have stood out for me, the new Game of Balloon Ascent with many novel features. So that's immediately rather attractive. So aviation is nascent to this point. The channel was crossed in 1901, 1909 I think actually. So suddenly this will be in the popular imagination. Next to that is a wonderful game called Summit, the great new Alpine game. So in the early 20th century, alpinism became a popular pastime amongst the well-off in Britain, they travelled to the continent. So the excitement of climbing mountains and the novelty of those new landscapes is something the brands have captured and used to put their products. The fall and below that, all the fun of a motor ride, literally a jolly game. So the novelty of travelling in a car for the first time is something that's being used to sell products in the popular imagination. Wonderful to see how brands are responding to emerging technology and cultural themes as a way to present their goods and services.

Kiran Kapur - host (09:40):
And now suddenly we've moved into the first world war. So we've come out of, we are now obviously in 1914 to the 1918, the Great War. And you you're seeing brands we're suddenly into patriotism. The Union Jack is suddenly everywhere. And I don't think I saw it on the earlier brands anywhere. We've got cookery books coming through, we've got anything to support the war, and it really is quite a change. And just upon my eyeline, I can see we've got some new games coming in, very much supporting the war effort. We've got British v Germans, we've got what looks like a dice game to Berlin and there's an invasion of Europe game as well. So we are surrounded by suddenly Union Jacks and everything to do with the war. Look at this, we've now got, this is Coleman's mustards. I'm not quite certain why we've got starch and blue written on there as well, but it's a Coleman's mustard poster, but around the edge of all the countries that were involved in the first World War. So we've got England, France, Belgian, Italy, Serbia, Montenegro, Australia, Canada, I'm going to stop there, but it goes all the way around the poster. So again, brands picking up that war theme.

Christian Pratt - the Clarity Company (10:53):
So we're standing in front of a cabinet now, which is celebrating the British Empire Exhibition of 1925. So this is post the Great War, the country is rejuvenating, it's come together, it's celebrating achievement and modernity. And what we're looking at is a cabinet full of products that are proud and overtly British. And the exhibition itself, which was centred around the new then Wembley Stadium, the Empire Stadium was celebrating achievement and modernity. And we've got ashtrays with the Empire Exhibition mark on. We've got products and services that are celebrating achievement and the forward looking direction that companies are taking. Even down to the prosaics, I can see a box of toffees for example, which are packaged up to be part of the celebrations, the Great Exhibition and everything that comes with it. So it's quite obvious that companies will move quite quickly to follow the contemporary mood of the nation and to both compliment that and also to sit on the back of it and carry the momentum forward for their own benefit as well as the benefit of the country.

(12:08):
Okay, this is the cabin full of sweet tins. I'm starting to get a sense that the individual companies are starting to develop and distinguish their individual graphical identities. So it's a lot of tins full of sweets, but they're all different. And actually as you'll look around, you can start to see how brands would distinguish themselves on shelves in shops in the general store. We didn't have supermarkets then. So in your local corner shop, and actually you can start to sense the emergence of brand identity branding and how it works. There's a wonderful tin of round trees, pastels, which is a brand I know from growing up and other brands. There's some Fairy Malt toffee, there's Macintosh's treacle toffee deluxe, so am Bassett's, a big tin of Bassett's licorice all sorts. Get my words out. And you start to recognise some of the elements, the graphical elements that we see today in that packaging. So early on, this is a cabinet full of 1920 of sweets and children's confectionary items. The brand starting to differentiate how they present themselves to their audiences.

Kiran Kapur - host (13:22):
Yes, you've actually starting to get different shapes and sizing coming through as well, aren't you? So I assume some of these were on the shelf and you were, I can't imagine that you bought quite that larger tin of Fox's glassier mints unless you had a family of 16, which I suppose is possible in the 1920s, but presumably that was on the shelf and the storekeeper would help you to a selection of them. So again, you had to catch the eye and of course you've got to preserve the products. So tins are very helpful at this time.

Christian Pratt - the Clarity Company (13:55):
So we've just, again, we've moved down to the next cabinet and Kirin's just been talking about the big tins, the big display packaging that you'd see on the shelf in the shop. And he'd ask for the shopkeeper to give you a call for a pound of X or Y. And in this cabinet we've moved to the 1930s now, and what really stood out for both of us was suddenly we've got individual portions on sale for the emerging novelty of chocolate and sweets. So I can see for example, brands we know really well today. We've got Aero, we've got Kit Kat, we've got Mars Bar, we've got Roundtrees fruit gums, we've got Rolo. So these are products that were emerging in the 1930s in order to sell them. They have strong discreet identities. The packaging and the Kit Kat packaging, you recognise it as a Kit Kat today and they're individual portions. So you could afford to buy at a time when there was still a relative degree of austerity in the economy. You could still afford to treat yourself to an individual portion, perhaps the end of the week or on payday. And that was something that would keep you going. So a lot of the brands tapping into the way they package and then distribute their products as well as communicate them and advertise them to try and encourage take up and greater consumption.

Kiran Kapur - host (15:08):
And now we've got the rise of travel and travel branding. So we've got the famous headline, 'Skegness is so bracing', which was Skegness trying to sell itself as the Riviera of the UK and realising that nobody was going to go there for its weather. So it talked about it being bracing and very good for you. We've got the 'Yorkshire Coast for Happy Holidays'. There are books coming forward about the Isle of Man and Sunny Jersey and suddenly travel is becoming really interesting. The railways are now much more established with no longer have I've got to explain to people what a whistle is all about. They actually understand what a railway is for. We've got the rise of paid leave, we've got the people's ability to travel and then stay in the hotels that were owned and run by the railways. So a very interesting product extension as well as branding with the railways coming into the idea that you can have a go as you please ticket and half fares and day tickets and really buying into this new leisure and the new, suddenly people had a bit of money to spend

Christian Pratt - the Clarity Company (16:15):
And possibly this is a nice early example of the benefit ladder if you will, because I've got a wonderful post in front of me, which is 'Spring Radiance' and as Kiran described, 'G0 as you Please' tickets. So this is very definitely describing a benefit that I can buy from the railway, but it's a Southern Electric offer. Southern Electric run trains. The benefit to me is to go and spend quality time with my family. So we can see quite early on that the features, benefits, relationship and the benefits ladder and everything that comes with that. Almost if we might, a hint of purpose starts to creep in and brands are whiter that and start to present themselves as being the answer to your problem rather than the thing you can buy.

(17:00):
So we've been looking at these cabinets on the timeline and we're passing through several cabinets now full of the Second World war. And again, we are seeing brands referencing the war and the national contribution. But my eyes drawn, and Kiran is already ahead of me, and has taken to the end of this particular corridor where we can see really exciting, colourful advertising for Jaffa Juice and Kellogg's Cornflakes and Jacob's Puff Knolls. And we are quickly into the 1950s and the emergence of, or the end of austerity, certainly the end of rationing and suddenly we've got brands going, life is better, life is good and this is how you can be part of it.

Kiran Kapur - host (17:42):
We've got some great international branding coming through. So Smedley is talking about spaghetti bolognese Milanese, this would've been really exciting at the time we are before package holidays. People aren't travelling abroad so much or if they are, it's a lot of work and effort. So something that advertising we've got, I presume he's meant to be Italian chef, a meal in itself selling spaghetti. This was really exciting. And underneath what's also made me laugh is 'every baby needs Heinz strained foods', which is baby food in a tin. But of course Heinz traded on by having its 57 varieties and 'a million housewives every day picked up a tin of beans and says beanz meanz Heinz,' you trusted Heinz so you would trust Heinz with your baby.

Christian Pratt - the Clarity Company (18:32):
So we're now looking at a recreated 1950s grocery shop, a grocery store, and immediately the thing that stands out for all of us here is the colour, the vibrancy of the packaging, predominantly boxes of dry goods and tins of food, but the colours and the type faces. And as we mentioned a little earlier, suddenly brands are developing a real confidence in how they present themselves. So you can stand in front of the counter and say, I can't quite read it, but it's the orange tin, I want the Cadburys born little cocoa please because I recognise it and I know that's the product I want. So we're moving very quickly from commoditization to branded goods and all the identity that comes with it. It's really exciting and actually makes you want to buy things could just so vibrant as a collection on the shelf. So we're now celebrating the coronation of the late Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.

(19:25):
And this is a cabinet that is absolutely full of every possible brand and company putting the face of our extraordinary contemporary new queen on the front of their products, good and services. We have a dairy box, Cadbury's dairy box with the royal procession. I can see pencils and pens. There's more mugs in china, than you can shake a stick at. There is an Elizabeth II Rex thermos flask. So if you were a consumer facing brand, you seizes the moment and you put the new queen and the king's head. He was never the king, was he? He was Duke of Edinburgh, the queen and her husband's face on your products. And it was a thing to do. And people, the new queen was loved your products had the queen's face on it, ergo your product could be loved too. It was quite a simple connection, but very popular.

Kiran Kapur - host (20:17):
It's lovely. We've even got a sliced bread. I can't see. It's Good Bodies, fine quality, sliced bread with 'coronation' on it and the date it is just glorious. And of course brands still do this now with all the various Jubilee that we had, brands came out and celebrated royalty. Royalty remains a continual icon within branding. It's something that companies can sort of hook onto, but this is amazing from teapots to money boxes to cards. And I said the sliced bread just got me. So one of the things that also happened with the coronation was many people either bought a TV or had access to a TV because they wanted to watch the coronation much to the concern of some people at the time that people might watch the coronation not wearing a hat. But this also then gave rise to toys that are now being connected to TV shows. So we are standing by the most amazing arrange. We've got Sergeant Bilko, Bonanza, Dixon of Green, the Lone Ranger. These are all developing toys and games to go alongside. So we've got the rise of merchandise

Christian Pratt - the Clarity Company (21:35):
And actually just as an adjunct to that one that's caught my eye, my eye is an aviation enthusiast, a model of vicar vicount aircraft, which is another way of merchandising. So this time we have post-war, the British industry is returning to making things for civil life and we had a thriving aviation industry and by getting models of your products into the hands of children into homes, you were again advocating for their use and their existence. So not only are we seeing the merchandising, picking up on the availability of television programmes as a way to endorse products, but also just things. So a model of the plane might then encourage you to go on the plane. So again, a nice little obvious connection, but done very elegantly.

Kiran Kapur - host (22:20):
And Christian, we looked earlier at cigarettes and then it was very much male dominated. And now cigarettes, we've got the riser filter cigarettes in the 1950s and suddenly it's cool for women to smoke as well. And it's something that if you went to see somebody, they would offer you a drink and a cigarette. It was quite standard. So again, we've got a complete change of what's going on with cigarettes. We don't have a lady in a hat anymore. We've got a contemporary looking 1950s woman just casually smoking a 'Capstones because it's smoother, finer flavoured'. The indication that perhaps she herself who's smoother and finer flavoured because she smokes Capstones. We've got pictures of happy couples sitting sort of back-to-back sharing a joke and both having a cigarette. It's a very another one with a 'Players please'. I presume that's meant to be Mae West. It is a Mae West outfit with a sailor or a fisherman? I'm not sure. But again, they're sharing a cigarette. There's lots of coupling going on with our iconography.

Christian Pratt - the Clarity Company (23:26):
It's so true, isn't it? And I also wonder whether we're getting a hint of lifestyle as well because I'm looking down lower in the cabinet and we've got a couple, a very glamorous couple ice skating on a frozen lake in the Alps, presumably having previously enjoyed a cigarette and enjoying one subsequently. But yeah, there's definitely a sense that the choice of your choice of cigarette reflects your choice of lifestyle and your aspirations and the values that you hold there. And actually within this cabinet, I can't even begin to count them. There's at least four or 50 different brands. And while the physical form is all the same because they have to all sit on a shelf in the shop, every single pack is different. It's astonishing. So we've got a fantastic display in front of us now of radios and the transistor as a piece of technology emerged at this time and it brought to life and put into people's pockets, modern culture.

(24:18):
So music. So we all listened to the radio, we watched the Queen during her coronation on our black and white televisions. We listened to the radio, suddenly you could take the radio with you. And what stands out for me is how these are literally the descendants or the iPhone, the iPod and the iPhone and what we have in our pockets today can trace the lineage back to these devices. And actually in this cabin in front of me is a tiny little transistor radio and it's probably, it's the brand as sculpture. I've never heard of it, but actually it is smaller than my iPhone. So already we've gone to the best place and pulled back. We had good solutions to this 40, 50, 60 years ago. But it's lovely to see. And of course one of the other things that's important about this is that we think about advertising and we're in a museum of brands looking at things, but advertising can take the form of funnily enough, radio advertising. So if you've got the radio in your pocket with you, that's another way for brands to reach consumers and manufacturers were advocating for that by bringing out ever more reliable and smaller radios. What a lovely connection.

Kiran Kapur - host (25:23):
So we've arrived in the 1970s and no huge surprise, we are nerding-out over the Star Wars collection, but what we're seeing is the rise of collectibles. So we've already talked about board games sort of spinning off from tv, but now we are really into full blown merchandising. And of course Star Wars was famous for bringing this to life and really understanding that you could do a lot with merchandising.

Christian Pratt - the Clarity Company (25:46):
I think that's absolutely right. I think it was, correct me if I'm wrong here, fans film, I think it was George Lucas was very astute in identifying the merchandising rights as commercially significant when he made the Star Wars films. And as Kiran said, a lovely cabinet for all the original models, which are worth a fortune these days. And actually just sort of around the edge is just a hint of Star Trek two for the Star Trek founders as well, and a little bit of doctor who in the background too, but very much brands not even pretending to associate with contemporary movies and TV series, just doubling down on them saying, and here's the stuff, go out and buy it and collect them. So very early, the gamification, it's an early version of got to catch 'em all. You've got to get the whole set, you've got to get Chewy and R2D2.

(26:38):
So we're now standing in front of the cabinet full of the things you buy in the supermarket. Of course by this time the 1980s supermarkets are where you went to buy your food. And we are used to buying branded goods and that's how you create salience and get repeat purchase. But what we've got in front of us is the emergence, I think of the own label goods. So I'm looking at Saint Michael, which for those of you who don't know is the m and s in-house label. Saint Michael tomato ketchup, Sainsbury's brown sauce. Gateway, that's an old retailer's name, Gateway, tomato, ketchup. And for the more classy amongst Waitroses own brand lemon curd. So the retailers are going, hang on, we want a slice of the retail spend and we have sufficient buying power to create our own products and we've got a little bit of brand identity to pop it on there. So suddenly you've got brands facing competitors in the environments they distribute their own goods in. So quite a challenge suddenly to get your head around as a brand manager for that.

Kiran Kapur - host (27:39):
It's interesting because at the time there was this big argument about whether as a brand manager you should go down this route and was it acceptable? And some companies refused to do so. Kellogg's famously,' if it said Kellogg's on the packet, then it was Kellogg's in the packet' and they didn't make for anybody else. Exactly. But this was a massive argument. Now we've almost lost that argument. I can't imagine a company not creating a supermarket brand version as well as their own branded product.

Christian Pratt - the Clarity Company (28:11):
So we are moving to the 1990s and both Kiran and I suddenly stood in the timeline being just overwhelmed. So much stuff going on. And where we started this timeline, we had a pamphlet and maybe a nice decorated jug. And now there's so many things. There's soaps, there's teabag, there's there's Teletubbies, there's the XFiles collectible, Molder and Scully, there's computers, there's there, there's merchandise and films. It's everywhere. And I think as I've stood here that one of the challenges for a market in the 1990s, and I think it's the same today, is how do you go to market? There are so many things you can do. Yes you can merchandise and brand your product, but the promotion of that, is it a product? Is it a promotional tool? Is the tele tub is dull promoting the series or is it a product in its own right? Is it a line its own right? There's so many permutations out to get your head around and it can be from scratch, quite overwhelming. I've just spotted salmon and shrimp paste. Oh my goodness me.

Kiran Kapur - host (29:17):
So picking up from, we were looking at supermarket brands, we've now got the arrival in the 1990s of the completely frill Tesco value teabag range. Although Tescos were not the only one. That's just the example I've got in front of me. But suddenly we are going unalloyed let's go for the value. Nevermind, we've got to stand out somehow in the marketplace. And what's interesting about the Tesco Value in a whole cabinet of stuff that we are just getting overwhelmed by is it's a white box with blue writing on it and a little bit of red. And suddenly going back to that really simple packaging is how you stand out.

Christian Pratt - the Clarity Company (29:56):
It's such a good example, Kiran, you're so right. We have literally transport ourselves back to that first cabinet that we sit in front of. And there are, there's one type face, two colours, a plain cardboard box. It's as simple as you could be and it stands out. You're absolutely right.

(30:11):
I'm just laughing now because in front of us, Kiran has pointed out the proliferation of spreads and butters and not butters and margarines. It's my favourite product line ever. I can't think this is the right term for it. Yellow fats, it's the most unappealing thing. But if you say yellow fats from an FMCG marketer, they know exactly what you want about whether it's 'Anchor soft' or 'half fat' or 'I can't believe it's not butter' or 'light butter' or 'sunflower margarine' or 'Lurpak'. Yellow fats both simultaneously lovely on a slice of toast, but actually in the cold light today, not for me. Thank you.

Kiran Kapur - host (30:42):
Again, it's a very cultural thing. So in the 1990s we're suddenly all worried about fat in our diet. So my Mum used to buy gold top milk because it was what you gave children, it had the extra jersey fat in it. Suddenly in the 1990s you're not doing that. Now we are moving into semi-skimmed milk, which is suddenly really important. The rise of organics. The first time we started to see organic labelled. And so the huge rise of the yellow fats market comes off the back of that, of people being scared of having butter and suddenly we're all into margarine and sunflower margarine.

(31:17):
So we finally reached the end of the time tunnel and we are back into the 2010s. There's another fabulous display. One of the things we love about the way the museum does this is everything is just together very carefully displayed, but there's no huge explanations.

(31:34):
You can just understand it as you look and you can make your own conclusions. So what we've really noticed in the 2010s is the packaging is brightly coloured. There's a lot of it. We're still feeling a bit overwhelmed, but we've lost pictures of people. There's no people on the packaging at all. I've got a couple of cats on things like Whiskers, but that's it. There's no demonstration of how to use the product on the front of the packaging and the human aspect has just gone entirely. And we are in front of everything from Daz, Detol and CIF antibacterial spray through to a Kellogg 'plant protein crunch breakfast cereal' right the way through to Surf and other types of washing powders. But there's no people.

Christian Pratt - the Clarity Company (32:25):
It's a good point, isn't it? And I think possibly at this point, because we have a proliferation of media out of the retail environment, maybe the people are in the media. So we were looking at the advertising early for cigarettes and the customer, the people that the brand wanted to sell to was featured on the product. So this is your point, Kiran. Now it's not. And perhaps I think we've moved the self-identification process off the products and into the company media. But actually, and even in this cabinet, there's not even a great deal of the product shot. Occasionally one or two have those on there, but a lot of it now is the name of the products wrapped in the branding identity. And actually the other thing that stands out for me is the proliferation of packaging, the variety of different things. And obviously plastic plays a part in that as well.

(33:15):
But yeah, it's astonishing. But yes, no people, few product shots, but a lot of discreet identity possibly too much. It's a little bit, goodness me, where do I start?

(33:28):
We're just passing down the corridor towards the Mad Women exhibition book. There's another cabinet display in front of me. What struck me is how the museum's chosen to really be very light touch on the interpretation of the exhibits. In most museums you would have a panel information explaining not just what you're looking at but why it's significant and how to interpret it in front of me is I'm going to guess 15 separate boxes of plasters Band-Aid. The brand is Band-aid. There is no explanation whatsoever other than to put them in order from the oldest to newest. And they explain themselves, the shape of the tin changes, the shape of the material changes, the size, slightly changes, but they all basically say the same thing. And you can see how the brand has iterated its packaging, its identity, it doesn't need any interpretation. So very clever, clever move by the museum. And actually just above it is Marmite proving the exact same thing. It doesn't need an explanation. You can see how it changes. So it's a lovely way of leading the consumer. Ask the visitors to draw our own conclusions because it's pretty much in front of you. It doesn't need much explanation.

Kiran Kapur - host (34:41):
I think we do have to explore Marmite because Marmite is just such a wonderful brand. It's such a great brand story. So I didn't realise it goes back to 1902. I had no idea it went quite that early. And the point about Marmite is they rapidly discovered that people either love it or hate it. And somewhere around the sort of two thousands, Marmite decided to stop worrying about this and just embrace it. And you have this fantastic 'love it or hate it' campaign, which they have kept going for a long period of time. And I think that's a great idea of a brand just leaning into one of its problems and being very proud of it. Some people absolutely love us, some people absolutely love this. And I do love the fact that we've actually got a Marmite biscuit tin. I'd never seen that before. I thought that's a great brand extension in a way of bringing the brand to life.

Christian Pratt - the Clarity Company (35:29):
So we finished the timeline, which has been absolutely fantastic and great to discuss and share with you. Now we're moving into a specific exhibition at museum, which is called Ad Women. And it's all about, there's two themes and the first is the representation of women by the advertising industry. So how women have been used in creative on television in adverts, but also it's the history of women working behind the scenes, making those adverts within the agencies and how they have chosen to convey and influence and portray themselves and their fellow women in the advertising their creation. So let's go and have a look at that now.

Kiran Kapur - host (36:08):
So we've moved into the exhibition room. We're surrounded by products divided up into things like categories such as beauty, health, expertise, empowerment. And what you might be able to hear in the background is we have a TV display of some fairly iconic adverts looking at the ways that women are displayed within advertising. So currently the background, we've got the Cadbury Flake advert very famously of the lady in the bath rather Sensuously eating her Cadbury Flake, the crumbs Flakest milk chocolate in the world. There's been others which perhaps show papa and Nicole with Nicole going off in her little Cleo car. And we've just had two young women watching a man doing his shrink wash jeans in some lagoon I think is the only way to describe it. Quite interesting in the iconography of that because clearly we were supposed to be excited by the man with his shrink washed jeans, but you were also being encouraged to stare at the woman and the way that she was responding to it as well. It was a double-edged advert from that point of view. So Christian, we're surrounded by lots and lots of different types of adverts, but we've decided to come to the sort of family and the domestic side. So what have you picked out here?

Christian Pratt - the Clarity Company (37:24):
Yes, it's a fascinating cabinet, isn't it? And some of the early advertising, we've got a progression of advertising through here and it's a common observation that the woman is placed at the centre of the household, the matriarch providing for her family. And the products, I'm looking one for boal are associated with her role as the provider. As I say the protector of the family. But interestingly, over time we see a subtle shift as the stereotypical role. Second, why the man and woman at home begin to blur a little and you see the introduction, the emergence of actually the potential in the eyes of the view that maybe the woman doesn't have to do everything and some of the other tasks can be done by other family members, implication being the husband or the man in the house too. But early on in the advertising, the graphics we're looking at, you are very definitely getting a very strong identity, the matriarchal identity associated with the products and the use of them being for the good of the family, for the welfare of the household.

Kiran Kapur - host (38:23):
Yes, we've got a lot of smiling mothers and smiling children, haven't we? And mother, she's handing over a spoonful of bob roll or camp coffee or the children are sniffing something made from Oxo. It's very definitely the mother as the matriarch controlling it. And of course this also fits in with the rise of the women were controlling the family finances much more and so advertising was appealing to them because you needed the female of the family, the mother to choose this product. But we are pushing on some quite simple ideas about good mothers give their children bore. There's a real sense of if you're a good mother, you have smiling children and they are healthy and happy.

Christian Pratt - the Clarity Company (39:08):
That's absolutely right. I think there's not a very sophisticated picture. The feature is soap, the benefit is clean children, that it doesn't take you much beyond that. A meaty sauce makes your husband happy. He had a nice dinner. It's not sophisticated, but you're actually right. It's led uses imagery of women to hook in women as the buyers, which is ironic because when we were leaving the time tunnel, we observed that that effect had fallen out of use. Some of the stuff we're looking at here is fifties, sixties. It's very definitely in use then. So there's a really clear shift in the way that the stereotypical consumer, in this case, the woman is used or they're not used in how the product's presented.

Kiran Kapur - host (39:54):
We've also got the rise of white goods, so washing machines and things and suddenly the automatic washing machine. So whereas in the earlier ones, yes, you had clean children because you were doing the work. Now suddenly the washing machine is allowed to do it, try it in your home, demonstrated free because you didn't know what a dish made did unless you had a chance to see it in action. Personal automatic keeps your whites right. I thought at first I thought the price tag was a mistake. So there's a lot of emphasis on home. Again, white goods, home products, it's not all down to mum to do the physical labour.

(40:34):
So we've come to the end of what's been an absolutely wonderful morning going around the Museum of Brands in London. We would thoroughly recommend it. I think we've had an absolutely great time. Christian, could you sum up what you feel about all of this?

Christian Pratt - the Clarity Company (40:48):
We have had a great time, haven't we? So many thoughts worrying through my head. I think first of all, two thoughts come to the fore. The first is if you work in marketing, if you work in branding now you need to understand where we've come from to have an appreciation of how we might move forward. Because one of the things that we noticed early on in the timeline is everything's been done before. There are basically no new ideas. And the timeline showed us that you may have a newer way of doing an old idea, but actually to understand where we've come from is to know how to move forward. So for me, I think the big takeaway as a market, as a communicator is we're reinventing the wheel here, but somebody had already come up with the idea and now you just need to find a way to contextualise it that's appropriate for the modern day. And the museum gives you lots of ideas and ways of examples of how to do that.

Kiran Kapur - host (41:41):
Yes, I think if I've come away with anything, it's how much branding is so much ingrained into our minds and into our history. So I've been walking around with you, Christian and also Daniel s engineer and the amount of times we've gone, wow, I remember that my dad had one of those. I remember people using that. I remember buying one of those. Branding is so important and it really does bring alive so much of what we do. One of the things that I was very interested in the Museum of Brands as a side thing does is boxes for people who have memory problems and they can use branding and representation of branding to help people to recover memories. That's something we're going to explore in a future podcast. But I thought that was a really interesting part of how much branding is embedded in our day-to-day life and how easy sometimes we forget that

Christian Pratt - the Clarity Company (42:31):
That's a perfect way probably to end actually the evidence that we seek as marketers of the purpose of brand. Why do we do brandings? Because actually it does make a difference. We do recognise and remember things over decades and coming here has demonstrated that so well. So I think for me it's a lovely example of that branding has a purpose and the purpose is to create memories.

Kiran Kapur - host (42:54):
Fantastic. Christian Pratt, founder of the Clarity Company, thank you so much for spending the morning with me and it's been a wonderful time at the Museum of Brands here in London.