But will they remember who you are?

Imagine working with brands for two-thirds of your career and being ‘today minus 5 days old’ when you learned there’s a museum in west London dedicated to brands?!

There it is, tucked away behind Ladbroke Grove, Museum of Brands.

I’d love to say I Google-stumbled on the location and decided to take a pilgrimage to its labelled halls, but I didn’t. I was invited. For work. A day of creative inspiration and forward-focusing, held in its grassy-carpeted conference room. The inspiration day and venue were top tier… but that’s not what I came here to share.

What was interesting to me was the role creating a welcoming space for people with dementia and their carers plays in the wellbeing programme of a museum dedicated to nostalgia and charting the “history of consumer culture”. And what that says about the depth of our connection to brands.

Consumerism shapes us.

It's the tension in the minds and hearts of anyone adopting a regenerative, people and planet-centred way forward for communities and business, who also works with – and values – brands. The history of us as consumers IS the history of us as people, as communities, as cliques. The Coca-Cola vs Pepsi. The biscuit dunked in your tea. The teabag brewing in the pot… They’re all tiny signals of who we are and, on some level, shortcuts to connection with others.

So while part of me is a bona fide eco worrier, another part can’t conceive of a life without brands to love. Brands to remember, when other things I hold precious are fuzzy in my brain.

Because nostalgia is a reality with the power to call us back to ourselves. A brand tagline. A jingle from our childhood. Music etched in our memory from hearing it in ad breaks one memorable summer years before.

I don’t profess to know the science (if there is any) that shows why a place dedicated to nostalgia might be a haven for people living with dementia. But perhaps the work it showcases, from an era when ads were made to be 'catchy interludes' that stuck in the mind, offers some insights to today's creatives. Never mind sticky content, does it stick in the mind? Will it be remembered years from now, when so much else has faded away?

My creative note to self: Memorable storytelling uses the power of sound. (Thank you Matthew Bull for the reminder!)

I’m one for seeing signs and connecting dots, so it’s not lost on me that this audio awakening is happening in the same week that we lost legendary actor James Earl Jones. Impressive when you saw him on screen (and stage, if you were that lucky). Iconic when you heard him. The man who not only voiced the father most beloved by kids (Mufasa), he also voiced the one most feared (Darth Vader). A voice that underlined sound’s ability to fill us with emotions, and transport our imaginations to galaxies far, far away...