Branding Family Business History
A Study into Representation of Business History in Exhibitions, and the Limitations and Benefits Thereof
Branding Family Business History
A Study into Representation of Business History in Exhibitions, and the Limitations and Benefits Thereof
Master thesis Public History Carlijn T.E. van Spaendonck
Supervisor: Dr. Manon Parry Second reader: Ludger Smit
Date: December 19 2014
Picture on front page: Tourist photo opportunity in the Heineken Experience, with 3 public history students, and me.
1 Acknowledgement
In the last one-and-a-half year I have received a lot of help from many different people in finishing this thesis. To start with I would like to pay my gratitude to everyone who the interviewees, who have spent time patiently answering my questions in a face-to-face interview and via email. Without them I would not have been able to make this thesis into the detailed report it is. Equally important has been my supervisor dr. Manon Parry, who has been especially patient with me, guiding me throughout this process with wonderful ideas and helpful comments. I am also very grateful for my second reader,
Ludger Smit, who is willing to spend his Christmas holiday reading and grading my thesis. And a special thanks goes to Pieter Lettinga, for being the ‘thesis whisperer’ when I needed one.
Than on a more personal note I want to thank my former colleagues of Projob for offering me a place to work and encouraging me to the end. Also my current Rijksmuseum colleagues have been very helpful in taking over my shifts and studying together with me. My Public History friends have been there for inspiration and helpful tips. The unlimited patience of my partner, family and friends has not gone unnoticed by me, and I will spend my time repaying that debt to them all. It has been an interesting, sometime fun, often difficult journey, and so many people have helped me along the way, for which I am very grateful.
2 Table of Content
1. Introduction 4 1.1 : Research Question 4 1.2 : Methods and Sources 8 1.3 : Chapter Outline 9 2. Branding of Heritage 11 2.1 : Exploring Heritage 13
2.2 : Heritage and the Heineken Experience 19 2.3 : Heritage and the Stadsarchief Amsterdam’s Heineken Exhibition 24
2.4 : Limitations and Benefits of Heritage 27 3. Branding of Nostalgia 30
3.1 : Exploring Nostalgia 32 3.2 : Nostalgia in the Verkade Pavilion 36 3.3 : Nostalgia and the Philips Museum 43 3.4 : Limitations and Benefits of Nostalgia 47
4. Branding of Science 50 4.1 : Exploring the Presentation of Science 53 4.2 : Science History in the Philips Museum 55 4.2: Science History in the Museum Boerhaave’s Philips Exhibition 58
4.4: Limitations and Benefit of Science Museums 61 5. Conclusion 63 Bibliography 66 Appendices and Interviews 72
3 1. Introduction
1.1 : Research Question
Business history is a relatively young field of research, especially in the Netherlands. In general, the starting point for business history as an academic field came with the work of professor Norman S.B.
Gras of the Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration, appointed to the first endowed chair in business history at the school in 1927. His chair was meant to chart social-economic historical processes according to the individual case-studies of companies. In the Netherlands business history did not get academic recognition until the 1970s, and therefore it has shown a late development. The late ascendance is reflecting the nation’s economic development: at the end of the
19th century business in the Netherlands had found solid ground, and between 1914 and 1945 there was a rise in business historical publications, just when these companies had their first jubilees. These jubilees inspired the entrepreneurs to ask historians to make jubilee books, celebrating the history of their company. This is different from the situation in the United States for example, where business history as a discipline came up because of industrialization itself. It was something new and exciting to look at, and on the other hand there was also disgust with the economic system of cartels and mergers, which created monster companies that literally seemed to swallow people: their mistreated employees. This spurred believers in industry to write positive accounts of what the industrialization had also brought the people and the country, by way of image building.1
In the Netherlands however, for some time there was no urge to create an independent field of business history, except for the creation of the Nederlands Economisch-Historisch Archief (the Dutch economic-historical archives) by professor N.W. Posthumus in 1914. NEHA put together different company archives, with the idea to open these up for researchers to study and to make sure they would not get lost.2 Possibly because it is such a young field of research, there hardly is consensus on what business history is or should be. In the 1970s a general business history theory seemed on its way, but nothing was further from the truth. Especially in Great Britain and the United States there has been a big rise in the number of academic works on the field, but also in different angles. Influenced by the ideas of business historian Alfred Chandler there was more and more consensus on the
1 J.F.E. Bläsing, Hoofdlijnen van de Moderne Bedrijfsgeschiedenis, Nijhoff: Leiden, 1990, 44-45. 2 Ibid., 44-48.
4 definition of business history in the 1970s, but from the 1990s this consensus shifted, due to shift in focus from big business to smaller ones.3
From an academic point of view the field of business history has not been satisfyingly developed in the Netherlands until recently, which has resulted in a wide range of definitions used by different business historians. From the 1960s and 1970s there is more interest in framing business history and its use within the history of larger economic history. The 1980s marked a return to the internal history of companies, but this trend has been shifting back in the 1990s toward the social and economic context of company histories.4 In his acceptance speech for the endowed chair in business history in 2012 dr. Joost Jonker gives an overview of the leading definitions in the field. According to him business history is “the study of administration and operation of business in the past.” For Jonker business history is the study of the history of people and their (business) activities. This differs from the ideas of business historian dr. Keetie E. Sluyterman, who claims that business history is the aspect of economic history that discusses the past through the eyes of the company. However, in one leading journal on the subject, called Enterprise and Society, business history is defined as the “historical relations between businesses and their larger political, cultural, institutional, social, and economic contexts”, in which the emphasis is no longer on the business itself, but on its environment. These definitions differ slightly from each other, and are all used to define the field of research in business history. 5
Business History Presented
Business history had a bad reputation, as the field consisted largely of jubilee books and history-for- hire projects, but as in recent decades there has been more and more academic interest in the field, it is important to discuss its relevance for the study and practice of history. According to Jonker the most important groups that business history may be relevant for are: managers of the specific companies, generally interested and history-oriented audience, colleague historians, and practitioners of other disciplines. Especially the latter two are of interest for him, as he finds that many business historians
3 Keetie E. Sluyterman, ‘Nederlandse bedrijfsgeschiedenis, de oogst van vijftien jaar’, NEHA jaarboek, Vol. 62 (1999), 384. 4 Sluyterman, 352. 5 Joost Jonker, Aller ogen gericht op…? De relevantie van bedrijfsgeschiedenis (Amsterdam 2012), 5.
5 find themselves isolated, not working together with historians from other fields, while this can be of great advantage for both parties. Even more so, there hardly seem to be references to works of business historians by historians from other disciplines. The embedding of the field has already come a long way, but there is still much ground to be gained. Relevance for fields outside of history could for instance be journalists using business histories as background stories for their articles.6 As business history sheds itself of its bad reputation, the benefits of business history practice for companies becomes more and more clear. There is the value of business history for advertising and marketing, as the company can use its history in nostalgic looking advertising campaigns for instance. On a deeper level there are the uses of business history for the organization itself, for instance for management to learn from past decisions and decision makers. But it can also create better self-awareness, find the company’s role in society, and define or strengthen the company’s identity for both its personnel and its customers.7
The company’s history can also be presented in museums and exhibitions, and as more and more museums face financial difficult times corporate sponsorship has become a serious movement.
Under pressure of the economic crisis, museums are forced to become more and more self-sufficient, facing budget cuts in government funding. These museums look for alternative sources of funding, such as government or corporate sponsorship, or attracting larger visitor numbers. This may have several consequences for the exhibits of these centers. It is not just the recent crisis, as already in the
1970s and 1980s art museums experienced the pressure to become self-supportive, and different studies from 1997 and 2002 show that this is happening in the broader field of museums too. A 2007 report from the Association of Science-Technology Centers also shows that science and technology centers are relying mainly on “ticket sales and programme fees, private donors and public funds” 8 for income. In order to make sure these funds keep coming in, museums have assumed the role of tourist attractions, as opposed to being a center focused on collecting, researching and exhibiting objects.
6 Jonker, 10-12. 7 Enid Hart Douglass, ‘Corporate History: Why?,’ The Public Historian, Vol. 3, No. 3, Business and History (Summer 1981), 76-77. 8 Eva Davidsson and Helene Sørensen, ‘Sponsorship and Exhibitions at Nordic Centres and Museums,’ Museum Management and Curatorship, Vol. 25, No. 4 (2010), 346.
6 Family Businesses
In her article on the status of the field of business history in 1999, and to discuss what in the last 15 years had been contributed to the field, Sluyterman discusses family businesses as a separate aspect of study. She states that the focus on big companies lead by managers has placed the tradition of family companies in a bad light, for the undemocratic character of family succession and their smaller economic growth. Due to the crisis in the 1980s however the stability of family companies became higher valued for being able to endure these crises without having to lose personnel. Family business usually focus on keeping the business alive for future generations, keeping in mind the family legacy that they are now responsible for, instead of managerial lead companies that pursue more monetary gain. In recent times, enduring the economic crisis which is brought upon us by big banks and other evil corporations, as is the popular belief. Family business juxtapose these organizations and are therefore glorified, instead of vilified as they used to be for being undemocratic and slow. So far not many studies have been conducted in the field of family business history, even though it is an interesting subcategory of business history. Also family business histories offer a second layer to the storyline, being that of the family itself, which makes family businesses interesting to present, and to study these presentations. Finally, families owning (or having owned) family businesses may be more interested in setting up a museum or exhibition, as their personal attachment to the company is much different than that of managerial lead companies.9
As museums are looking for alternative financial sources, and companies are willing to provide these in order for their history to be presented, the field of business history is worth looking at from the angle of the public. The question then becomes not ‘what is business history,’ but ‘what are people doing with it.’ Business museums such as the World of Coca-Cola in the United States, the BMW
Museum in Germany, or the Shiseido Corporate Museum in China, are marketing outlets for their brands, but they are also museums in which the history of the brand is told. The way this is done is what is of interest for this thesis, as it will look into what is presented in business historical exhibitions and how to interpret their exhibits. What is fascinating is not so much the question why companies spend their money on these exhibitions, but more so what it is that makes it interesting for their visitors, what the main issues are with presenting business history this way, and what are the
9 Sluyterman, 357-360.
7 limitations and benefits. In the previous paragraphs the position of family business history is discussed, arguing that since little research is done on family business histories from this angle, it is justifiable to focus on family businesses from here on. From this derives the following question, which is the research question of this thesis:
What are the limitations and benefits of the representation of business history in family business exhibitions?
1.2 : Methods and Sources
The research for this thesis is done threefold. First extensive research has been done into the secondary literature on business history in the Netherlands and abroad. Also non-academic sources on the ventures included in this thesis is covered, such as newspaper articles, online reviews, and ventures’ websites. Secondly several visits were made to the five different projects, to perform empirical research on how the presentations are set up and what storyline has been covered. Also on the five projects research into secondary literature was conducted, dealing with the five projects and their analysis in this thesis. The last part of the research consists out of interviews with those responsible for the presentations, conducted between February 10th and July 1st of 2014. These interviews were of use to find what the exhibitions were intended to show, and compare with actual results. Moreover, the interviews were aimed at finding out how much influence companies exert on the presentations, when being the main sponsor of the venue.
The case studies, the five before mentioned projects, are used to exemplify some of the issues concerning the presentation of family business history, and are chosen for covering three well-known
Dutch family businesses, namely Heineken, Verkade and Philips. The companies have been managed for a long time by their families, and the Heineken company actually still is. All three were founded in the second half of the nineteenth century, and have grown into international companies and iconic
Dutch brands. Furthermore these companies have their own exhibitions that are open for the public to
8 visit, whether this be in a museum or in an experience center. Another element binding the exhibitions together is their corporate historical collections and stories they showcase, which is the main focus of this thesis.
1.3 : Chapter Outline
This thesis is constructed into three core chapters on the case studies, and a conclusion to follow. The main ideas of the three chapters are explained here.
The first chapter will be dealing with the Heineken Experience and a Heineken exhibition in the
Stadsarchief Amsterdam. These case studies will be used to exemplify the heritage versus history debate, which is at the core of this chapter. As companies use their company history exhibitions as marketing tools, the objects in the exhibitions are often devoid of context, making them into heritage displays rather than history. As this chapter will show, heritage tells us little of the past, but a lot about the present. As the case studies are analyzed they will demonstrate that both heritage and history have their own advantages and disadvantages. The two studied exhibitions appear to be on the opposite sides of the discourse on history or heritage.
The next chapter will look into the issue of nostalgic representations of the past. The Verkade
Pavilion and part of the Philips Museum will demonstrate different types of uses of nostalgia in exhibitions, and the limitations and benefits of this type of presentation. Nostalgia is used in historic presentations to spark attention of the visitor, whose nostalgic reaction is crucial for this effect. The nostalgia boom of the last decades will be discussed, and the pros and cons of the use of nostalgia, as nostalgia can also present a distorted, idealized and cleaned-up version of the past. This chapter will again demonstrate that the use of nostalgia has its own limitations and benefits, and instead of passing judgment on these presentations these limitations and benefits are more valuable to explore.
The last case studies concern science museums and science centers, and focuses on the Philips company with two exhibitions. Science is a complex subject to cover, as many different elements play a role in how scientific research comes about. To present this is a balanced and nuanced manner is a challenge for science museums already without the demands of a sponsoring company. Unfortunately as many science museums also struggle to remain in existence they cannot avoid considering
9 collaboration with the corporate world. These collaborations have advantages and disadvantages for both parties, and these will be discussed in the chapter. Also this chapter will show how these science exhibitions contribute to public awareness and knowledge of science. The case studies of Philips will help demonstrate all this. The concluding chapter will combine the outcomes of this study into family business history exhibitions, link this to contemporary issues and trends, and discuss what the role of historians in this can be.
11 2. Branding of Heritage
Heritage tourism is booming, due to a growing obsession with the past. In the preface to his book on heritage, Possessed by the Past: The Heritage Crusades and the Spoils of History, David Lowenthal explains that it is not just the number of tourists that is growing, but also the number of heritage attractions increases, up until the point where “heritage is everywhere.”10 Nine years before, Robert
Hewison wrote in The Heritage Industry: Britain in a Climate of Decline that from 1960 until that day
(1987) the number of museums in Britain had doubled, and that this was a global trend to be seen.11
Industrial heritage, heritage of former industrial areas and sites, and the interest therein is part of this recent trend. In 1996 J. Arwel Edwards and Joan Carles Llurdés I Coit, both lecturing in Geography studies, wrote an article on industrial heritage tourism in mines and quarries, in which they argued that up until that point in time industrial heritage had not received much attention, at least not as much as other heritage sites had. Deindustrialization has left former factories unused and abandoned, rather than used to explain industrial developments that have shaped the geography and economy of an area.12 Since then this situation has changed and former industrial enterprises are now considered part of many regional heritage sites. In a pan-European initiative, for instance, industrial heritage sites are united as so-called anchor points in industrial heritage routes since 2002.13
The growing interest in industrial heritage shows a shift in interest in what history is portrayed, meaning that before the past of the nobility, monarchy, military and government was the focus, the recent interest is in the everyday lives of people and their professions, for instance industrial heritage sites. Hewison identified this shifting trend in industrial museums, as many of the new museums that have contributed to the large growth “are devoted to the recent past and the everyday […] now, nostalgia is for the industrial past.”14 Lowenthal agrees with this vision, and argues that with this shift there is also more attention for local and regional histories, smaller social groups and ethnicities,
10 David Lowenthal, Possessed by the Past: The Heritage Crusades and the Spoils of History, Free Press, New York NY: 1996, IX-XIII. 11 Robert Hewison, The Heritage Industry: Britain in a Climate of Decline, Methuen, London: 1987, 84. 12 J. Arwel Edwards and Joan Carles Llurdés I Coit, ‘Mines and Quarries. Industrial Heritage Tourism,’ Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 23, No. 2 (1996), 342-343. 13 ‘About ERIH,’ on: European Route of Industrial Heritage, http://www.erih.net/topmenu/about-erih.html, accessed on November 2 2014. 14 Hewison, 88.
10 histories that before were not deemed to be of interest for historians at all.15 One reason for this shift in interest is because of the decline of the industrial society in the 1970s and 1980s, especially in Great
Britain, which used to be one of the industrial nations at the forefront of Europe’s industrial revolution.
Former industrial sites are left abandoned, regions formerly known for their industry are left bereft of income. Not only are industries closing down, they are also moving away or opening new plants outside of cities and villages. The sites they leave behind become memorials of industry, industrial heritage for generations that have not experienced the industrial heydays themselves. “While the real world of industrial manufacturing decays, redundant and obsolete machinery flourishes – in museums.”16 This is the world of the everyday man and woman, not of the noblemen and –women residing on their estates.
However, industrial heritage is not the same as industrial history. In an earlier publication, The
Past is a Foreign Country, Lowenthal opens by stating that the past is always around us, in everything and everywhere.17 As this chapter will demonstrate, even though this statement seems similar to the prior ones on heritage, there is a clear distinction between history and heritage, even though the terms are used interchangeably. This distinction will be the main focus in this chapter, as two different presentations on the history of Heineken will be discussed here, one being the Heineken Experience, and the other being a temporary exhibition on Heinekens founder Gerard Heineken in the Stadsarchief
Amsterdam. Both presentations deal with the founding history of the internationally operating
Heineken company, but they do this in a very different way. Also this chapter will show how corporations presenting their history are using heritage as marketing tools, making commercial use of history, just as the above mentioned historians oppose. Why they do so is a question which does not need further research, as it can be assumed that they do this to strengthen their hold on the market and thereby make money, but the way they do so is what is of interest in this chapter, as this chapter aims to show the limitations and benefits of heritage and history for companies.
15 James M. Lindgren, ‘A Cuckoo in Our Nest: Can Historians Handle the Heritage Boom?,’ The Public Historian, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Spring 1997), 78-80. 16 Hewison, 91. 17 David Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country (University Press, Cambridge: 1985), XV.
12 2.1 : Exploring Heritage
The definition of and values attached to the word heritage differ, but for most historians heritage has become a nasty word. One avid opponent of heritage and the use thereof is David Lowenthal. In his view heritage and history are not one and the same thing, but he neither sees heritage as ‘bad’ history. Instead he sees heritage and history as two different concepts, although both have a little bit of each other included in them. Where history is “an effort to know what actually happened, […] heritage is not an inquiry into the past but a celebration of it, […] a past tailored to present-day purposes,” 18 as he explains in the preface to his book. Instead of striving to show what has actually happened, heritage offers a polished, cleaned up version of the past. This is both figuratively and literally spoken, as some acts, decisions and thoughts of historical figures are left out of the story, but also dirt, smells and displays of poverty. For industrial heritage this means that within the factories, mines and construction sites the workers are neither not present, or looking cleaner, happier and better fed than their historic counterparts. Heritage becomes a nostalgic pursuit of an idealized past, dressed up for commercial gain, amounting to ‘bogus’ history.19
Heritage, to continue the same argument, is an element of history taken out of its context and frozen in time. So not just the elements making up the heritage venue, but the venue itself is what has become detached of its original context. “Heritage customarily bends to market forces,” it gets adjusted or intensified for visitors. Heritage, in the words of Lowenthal, is “a history lesson without the boring stuff.” So not just the negative, controversial and hurtful elements are taken out as discussed above, but also the boring bits that heritage visitors are not interested in. This way the venues become exciting and thrilling heritage experiences which offer fascinating trips. Also, when industrial sites are made into industrial heritage, regular practices and products are made into heritage as well, hereby locking a certain period in time, showcasing it as a nostalgic ideal world. “To value everything obsolete as heritage stymies change; yesterday’s progress becomes today’s tradition and tomorrow’s
18 Lowenthal, Possessed by the Past, X. 19 Bethan Coupland and Nikolas Coupland, ‘The Authenticating Discourses of Mining Heritage Tourism in Cornwall and Wales,’ Journal of Sociolinguistics, Vol. 18, No. 4 (2014), pp. 495-517, 496-497.
13 sacrosanct legacy.”20 So both objects and practices become locked in one specific moment in time, chosen by those creating the industrial heritage venue.
As the fluidity of objects and practices is taken away by the process of freezing in time, the objects and practices also lose some, if not all, of its meaning. In a discussion over the UNESCO world heritage list author Lidija Nikočević, who is on her country’s committee defining their immaterial heritage, states that “heritage begins where culture ends.”21 This quote can be taken quite literally: many practices and objects are used as heritage when their use is no longer relevant for contemporary society, for instance with the former industrial areas mentioned before. However, the quote has deeper meaning in that it also refers to the end of culture as an evolving process, in which traditions are changed over time. When something is referred to as heritage it becomes static and frozen in time, instead of being fluid and adaptable to current standards. An example are industrial sites, such as former breweries. In those venues visitors can see how beer was brewed back when the facility was in use. However, it does not show how this brewing process has developed overtime, what different techniques and machinery were used between the founding of the company and the closing down of it.
The art of brewing beer has been locked in a certain time period to be looked upon as reminiscent of our past. With new machinery in factory-like breweries the process done by hand of skilled brewers has become something of the past, and the brewing process itself does not evolve any further, but stays in this moment in time. A historical account would show it’s context: who were the brewers, what was their role in the process, what was the brewery’s impact on society and vice versa, and so forth, whereas a heritage account takes out one element, the brewing process, and showcases that as history.
Regardless of the ambitions of heritage producers, which may be more virtuous than their outcomes suggest, the image heritage portrays is an idealized past that is a reflection of the past with contemporary values and morals attached to it, not an actual historical account. According to
Lowenthal, heritage finds its significance not in showing how things were, but by being relevant for what society thinks today.22 For instance with the before mentioned breweries: brewery tours are not
20 Lowenthal, Possessed by the Past, 97-98. 21 Lidija Nikočević, et.al., ‘Culture or Heritage? The Problem of Intangibility,’ Ethnological Forum (Etnološka Tribina), Issue 35, 2012, 57. 22 Lowenthal, Possessed by the Past, 104.
14 about innovation and modern techniques, but about old processes of making beer: the artisanal, traditional process. In a society interested more and more in where their food comes from this can easily fit in with this trend. Small breweries pop-up rapidly and in Amsterdam alone there were 13 smaller breweries in 2014. This is not just a new interest in specialty beers, but according to the brewers consumers want food and beverages that are authentic, local, and that tells a story.23 The artisanal ways of yesteryear are glorified, while everything that is mass-produced is looked upon for being unhealthy and bad for the environment.
Whereas some decades ago the machines pumping out mass-produced products were the subject of glorification, for being the technological wonders of their days, nowadays the image of artisans brewing beer out of love for the product prevails. Or to put it as Hewison has stated: “the paradox of the industrial museum movement is that it is ultimately anti-industrial.” 24 Within this idealize image, the idea that these brewers were in fact people earning a wage to support their families, possibly more so than proud brewers, is being ignored. Values of contemporary society are changing the way the past looks, as they are glorified for being simpler days with pure products, again sidestepping from the fact that these brewery workers probably made long working days and six-day working weeks, only having access to possibly pure, but not so varied foods themselves. Also
Nikočević acknowledges this in her opening paragraphs: heritage is not something old, but brand new;
“it is a new manner of cultural creation in the present which has its roots in the past. […] Cultural heritage becomes a value, relating to the past and the future.”25 The use of heritage learns us nothing about the past, but more so about recent times. However, as it often claims to be the past, and it consists of historic objects and practices, it may be looked at for being a reflection of the past, hereby shaping an untrue image of history in the beholders mind.
23 Kees van Unen, ‘Hip Hop: Bierend Amsterdam Wil Kleine Brouwerijen’, Het Parool, April 12 2014, http://www.parool.nl/parool/nl/4/AMSTERDAM/article/detail/3634381/2014/04/12/Hip-hop-bierend-Amsterdam- wil- kleine-brouwerijen.dhtml, accessed on November 15th 2014. 24 Hewison, 104. 25 Nikočević, 58.
15 Heritage and company tours
Regardless of the negative characteristics of heritage for historians, companies do use heritage in their marketing strategies, from advertising and commercials, to factory tours and experience visitor centers. The idea to use the history of the company as marketing means is a way to show the company has been around for some time, enhancing the trustworthiness of the product or service the company provides, usually shown in nostalgic representations of the past.26 Many companies use this in their advertising, but there are also some that have created visitor centers, ranging from museums to brand experiences and factory tours. In fact, offering factory tours is an older phenomenon, for instance in breweries in the United States: ever since the 1880s tours through the brewing facilities have been offered as a means to show how it is made, and what type of modern, state-of-the-art equipment has been used.27 However, nowadays there are more and more experience centers than mere factory tours, also because not all are based in still operating facilities. In their analysis of what they call ‘Consumer Experience Tourism’, Mark Mitchell (Associate Professor of Marketing) and Sheila
Mitchell (Instructor of Accounting) argue that “the common goal [of consumer experience tourism centers] is to provide the user (i.e., the consumer) with an experience regarding a product, its operation, production process, history, and historical significance.” 28 Also Neil Harris, professor of history and art history, argues in his review of the World of Coca-Cola, the experience center of the well-known soda brand, that these venues must make choices in what they show, but that this is the case for all museums. He calls corporate museums “selective and argumentative,” but not limited in their ambitions to do justice to history; “amply funded and handsomely designed, the best of them build upon popular awareness of their product advertising to represent entire periods, cultures, and industries through their commodities.” 29 So via the products or services sold the company is able to tell a larger story than just that of the company, which is one of the main elements of business history as it has been defined in the introduction to this thesis.
26 Kevin Naughton and Bill Vlasic, ‘The Nostalgia Boom: Why the Old is New,’ in Business Week, March 23 1998, 58- 62. 27 Kathy Shinnick and Nicole Breault, ‘Schlitz Park and Pabst Complex Bus Tour,’ The Public Historian, Vol. 34, No. 4 (Fall 2012), 103. 28 Mark Mitchell and Sheila Mitchell, ‘Showing Off What You Do (and How You Do It),’ Journal of Hospitality & Leisure Marketing, Vol. 7, No. 4, 62. 29 Neil Harris, ‘The World of Coca-Cola,’ The Journal of American History, Vol. 82, No. 1 (June 1995), 157.
16 Interestingly enough, Mitchell and Mitchell and Harris speak of the possibility to show the
‘historical significance’ of the company in its consumer experience center, but the question is how often this is truly achieved, as the main focus for these companies is to promote their brands. In her article called ‘Using History to Build a Brand’ journalist Janet Moore discusses how in the United States corporate museums are not included in surveys conducted by the museum associations, as these museums tend to serve as promotion, rather than serve any other role. "Very few of them run by the same code of ethics of museums in terms of truth in presentation. You aren't going to see an exhibit about tooth decay at the Coke museum." 30 Perhaps tooth decay would be farfetched, but the statement is clear: what Coca-Cola offers in its World of Coca-Cola is a polished image of their history without controversies and other negatives. Harris also comes to a similar conclusion in his review:
“The Coke story is told absolutely without tension or conflict -except insofar as rivals
and pretenders are concerned. Although some bottlers and distributors are described,
there is little on those who work for the company. The larger system, its finances,
organization, and profits, are underplayed. Coca-Cola's impact on the world itself is
projected as problem-free. The idea that someone might find a Coca- Cola sign or
stand distracting from a neighboring attraction (a pyramid or cathedral) seems
heretical.”31
This unproblematic, polished version of the past, leaving out certain elements that complete the story, and thereby taking it out of its context, seems similar to the concept of heritage. “The luster of lucre dominates heritage tourism,”32 as Lowenthal sums it up. In order to glorify its past it needs to be removed of its imperfections. This is the case for these corporate museums and industrial heritage sites, remodeling their pasts into a story that sells their product, instead of something that tells their history with context and historical significance. One reviewer of Lowenthals Possessed by the Past, professor of history Matt K. Matsuda, explains how the word ‘possession’ in Lowenthals volume can be
30 Janet Moore, ‘Using History to Build a Brand,’ Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN), September 12 2010, metro edition, business section, 1D. 31 Harris, 154. 32 Lowenthal, Possessed by the Past, 98.
17 explained: it is in being lured into the wonders of the past and its rituals, and also in controlling and selling the past for commercial purposes, “with all of its attendant pitfalls: commodification as vulgarization, representation as sanitization, educational value as measured by the box office.”33 In taking control over the past these companies who are presenting their histories let their judgment of what they tell be controlled by commercial purposes. This makes them selective and risks that these venues show no context of the influence of the company on the regionals economy, geography, social make-up, and so forth. Their self-celebrations are heritage displays in the purest form.
The trouble with all this is what the visitor takes home after visiting these venues. From the corporate’s perspective it is important that they take home a positive image of the company, hoping this results in more sales. So these companies prefer an unproblematic, positive image of their history, instead of including controversies for instance. Usually this takes the story out of its context, leaving the preferred elements to tell a story on their own. This is different from a business historical approach, in which several other angles to the company’s history are included. Business history is history discussed from the angle of a company or sector, so when for instance the history of Coca-Cola is presented, it will also include the impact on society, on the soda business, on dentist and medicine practices, on employees or social welfare, and so forth. As Harris mentioned in his review, those working the machines are not present in the World of Coca-Cola venue, and neither are the business decisions and notes from meetings, nor the financial records and other organizational issues discussed.
In short, in this presentation it is the product and the direct founding history of the product and its advertising that is displayed, without context of a bigger story. The focus on heritage instead of history contributing to a de-cluttered, incomplete image of history and it is not telling visitors anything about the relevance of the product for themselves, other than brand attachment.
Historical interest has changed from nobility to the everyday men and women, making that history is everywhere and in everything, sparking an obsession with the past. As heritage is an element of history, singled out and frozen in time hereby losing its context, these elements lose their original historical meaning. These elements combined offer a polished version of the past, a glorification of a past ridden of negatives, and this image of history is what companies use for their marketing purposes to promote their brands. For historians, the trouble with heritage is the incomplete
33 Matt K. Matsuda, ‘Possessed by the Past: The Heritage Crusades and the Spoils of History (Review),’ American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 104 No. 4 (January 1999), 1201.
18 historical narrative that visitors of heritage venues are exposed to. Historical elements taken out of their context have lost their meaning, and send a distorted message to the beholder. The issues explained in this chapter will now be used to review and analyze to different presentations of business history of one company, the Heineken beer brewing company. One presentation is the Heineken
Experience, which is not a museum, but does include the history of its company in the presentation.
The other is a temporary exhibition by the Stadsarchief Amsterdam called Heineken’s Amsterdam.
Gerard Heineken brouwer en bouwer. The Stadsarchief Amsterdam is also not a museum, but the archives for the city of Amsterdam, opening exhibitions based on their collection and usually with a historical angle three to four times a year. Also the history of the Heineken company will be discussed briefly after which a closer look at both presentations will be given in order to discuss what the limitations and benefits of the use of heritage marketing is.
2.2 : Heritage and the Heineken Experience
In 1863 a young entrepreneur called Gerard Heineken buys an old brewery in Amsterdam, called ‘De
Hooiberg,’ and before long his brewery starts to grow and expand into the multinational Heineken is today. Quickly after buying the brewery Heineken is running a successful beer brewing operation that caters beer to several cafés in the city, including some of his own. In 1868 a new brewery is built on the outskirts of the city, a larger and more modern complex than the one in the city, and the beer starts to get more recognition under the name of the founder, Heineken’s Pilsener. Shortly after the opening of the brewery Gerard Heineken and his brew master Wilhelm Feltmann Jr. decide to start producing a fermented beer that is fashionable at the time called Bavarian beer, instead of the Dutch brew that is more standard in the Netherlands at the time. This beer becomes quite popular and remains the standard brew of the company for the next 150 years to come. In 1886 a special type of yeast, called A-yeast, is developed, and strands of this yeast are being used in the brewery up until now. Gerard’s location for the new brewery also sparks the building of a new neighborhood for workmen and their families. He is also part of several different committees promoting and
19 safeguarding cultural heritage and arts for the city of Amsterdam, and it is in this capacity that he becomes part of the board of the newly built Rijksmuseum. 34
Gerard dies suddenly during a board meeting and his son Henri Pierre, and later on his son
Alfred, takes over a successful company whose beer won several international prices and that is selling abroad and oversees. Under his lead the company remains successful, even though the economic crisis and the Second World War happened during his leadership. After the war Alfred, who is better known as Freddy, enters the company and after a couple of years takes over the leadership, by this time not from his father, but with a clever maneuver he manages to get the majority of shares back into the family’s hands. Under his ownership Heineken expands even further, and especially the importance of marketing and solid advertising characterizes Freddy’s leadership. During his time as sales agent in the
United States Freddy Heineken has learned the importance of strengthening the name of the brand, more even than focusing on quality alone. In 2002 Freddy died, but his legacy to the company is huge:
the Heineken company has 165
breweries in 71 different countries,
selling several larger beer and soda
brands worldwide. The brewery in
Amsterdam outlived its use as
operational center and a new brewery
was built in Zoeterwoude. In 1991 the
former brewery becomes a Heineken
visitor center, and in 2001 it gets Entrance of Heineken Experience, celebrating 150 years of Heineken with historic crates. renamed to Heineken Experience. Picture by myself After a large renovation the current tour of the Heineken Experience is open since 2008 and it hosts yearly over 600 thousand visitors.35
The Heineken company is owner of over 200 beverage brands, however the Heineken
Experience is aimed only at the Heineken brand itself, and it attracts large visitor numbers and a very international crowd. The Heineken company advertises for the Experience in an indirect way, by advertising for their own Heineken brand. The popularity of the brand rubs off on the Experience, and
34 Annejet van der Zijl, Gerard Heineken. De man, de stad en het bier, 38-146 (chapters 3-8). 35 Interview Celine Vleer, Junior Project Manager Heineken Experience, on July 1 2014.
20 vice versa. The idea behind the Experience is to build brand ambassadors, who will order Heineken back home, after visiting. Last year ended with a total of 600.000 visitors, and for this year they are expecting to get 700.000 visitors in. Visitors of the Heineken Experience are only for 7% Dutch, the rest are foreign visitors, with visitors from the United States, Brazil and United Kingdom forming the top three, after which the Netherlands and Spain follow. It is important for the company to attract so many international fans, in order to remain a worldwide market. Via surveys the Experience researches their visitors, and about 80% come because they have heard about it from friends or relatives. Their word-of-mouth advertising is very important, and this can only work if visitors are happy with their experiences. Therefore the staff is trained to attain high quality levels of hostmanship, and the tour must be fascinating and fun from beginning to end. 36 A visit to the Heineken Experience is all about experiencing Heineken, as the name suggests, and contains three different sequences. It starts with the history of the company and the brand, going into the Brew-You-Ride and experience part of the tour, and ending in the bars where a free Heineken is served to the visitors. For this research the first part of the tour, the history part, is most important and will be the main focus of this chapter. However the whole of the tour will also get some attention here, as one cannot be separated from the other.
History of Heineken presented
The history of the Heineken company and brand are tightly associated with the history of the Heineken family, as the company is still in family-ownership, according to Celine Vleer, Junior Project Manager for the Heineken Experience. The history of Heineken is mostly that of a family business, and the historic part of the tour is there to show this. Every generation is addressed, in the way they did business and how this was specifically that generation. Visitors can see what every generation has meant for the course of the company. Gerard was the founder, Henri Pierre the man that implemented social policies for his employees, and Freddy was the man who developed the strong marketing policy of Heineken. The recent family member, Freddy’s daughter Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken, is a strong woman in leading the company. Her son is about to enter the board as well and with that the story of
36 Ibid.
36 Heineken continues. Also the brewery is the place where it all began. Yes, the Hooiberg was first, but this location is the first Heineken brewery built by the company themselves. 37
However, when visiting the Experience the story told is much more one on brewing the best beer in town and selling that via clever marketing tricks. The historical part of the tour focuses more on the history of the beer itself. All of the family members who have led, or are leading, the company get their own section in the presentation, but their presence is there mostly to show how during the decades the focus on the high quality of their beer has been an important aspect for the founding family. Of Henri Pierre, Gerard’s son, it is told that he was good for his people and made sure they had some social welfare, but this is more or less the exception. The impact of the Heineken family business on the city of Amsterdam is completely left out, even though this is quite a success story as well.
There are the prices the beer has won and are still visible on the label, a laboratory in which the story of Dr. Elion is told, an apprentice of Louis Pasteur who discovered the A-yeast, the environmentally friendly (but flopped) WOBO bottle that doubles as a brick, and more of such stories telling about the
beer itself and the ideas behind it. However no stories are
included on how Gerard Heineken co-sparked the building
of the neighborhood behind the brewery, called the ‘Pijp’,
how he was on the board of many soup kitchens and
other social welfare committees, just as he was on art and
cultural committees on the history of Amsterdam and the
Netherlands. Both Henri Pierre and his son Freddy were
avid art and historical object collectors, with interesting
collections on the city of Amsterdam. There is no
background on the societies these men lead their
companies in. Instead, it is all about the beer itself.
In the Heineken Experience the brewing process is
mostly presented as it was, with big copper kettles in the
Brewing room in Heineken Experience former brewing rooms, but the more modern way of Picture by myself brewing is also presented. After the historic introduction
37 Interview Celine Vleer, Junior Project Manager Heineken Experience, on July 1 2014.
22 to the Heineken company visitors enter the former brewing hall, with large copper kettles which all together explain the process of brewing beer. There are videos shown inside the kettles, and there are text signs explaining this. Also there are some parts of this process visitors can try to do for themselves, such as mixing the ingredients together and stirring the ‘wort’ (liquid coming from mashed barley), which can also be tasted. In the ‘Brew You Ride’ the visitors experience what it must be like to get brewed and bottled. This goes down in simulators, hosting 20 people, with moving stands, a big screen and sounds, showing this process as it is done in more recent times, probably in the modern
Zoeterwoude brewery. Visitors enter this area after having seen the copper kettles of yesteryear, and before they have their first tasting of the actual beer. Further along there is also a game to play, in which visitors can test how well they can machine fill, close, label and pack Heinekens beers coming along on a conveyor belt. These are the most important features in which the modern beer brewing process is shown. In a chemical sense the process of brewing beer has not changed much. The same ingredients get the same treatment to turn into the same product for centuries. However, the process nowadays is automated and machine- driven, instead of being done manually by brewery employees.
The presentation is made to take in the brand fully, accomplished in part by leaving out distracting details and elements of the complete Heineken history. Except for the Heineken family itself the people behind the brand, the Display of Gerard Heineken, focusing on quality beer employees working the breweries for Picture by myself instance, are not present in the presentation at all. How it is made may be just as important as by whom it is made for telling the history of a company. The socio-economic situation of the city and its employees do not feature in the presentation, just as the Heineken family’s background either. Even more so, the former employees working in the brewery are not at all present in the displays of the
Experience except for when Henri Pierre Heinekens legacy in social welfare for his employees is discussed. This is similar to the situation in the World of Coca-Cola Harris reviewed, when he stated
38 that “those who work for the company” were hardly visible in the presentation. For Harris this is part of the problem-free image that Coca-Cola wants to display, in which all room is given to the celebrated product, instead of the story behind it, who are creating it and making it big.38 There is no distraction of the star of the show: Heineken beer. A quite peculiar detail that has been altered in the presentation is the founders name: instead of his first name Gerard he is introduced as Adriaan (or Adrian in
English) in the introductory clips. Why this is is not clear, as the name Gerard is later on used when the founder is presented further along the tour, but the fact that Adriaan is easier to pronounce in
English, the common language used in the Experience, may have something to do with it.
If heritage is the commodification and commercial exploitation of history, than the Heineken
Experience certainly can be called a heritage site, rather than historical. The issue-free presentation of the Heineken Experience is all about the brand itself, and even though the founding family gets some attention, it is really meant to serve as background on why the beer is that good. Even though this is the case, the Heineken Experience attracts a vast number of visitors and as far as attractions in
Amsterdam go is a huge success. In the winter of 2014 the Stadsarchief Amsterdam hoped to join this success with their exhibition on Heineken. A ticket to the Heineken Experience also bought visitors entrance to the exhibition in the Stadsarchief Amsterdam, which was quite a different exhibition, even though the exhibition zoomed in on the company’s founder, Gerard Heineken, and his legacy.
2.3 : Heritage and the Stadsarchief Amsterdam’s Heineken Exhibition
The exhibition ‘Heineken’s Amsterdam. Gerard Heineken brouwer en bouwer’ was in the Stadsarchief
Amsterdam (Amsterdam city archives) from February 7th until May 11th of 2014, and came about because of several reasons. The Stadsarchief Amsterdam holds the archives of the city of Amsterdam, ranging from the municipal archives to family archives, company archives to private institutions. All these archives have one common denominator: they have a specific importance for the history of the city of Amsterdam. The Heineken archives is one of them, and this has been formally handed over in
2005. As Heineken is an Amsterdam founded company, still operating from the founder’s villa in the city, across the street from the original brewery (in which the Heineken Experience houses nowadays),
38 Neil Harris, ‘The World of Coca-Cola,’ The Journal of American History, Vol. 82, No. 1 (June 1995), pp. 154-158, 154.
24 these archives are an asset for the Stadsarchief, which is a reason to create an exhibition using
materials from it. 39 Also, due to the handover of the archives, there already has been a solid
connection with the Heineken company and the Stichting Heineken Collection, the independent in-
house archives association of the Heineken company, mainly collecting artefacts, not documents, one
of the former Stadsarchief managers, now in the board of the Stichting Heineken Collection, discovered
there were good chances for the Stadsarchief to get (financial) backing from the association and the
company for an exhibition in 2014, the 150th anniversary year of Heineken. As it is with acquiring a
company archives, as it is with setting
up an exhibition for them, the
Stadsarchief hopes to gain some
monetary support from it as well, to
cover expenses made on these archives
and exhibitions, and possibly more. Also
the Stadsarchief team figured that a
cooperation between the Heineken (and
the Heineken Experience) and the Opening display of Heineken exhibition in Stadsarchief Amsterdam Stadsarchief could draw more interested
Picture by Jeffrey Steenbergen, Rapenburg Plaza visitors to the archives.40
However for the Stadsarchief Amsterdam it is also important that an exhibition they create is
relevant for the history of the city of Amsterdam, and the exhibition is created with that in mind. With
the Heineken archives they decided to pick the story of Gerard Heineken, the founder of the company,
as this took place 150 years ago, hereby joining the celebration of the anniversary. Also alongside the
story of Gerard they could tell the story of 19th century Amsterdam and its well-to-do citizens,
launching the industrial revolution in the city and sparking the second Golden Age. These citizens, just
like Gerard, were not part of the nobility, but affluent citizens who gained their fortunes with trading
over the last centuries, just like their counterparts during the 17th century Golden Age. They also set
up and sponsored many social institutions, such as orphanages, soup kitchens, and the likes. The team
39 ‘Collectieprofiel’, on: Stadsarchief Amsterdam, http://stadsarchief.amsterdam.nl/stadsarchief/over_ons/collectieprofiel/index.nl.html, accessed on June 3 2014. 40 Interview Erik Schmitz, Curator, March 12, 2014.
25 from the Stadsarchief decided that just the story of one man and his company would not have enough relevance, but by placing him in his time, as a typical person of his era, the exhibition would not only be relevant, but interesting for many different visitors. Even though he is presented as a man of his age, what is left out of the presentation is the fact that, according to Erik Schmitz, there are other examples of young men in his age who set up successful companies and business ventures, as the city of Amsterdam was slowly turning the tide for the capitol that had fallen behind with its international counterparts. Gerard Heineken seized the moment and made it into a success, something that is noteworthy, but just as much as that he was not alone in this.41
The exhibition in the Stadsarchief Amsterdam is made mostly out of their own material and some items on loan, and tells the story of Gerard Heineken in Amsterdam, in contrast to the story the
Heineken Experience tells of the company’s and brand’s history. For the Stadsarchief it is important to use objects from their own collection for the most part, as by this they can show their relevance of their collection for the city of Amsterdam and its history. 42 The main topics on display are the city of Amsterdam, the growth of the brewery, and what Gerard has meant for the city of Amsterdam, it’s citizens, and cultural life. The story starts with Gerard Heineken’s background and focuses mainly on what Amsterdam was in those days. Following the story the visitor learns of building the new brewery Corridor in the Heineken exhibition, showing different original objects from the Stadsarchief collection on the outskirts of the city, how the Picture by Jeffrey Steenbergen, Rapenburg Plaza surrounding neighborhood was constructed and the brewery expanded, how Gerard Heineken helped improve the living conditions of the poor of the city, and assisted in creating and supporting cultural and historical objects that associate with the city of Amsterdam. The exhibition gives an insight into the Amsterdam of the second half of the 19th century, via the founding history of the Heineken company.
41 Interview Erik Schmitz, Curator, March 12 2014. 42 Ibid.
26 The brewing of high quality beer and his quest for it, as is the focus of the historic tour of the
Heineken Experience, is included, but only as a small aspect of the life of the founder of one of the largest beer brewing companies worldwide. Included are the prices the beer has won, and some decorative draught faucets used in the bars of which some were directly or indirectly owned by Gerard
Heineken, but these are used to illustrate the company’s past and not so much the strife for creating high quality beers. The process of brewing beer is hardly explained and objects used in that process are not present in the exhibition. For the Stadsarchief Amsterdam this is not the relevance of Gerard
Heineken. He could have been in any type of industry (and in fact he could have been as he was more eager to entrepreneur than to brew beer specifically)and his influence on the city of Amsterdam would have been an interesting aspect to exhibit for the Stadsarchief.
2.4 : Limitations and Benefits of Heritage
Overall, it can be said that the exhibition at the Stadsarchief presents a more complete story of that part of Heineken’s history than the Heineken Experience does; then again the aims of both institutions are very different. The Heineken Experience is meant to strengthen the brand’s name worldwide, and thereby presents the heritage that is relevant for this goal. The Stadsarchief
Amsterdam aims at presenting topics which on one hand are relevant for the
(history of the) city of Amsterdam and on the other hand include objects from their own collection. The subject’s aspects they have picked to portray serve both these objectives. Even though both institutions single out one or several aspects in their Heineken exhibition in Stadsarchief with two pillars decorated with historic Heineken labels presentation, the Heineken Experience Picture by Jeffrey Steenbergen, Rapenburg Plaza does so more narrow-mindedly, as their complete story is aimed at showing how for Heineken the brewing of high quality beer was, and still is, the company’s top priority. The Stadsarchief offers a more complete story on the person of Gerard
27 Heineken and his role for the city. The choice to focus on one person is fully justifiable for the
Stadsarchief, but just as much justifiable as the choices of the Experience team are for their selection of stories. The Stadsarchief has chosen to create an exhibition on one person from the Heineken dynasty, excluding the next four generations that have been covered in the Heineken Experience presentation. As one of the reasons for creating the exhibition was that 2014 was the 150th anniversary year, and considering the size of the exhibition area, this is understandable.
In this sense it is interesting to see that these presentations differ in their focus on high quality beer, or the lack of this focus in the Stadsarchief Amsterdam. As it plays such an important role in the
Heineken Experience, one could expect that sponsoring an exhibition like this would be to carry out that message as well. By focusing on the person instead of the beer the Stadsarchief presentation of
Gerard Heineken is completely different than the Experience one is. Another big difference is that in the Stadsarchief exhibition the labor class is represented, in the form of the people who were at the receiving end of Gerard Heineken’s well-doing and those who were his employees. The staff wanted to include more on that story, as it is very relevant for the city of Amsterdam, but they lacked materials, as for instance in those days people did not often use the new and expensive medium of photography to immortalize the poor and needy.43 But in the Experience, in the place these people had actually worked and lived nearby, they are not visible. Not even in the kettle room with the copper kettles these workers would have actually worked with.
If looking at benefits and limitations, for Heineken itself the use of heritage is highly beneficial, but for the Stadsarchief Amsterdam it would not be, as it could damage their image as historical archive institute. The greatest difference between the two of them is that the one exhibition can be called historical, while the other can be considered heritage. Where the Stadsarchief has tried to include a complete context for Gerard Heinekens accomplishment (and have succeeded reasonably well in doing so), the Heineken Experience glorifies the Heineken beer and its legacy. It singles out one element as what the company stands for, and what does not fit into this story gets left out. But the question arises whether this is such a bad thing in the Heineken Experience. It does manage to attract
43 Interview Erik Schmitz, Curator, March 12 2014.
28 a large crowd44 of 25 to 35 year olds who come for short vacations to Amsterdam. This is a target group many museums are not able to attract in such large numbers. So if a visit to the Heineken
Experience is the only attraction they actively visit that has some history to it, what is it that they take home with them? If a well-balanced story on the history of Heineken would have been told, including the brewery’s employees, the backdrop of 19th century Amsterdam and later ages, the organizational body of the company, and so forth, this would have been a great opportunity to show this audience something of this larger history. However, in the end history in the Heineken Experience serves mostly to uplift and sell their brand: the branding of heritage.
Sign in Heineken Experience showing its main focus
Picture by myself
44 On Tuesday the 16 of December 2014 the Heineken Experience welcomed its 700.000th visitors: http://www.rtvnh.nl/nieuws/156420/heineken-experience-ontvangt-700000-ste-bezoeker.
29 3. Branding of Nostalgia
At the turn of the 21st century, Business Week published a cover story called ‘The Nostalgia Boom:
Why the Old is New,’ in which the writers Kevin Naughton and Bill Vlasic state that “these days nostalgia marketing is everywhere,” meaning that many different brands use nostalgia in advertising, packaging and even the products itself to market their products. According to the writers, this trend came about because of the anxiety modern consumers felt about the Information Age, and the coming of the internet, mobile phones, and the like. Apparently, these consumers longed to go back to less complicated times, which they view the past to be. Interest in nostalgia has risen over de last few decades, becoming more and more prominently visible in scholarly debate, as well as in society in general. The word ‘nostalgia’ dates back to a medical term depicting the homesickness of soldiers, but during the twentieth century it has come to be used more for a state of mind, rather than a wish to return to a specific place, like home.45 As companies discovered “that a history of warm memories is an exploitable asset nowadays,” more and more products became advertised as having been around a long time, to enhance consumers’ trust in them. 46 Think for instance of the Werther’s Original commercials, in which people remember the first time they tasted the sweets when they were still a child, recollecting how special they felt. Or take the cheese brand Old Amsterdam, with commercials showing black and white images of Amsterdam and market carts with the Old Amsterdam logo on it, depicting the history of this cheese in Amsterdam (when in fact this cheese was never produced there, and is not even that old). Having been around for some time, having survived different difficult times, makes for a strong brand.
Naughton and Vlasic are not alone in their opinion on what sparked a nostalgia boom. Davis suggests in his work that “the wave of nostalgia of the mid-1970s […] was an attempt to cope with the transformations of American society during the late 1960s.” 47 According to Davis, nostalgia can reassure the identity of the beholder, by confirming the continuity of the person’s identity, reaffirming
45 Malcolm Chase and Christopher Shaw, ‘The Dimensions of Nostalgia,’ The Imagined Past: History and Nostalgia (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989), 1. 46 Kevin Naughton and Bill Vlasic, ‘The Nostalgia Boom: Why the Old is New,’ in Business Week, March 23 1998, 58- 60. 47 Gary Alan Fine, ‘Yearning for Yesterday: A Sociology of Nostalgia. by Fred Davis (Review),’ Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 9, No. 3 (May, 1980), 410.
31 that who he or she is now is the person he or she has always been.48 American studies professor
Daniel A. Nathan and history professor Mary G. MacDonald argue (in 2001) that in the 1980s and
1990s nostalgia’s “pull was particularly powerful, [as] a consequence of demographic, social, economic, and technological transformations that many Americans experienced.”49 David Lowenthal’s
2012 article called ‘The Past Made Present’ furthermore shows that nostalgia is still an influential element in the way we perceive history. Nostalgia nowadays is still a much used way to present history, as nostalgia can make a connection with the lives of visitors as they find something familiar to them in the presentations, hereby interesting them to read, hear and learn more. This familiarity is part of the attraction for visitors: a step back into a time they long for, which makes them feel attached and comfortable. Or something that they miss in their current environment, such as the way of living in an era which is not dominated by technology or has not been demoralized by wars.
Changing times can evoke a yearning for simpler times, a looking back at a past they understand. “The current nostalgia wave offers […] a retreat, a haven, an oasis, if you will, from the anxieties vast numbers felt (and continue to feel) about proposed alterations in mores and custom.”50
In historic museums and heritage sites often the past is presented in a way to evoke nostalgic feelings, making visitors feel more involved in the past as it is presented. According to professor in marketing Christina Goulding museums and other historic presentations should attempt to “[evoke a nostalgic reaction] from interacting with the past” by “[selling] the past, with all the modern comforts of the present,” meaning that from our comfortable modern day position we, as visitors, can look upon the past and feel nostalgic about it, because we do not experience the hardships our ancestors may have endured in the past. It is a clean and pleasant past that is presented. To establish this effect,
“social institutions such as museums follow a process of inducing nostalgia, through selectively retaining aesthetic, scientific, and historical cultural artefacts.” 51 An analysis of two historical presentations will demonstrate that also in business history nostalgic presentations are used to capture the public’s attention, although both have a different goal in doing this. These presentations are the
Verkade Pavillion at the Zaans Museum, and partly the presentation of the Philips Museum in
48 Fred Davis, Yearning for Yesterday. A Sociology of Nostalgia (New York, N.Y.: The Free Press, 1979), 32-34. 49 Daniel A. Nathan and Mary G. McDonald, “Yearning for Yesteryear: Cal Ripken, Jr., The Streak, And the Politics of Nostalgia,” American Studies, Vol. 42, No. 1 (Spring 2001), 102. 50 Davis, 107. 51 Christina Goulding, ‘Heritage, Nostalgia, and the “Grey Consumer”,’ Journal of Marketing Practice: Applied Marketing Science, Vol. 5, Issue 6/7/8, 1999, 179.
30 Eindhoven. These presentations will be at the heart of this chapter, showing how nostalgia is being used and to what end.
As this chapter will show, the goal of the Verkade Pavilion is to show how well the Verkade family has done, while the presentation in the Philips Museum shows how well their products function.
In the Verkade Pavilion it is the Verkade family, no longer involved with the brand, that tells their story, showing how well they have treated their personnel whilst developing classic biscuits, which accounts for the nostalgic image of Verkade’s past. In the Philips Museum it is the still existing multinational Philips company telling its history, and using a part of it to show how well the company has performed for its consumers, creating nostalgic displays which will seem familiar to several generations of Dutch people. The Verkade Pavilion uses a nostalgic representation of their former factory floor and it’s personnel to spark the interest of their visitors, while at the Philips Museum the nostalgia is more to be found in the use of its’ products, set up in family living rooms, like modern day period rooms. The different approaches both take may have the same outcome: visitors feeling involved in the history of the brand, for remembering or feeling drawn to their nostalgic depictions of the past. In order to understand these two case studies better, this chapter will start by taking a closer look at nostalgia.
3.1 : Exploring Nostalgia
In cultural and historical theory there are different definitions of nostalgia, but they have in common that they emphasize how nostalgia polishes the past to provide a contrast to present-day living.
Cultural historian Michael Kammen argues that nostalgia usually means “a pattern of highly selective memory,” remembering a past with no wrongdoings or adversaries. 52 In their article called
‘Dimensions of Nostalgia’ historians Malcolm Chase and Christopher Shaw offer a more dramatic perspective: a nostalgic look back at one’s childhood enables a person to remember a happier and less anxious time, back when one did not know what they know now; namely that we will all die someday.53 Furthermore, sociologist Fred Davis states that nostalgia is “a positively toned evocation of
52 Michael Kammen, Mystic Chords of Memory: the Transformation of Tradition in American Culture (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf Inc., 1991), 626. 53 Chase and Shaw, 6.
32 a lived past in the context of some negative feelings toward present or impending circumstance,” adding that a nostalgic attitude can be ascribed to an anxiety towards the future. These polished, positive approaches do not mean that none of the negatives are acknowledged. Indeed the mere mention of negative traits can offer the nostalgic statement more credibility. 54 Take for instance a person being drawn to the family values of poor families in the past. This person could say that even though the family endured hardships, the way they stuck together and supported each other was admirable, and is something that is missing in present society. By acknowledging the poverty of the family, the nostalgic feeling for their family values seems more plausible, as this person has accounted for both sides of the story.
Even though nostalgia, in historian David Lowenthal’s words, serves as “the search for a simple and stable past as a refuge from the turbulent and chaotic present,” an important aspect of nostalgia is the realization that going back is not possible. 55 Even more so, nostalgia is a ”growing rebellion against the present,” so it is not just a yearning to go back, but a struggle to deal with contemporary society.56 This is the part that makes nostalgia a bittersweet memory: sweet for the good memories, bitter for not being able to recreate this world.57 According to the writers of the Business Week article it is even so that it is not so much about living in other days, as “we may look back through rose- colored glasses, but few want to live in a past for the sake of authenticity,”58 meaning people would not want to relive the discomforts of pre-technology ages, but they do yearn their society’s values as they deem them to have been. Their opinion may very well have been influenced by David Lowenthal, who in his ‘Nostalgia Tells It Like It wasn’t’ writes that nostalgia does not always mean a dismissal of current living situations. Indeed even though the past seemed simpler, happier, more exciting, or generally better, “few would now embrace it at the cost of modern comfort.” 59 This is ironic, considering that according to Naughton and Vlasic anxiety over the dawn of the information age itself is one of the factors having sparked the nostalgia boom, but this is also one thing that will not be sacrificed for it.
54 Davis, 18. 55 David Lowenthal, ‘Nostalgia Tells It Like It Wasn’t,’ The Imagined Past: History and Nostalgia (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989), 21. 56 David Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985, 11. 57 Fred Davis, Yearning for Yesterday. A Sociology of Nostalgia (New York, N.Y.: The Free Press, 1979), 13-14. 58 Naughton and Vlasic, 60. 59 Lowenthal, ‘Nostalgia Tells It Like It Wasn’t,’ 28.
33 Nostalgia can be evoked for a history remembered by the beholder, as sociologist Fred Davis concludes in his Yearning for Yesterday. A Sociology of Nostalgia, 60 but with the mass media continually using nostalgia in their outings this idea has shifted. The past that has not been experienced seems more familiar by the portrayal of it in commercials, movies, and video clips, as well as visits to heritage sites and museums. 61 According to Lowenthal, it is much like “Renaissance devotion to the classical world,” a world Renaissance people only knew by classical texts, arts and archeological findings, not by experiencing it themselves. 62 An example of this is the nostalgic portrayal of Disneyland’s Main Street as a turn of the 20th century small-town American main street. It is safe to say that in 2014 there is hardly anyone left to remember those pre-World War I days.
However the Disney theme parks have been able to give this main street a familiar look and feel for many visitors, as if they had experienced this themselves. According to Davis this is accomplished by
Disney, amongst others, by “celebrating and memorializing this “age of innocence” in the American imagination that, even though we may not have lived them, we feel […] “as if we had”.” For Davis, whose book was published in 1979, this example was a rare instance in which a person felt nostalgia for a time not remembered by themselves, but “a created, secondhand reality […] a romanticized version of a slightly earlier historical reality.”63 Nowadays there are many more of these constructed memories because of the influence of mass media, and it is not such a rare instance anymore. Ten years after Davis, Lowenthal noted that “previous pasts still hold sway in Disneyland’s Main Street, in countless ‘restored’ Victorian villages, and in the ‘Wild West’- nostalgic scenes innocent of present perplexities and unrelated to present concerns,”64 hereby adding other heritage sites that no one in our age, nor his age, could have experienced firsthand.
As nostalgia can go back further than one’s lifetime, there needs to be a certain awareness of history and historical events. According to Lowenthal at the end of the 1980s the new awareness of history is what nurtures nostalgia, and it has two different origins: “One is the technology that furnishes past artefacts and images with compelling vitality; […] The other is the historians who also
60 Davis, 8. 61 Goulding, 178. 62 David Lowenthal, ‘Past Time, Present Place: Landscape and Memory,’ Geographical Review, Vol. 65, No. 1 (January 1975), pp. 1-36, 4. 63 Davis, 121. 64 Lowenthal, ‘Nostalgia Tells It Like It Wasn’t,’ 26.
34 bring the past to life again in new ways.”65 It is in this remoteness of the past that the appeal of these venues lie: as these days cannot be revisited, we feel more attracted to it, a yearning for something that is gone forever. This past seemed so distant from our current living conditions, that it is not associated with us anymore: our ancestors seemed to be completely different people from us, living in a completely different world. 66 This world is being portrayed in museums, for instance, where former living conditions are displayed, or in period rooms that have been furnished as if families still live there. However, historical awareness and its forms changes over time, and in contemporary society the past does not seem to be so remote as Lowenthal earlier argues. In 2012 he stated that the past and present had become more and more intertwined, because the past is more and more accessible by popular media and heritage sites and museums. One example he gives is in cinema, where films are made to look historical, even though the storyline is purely fictional.
As past and present become more intertwined, we are more likely to conceive historic images and objects from our nowadays standpoint. According to historians Malcolm Chase and Christopher
Shaw, there is an important aspect that differs the past from the present: “[the past] has generated objects, images and texts which can be seen as powerful talismans of how things used to be.” These objects, images and texts have frozen an image in time, like a photograph does for instance. For these historians, a photograph is “the paradigm case of the moment of nostalgia. […] Like a fly preserved in amber, they are a unilateral reminder of how things were and of how ourselves, our lives, and personalities, have changed.”67 However, the way we encounter these images is crucial. As Lowenthal explains: “a major consequence of this folding past into present is an incapacity to conceive that bygone people lived by other principles and viewpoints.” Our standards and ideas of now are projected upon the image and we cannot understand it in context. Even more so, this enables strong judgment of pasts negative issues, not being able to understand that people in the past had different moral judgment than we do now. According to Lowenthal the public “domesticates” history, “imputing present-day aims and deeds to people of earlier times.” 68
65 Ibid., 30. 66 Lowenthal, ‘Past Time, Present Place: Landscape and Memory,’ 4. 67 Chase and Shaw, 9. 68 Lowenthal, ‘The Past Made Present,’ 3.
35 Nostalgia is a response to an ever-changing society, applied in museums and other historic presentations to contrast the past from contemporary society, showing a world we cannot go back to, and that we can feel nostalgic about for not being able to go back to it. As the past and present are discussed in the same terms, as Lowenthal has argued, visitors look at the past through their modern- day glasses, using their contemporary morals to comprehend what they see. As both nostalgia from personal memories and simulated nostalgia, created by modern media through images and stories from the past,69 all histories could apply for nostalgia, and the pull of nostalgia is relevant for all age groups. In order for visitors to feel nostalgic for what they see they need to have a certain historical awareness, especially when confronted with a scene from the past that is not familiar by having experienced it, but by having been exposed to it via media. Nostalgia is a social emotion that is shared with others, which has evolved in interpretation from a mental illness to a state of mind which is both personal and shared with others. How nostalgia is used in historic presentations, and to what effect, is the next subject of this chapter, when discussing two different historic presentations, to answer the question: what are the limitations and what are the benefits of a nostalgic presentation of business history?
3.2 : Nostalgia in the Verkade Pavilion
In 2009 the Verkade Pavilion was added to the Zaans Museum, a museum next to the Zaanse Schans, a popular outdoors museum that attracted 1.5 million visitors in 2013.70 The Zaandam area is rich in industrial heritage, as it has been a popular area to set-up factories. Some of these companies still exist until today and even operate on markets worldwide, such as Ahold and Verkade (since 1990 owned by United Biscuits, but still operating under its original name). The Zaanse Schans shows some of the smaller scale industrial heritage, such as wooden shoe factories and cheesemakers. Windmills are still grinding their grains and coopers are performing their craftsmanship for tourists, and they sell their products too. The Verkade Pavilion came about by the institution of an association for the conservation of Verkade’s cultural heritage,71 with a collection that was brought together by the family
69 Goulding, 179. 70 Stichting de Zaanse Schans, Jaarverslag 2013, Zaandam: Stichting de Zaanse Schans (2014), 7. 71 Original name of association: Stichting Behoud Cultureel Erfgoed Verkade.
36 and Verkade employees, and bought back from the factory after the company had been sold to United
Biscuits in 1991. The family longed for a museum of its own and decided to collaborate with Fokeline
Renckens, the director of the Zaans Museum, planning the addition together.
The Zaans Museum aims to present the lives of the Zaankanter, the inhabitants of the region, and to keep the cultural heritage of the Zaandam area alive, 72 and the Verkade collection, with its history, fits this aim. The
Verkade factory was founded in 1886 by Ericus Verkade and the company has grown into the nation’s most famous brand for chocolate and biscuits. Originally it was a rusk biscuit and bread manufacturer under the name of ‘De Ruyter’, but before long the company started making other dough products as well, using the steam-driven ovens of the factory. The biscuits, cookies and waffles they started making at the beginning of the 20th century would become famous, and together with their chocolate production this is what they are still known for today. From the beginning of the twentieth century the company would also introduce tea lights, which they called ‘waxine candles’, a brand Opening image of Verkade Pavilion: the founder’s desk name which has become the short name for this product. 73 A Picture by myself takeover in 1991 by United Biscuits, an international business in baked snacks, meant the end of the family’s involvement in the Verkade company. The Verkade collection is added to the already existing collection of the Zaans Museum, containing varied items, such as traditional clothing, locally-produced furniture, interiors of typical houses, and products used or produced in the Zaandam area. From the 17th century until into the twentieth century this area was one of the most important trading and manufacturing areas of Europe, and the varied collection of the museum is left to tell this story.74
72 Zaans Museum, Jaarverslag 2004, Zaandam 2005, 5. 73 Wilma de Rek and Bert Wagendorp, ‘Nederland Gidsland; Verkade’, in Volkskrant, ‘Der Nederlanden’ addition, June 19 2010. 74 ‘Zaans Museum’, on Zaans Museum Zaanse Schans, http://www.zaansmuseum.nl/index.php?id=30, accessed on January 29 2014.
37 In the Netherlands, generations have grown up with Verkade biscuit boxes in the cupboard and the yellow tin can on the breakfast table, and this has made the Verkade Pavilion a historic presentation which evokes nostalgic reactions from its visitors. The famous Verkade cookie brands, such as Frou-Frou, Café Noir, and San Francisco biscuits, are almost as old as the company itself, and are recognizable for many Dutch visitors. As director Fokelien Renckens explains the strong attachment felt to the brand is one of the goals of the creators, and what she sells is emotion, as
emotion is in her opinion the essence of history. Just a portrait
of some person may not be interesting, but if you surround this
portrait with stories that the public can relate to this person
starts to have a meaning, and its presence in the presentation
starts to make sense.75 In other words, just the machine that
made the cookies does not do much for visitors, especially those
not so much interested in technical history. But surround this
machine with stories of who worked it and why, what were their
experiences, what anecdotes are there to tell, and the machine
starts to become more than just a cleverly designed apparatus. Display of Verkade chocolate and biscuits boxes in Verkade Pavilion This is exactly what she and her team try to do in the museum,
Picture by myself and accomplish, according to one visitors entry in the visitors log which says: “Oh, how wonderful. All these things from my past, cans and chocolate boxes. Memories.
Nicely done. With and in the Verkade pavilion you have done your best. It was a huge success. Thank you.” 76 Looking at these items made this visitor travel back to childhood memories, remembering these cans and boxes in the family’s home for instance, what they were used for, when they were given, or the taste of these sweet treats.
By this highly personal story, and the visitor’s emotional attachment to the collection the presentation exhumes an air of nostalgia. The type of nostalgia the Verkade collection evokes is one of a celebrated past of the company and of good memories for its visitors. After all the company produced mainly chocolates and biscuits, popular products enjoyed mostly at happy moments. Even
75 Interview Fokelien Renckens, February 10 2014. 76 Zaans Museum, Jaarverslag 2009, Zaandam 2010, 37. Original text: “Oh, wat enig. Dingen van vroeger, trommels en chocoladedozen. Herinneringen. Erg mooi. Jullie hebben met en in het Verkade Paviljoen erg je best gedaan. Het was een groot succes. Bedankt.”
38 the waxine candles can evoke a nostalgic recollection of candlelit winter evenings, wholesome and warm memories of one’s youth. As mentioned before it was not just the sweets, but also rusk biscuits, crackers, tin cans, and the likes that were omnipresent in Dutch households. Verkade also issued collectable cards to put into albums, which were very popular at the time. Many sixty-year-olds of today will remember the craze of collecting these cards. All of these fond memories are present in the presentation of Verkade, simply by putting these objects on display for people to remember.
Verkade girls
The Verkade presentation has more layers to it than the personal remembrance of visitors and uses a nostalgic image of the factory’s working conditions as storyline. The Verkade girls, the women working in the factories, are the main characters in the story and the pavilion is made to resemble the factory floor: a corridor overlooking the factory floor with its pumping machines, high ceilings and windows, and a coffee corner for the employees to take a rest. The corridor houses the original desk of the founder, as if the director overseeing the floor sits upstairs, and the walls are adorned with many pictures of the factory and its employees. The pictures are in black and white and are mostly of the mid-century days of Verkade, the
1950s up to the 1970s, as if these were the glory days of the company. Also there are more personal recollections in text available, for instance on the photo displays quoting the employees, or in the iPads offering extra in-depth stories of the employees and the Verkade family. These recollections and Part of the picture wall in the Verkade Pavilion photographs are mostly positive Picture by myself accounts and images of working life in the factory, all adding to the nostalgic feeling that the Verkade factory was a great place to work, much different from other factories. The image of the Verkade factory is that of a happy place to
39 work, even though working conditions may have been rougher than they are portrayed. Most employees would be working the production lines, repetitive, manual labor that may have been quit tough. However, most visitors will look at the presentations with the image of contemporary working conditions in mind, which have better safety and health guidelines and less working hours than the days presented in the pavilion.
The story of Verkade and its employees consists of more than positive recollections, but these
have been left out mostly. The Verkade Pavilion makes
use of nostalgia as “remembering with the pain
removed,” 77 suppressing the critical notes in the story
and leaving out negative aspects that must have been
present in a company that existed for over 100 years, for
instance the conditions of the workplace, the longer
working days, and the unvaried character of the work
most were doing. They worked longer hours for six days
a week until the workweek was shortened by law. It
must have been tough in times for the employees to
operate the machines, but this is nowhere mentioned.
Look unto factory floor of Verkade Pavilion Whether the company had to endure hard times, or what from the corridor above
Picture by myself the takeover in 1991 meant for its personnel or the
Verkade family itself, it does not play a role in the museum exhibition. What is included on several occasions are stories about how the Verkade company took care for its employees, for instance in one sign telling “the care for our employees was highly valued by us. We always looked after our fellow people.” As the family is telling the story of Verkade, the elements they chose are about their positive influence on the lives of their personnel, about their contribution to their society.
It is not that this is an untrue story, but it is history that is incomplete and out of context. To tell the story of a factory and its people is to tell the whole story, including the hardships. This has similarities to the history versus heritage debate, but the difference is in the way this has been used.
In the Heineken Experience the context is left out entirely, hereby creating a solitary story of the
77 Nathan and McDonald, 101.
41 Heineken brand, as if it has not been influenced by anything outside its doors. In the Verkade Pavilion the selection of stories have the goal to portray the life in the Verkade factory, but set against the context of a company born and raised in the Zaandam area, a typical company for the region, and this context and history is explained in the Zaans Museum that visitors enter before coming to the Verkade
Pavilion. So there is a context and historical background, but selecting those stories that tell a positive story about working for the factory is what creates a nostalgic image of Verkade’s history, which in turn captures the interest of the visitors.
Family influence
One reason for this nostalgic display is the role that the family has played in collecting the objects together and safeguarding them for the future, by finding a place for them to be exhibited together with their story. After the takeover the family bought the collection back from United Biscuits, in order to create a Verkade museum. In the Zaans Museum they found a partner. As Fokelien Renckens explained, the family was looking for a place to tell their own story, to make sure their story is not forgotten. They may not be involved with the brand anymore, but as discussed before they do have their own agenda to meet, to safeguard their positive image for the future. Especially now that the family is not involved in the company anymore they can focus their story on themselves instead of promoting their products, but in the end this is promoting the family itself. In this way, the pavilion serves as an advertorial for the family, to show how good they have been for their personnel and what great process they have managed to achieve. This is an emotional story for them, as it involves four generations of Verkade leadership in the company that at some point, for the lack of succession
(amongst other reasons), had to be given up. According to Renckens the family felt the urge to show how good they have been, for their employees as well as with their business. 78 Although the agreement stated that neither the association nor the family could interfere with the storyline being told, their presence in the presentation can be felt, as their role for and presence in the company’s day-to-day dealings is pointed out throughout the presentation. On many signs explaining work processes, how the factory and its employees operated, or how the recipes for famous products came
78 Interview Fokelien Renckens, February 10 2014.
40 about quotes from family members are used, and in the stories told via the iPads in the presentation the recollections of the family can be read.
This highly personal, and nostalgic, story can only be made possible by the lack of involvement from the still existing company. The family no longer has products to sell, their agenda is to present the history of the company as a closed chapter, something that has been great, and that has been in the past. Fokelien Renckens’ opinion is that if the company would have made the pavilion, they would most likely have told the story from the production side of it, what is being produced, what was its process over time, and what will it be in the future.
What interests her is not the development of a product, but why is the product there in the first place, why was it created, what need does it fulfill. 79 For Renckens the angle museums should take with industrial collections is the human angle, not the Display of miniature Dutch shop to play with, demonstrating the everyday use of Verkade products perspective of the products. For her Picture by myself this would not have made a story for the public to relate to, as it would create a story without emotions, but this is not necessarily true. The invention of products, the technological process or innovative ideas, all these things are created by people, and they are the faces behind the products.
These people could be present in the presentation, making production a personal story while focusing on the product itself. The Verkade pavilion however is indeed a museum in which these faces behind the stories are very present, almost more than the products itself.
The chosen focus on personnel and family, instead of production and technology, makes the museum’s addition a less commercial and less capitalist presentation. The Verkade brand is still in existence as there is money to be made from it by the company that owns it, and this would probably have been visible in their presentation, like it is for instance in the Heineken Experience. There is no
79 Ibid.
42 special attention to the sustainability of the company, where their ingredients come from, and no focus on special quality traits of their products. In short, the Verkade Pavilion is not selling a product, it is branding the family. Social contributions by the family to their society, for instance in the way they invested in their personnel’s wellbeing, are highlighted over focus on quality biscuits; instead of showing why a certain chocolate box was conceived, there is an account on how Verkade hired girls to perform delicate tasks with their small fingers. For an existing company however the presentation would not only be about yesteryears cookies and chocolates, but also about today’s products, and the development of future products. In the Philips Museum, developed by the multinational Philips company, this is the case, as they present the development of their products of former decades into what their most recent products are. This museum will be the focus of the next paragraphs.
3.3 : Nostalgia and the Philips Museum
The Philips company started with Gerard Philips in 1891, who was trying to perfect the durability of light bulbs, but the company really took off when his brother Anton joined, who was the commercially minded salesman. In 1891 at age thirty-two Gerard, a trained technician who had been working with companies abroad who produced light bulbs, started his factory with a family loan. He made long hours and worked hard to expand the durability of the wiring in the bulbs, thereby creating longer lasting bulbs. Gerard was the man of inventions, the innovator and a skilled technician, but he was not the salesperson the company needed. His twenty-one year old brother Anton stepped in in 1895, initially only for six months, and soon proved to be the businessman the company lacked. The tension between the skills of the two brothers was, according to Pieter Friesen, curator at the museum, the company’s secret for being able to grow like they did: Anton was trying to sell more lights than Gerard could produce, and vice versa.80 From there on the company grew to be one of the world’s leading producers of household equipment, audio and video technique, and medical innovations. The mission of the company still is to “[improve] people’s lives through meaningful innovation.”81 At the end of the 1990s the company decided to move its headquarters to Amsterdam, severing the ties with the city where it
80 Interview Pieter Friesen, March 19 2014. 81 ‘Vision and Strategy’, on: Philips, http://www.philips.com/about/company/missionandvisionvaluesandstrategy/index.page, accessed on May 20 2014.
43 all began, Eindhoven. Nevertheless this city still bears many marks of the company’s hundred year presence, including the old factory in which the Philips Museum is located.
The Philips Museum opened its doors in April 2013, located in a new building built around their old light bulb factory of 1867. In a press release in December 2007 the plans were made public, the
CEO of Philips Electronics Netherlands,
Harry Hendriks, stated that the aims of the museum were to visualize the heritage and the ambition of Philips to a broad audience; to demonstrate how Philips has been improving the lives of people for generations; and how they will continue to innovate their products for generations to come.82 According to Sjak Ros, chairman of the museum board in 2008, the plans for a museum were connected to Philips’ Old factory room in Philips Museum, with different kind of production materials ambition to prove to their public that Picture by myself innovation to improve people’s lives is one of the main goals of the company.83 This museum was a successor of a collection of historic Philips products open to the public. 84 At the start of the development of the museum, the board stated that the company wanted to express its pride in its history. It serves as an inspiration for the future for themselves, and they want to spark this same inspiration in their public as well.85 In the Philips Museum they try to accomplish this by making use of nostalgic presentations of the past, mainly focused on Philips products instead of the company’s history.
82 ‘Nieuw Philips museum in Eindhoven’, press release of December 12 2007, http://www.newscenter.philips.com/nl_nl/standard/about/news/press/fabriekje.wpd, accessed on February 3 2014. 83 ‘De trots van Philips’, press release of August 28 2008, http://www.newscenter.philips.com/nl_nl/standard/about/news/philipsmagazine/archive/february2008/magazine _02008_7_trots.wpd, accessed on February 3 2014. 84 Original name of association: Stichting tot Behoud van Historische Philips Producten. 85 Email Pieter Friesen, curator of the Philips Museum, from April 22 2014 (included as Appendix 2).
44 Personal stories
The museum is divided into two parts. The ground floor is the historic introduction of its most important products, and the top floor is mainly about consumer applications of the products. This top floor is the one with the most nostalgic presentations. There they have an area which the curator calls memory lane and consists of six period rooms in which historic Philips products are placed in the living rooms of the age. These rooms are intended to evoke nostalgic reactions for their visitors, who may remember the products from their youth. There is a 1950s living room, a
1970s kitchen with Philips appliances, and 1980s and
1990s youth bedrooms, complete with video games and tape recorders. The opening text to this part of the museum encourages visitors to “experience the sights and sounds of each era as you walk down Memory Lane.”
In the rest of this text the Philips company places its products in the context of history: during the twentieth century electronic appliances began to fill the homes of Fifties living room with Philips radio and lighting people, and Philips’ products were at the forefront of this Picture by myself development.
Nostalgia in the Philips Museum is mostly in the static displays itself, and not in nostalgic storylines. Visitors need to interpret what they see for themselves, as there is not much text to explain what products they see, how to use them, what their appeal was, or how they changed the household in general, with which the museum misses out on a chance to show more context and personal attachment. The nostalgia is in the design of the former living room settings, but not in any additional stories told. When the presentation focuses on products, like the Philips Museum does, there is still a personal story to tell, as discussed in the Verkade paragraphs. The use and application of products, the need for the product, why it was invention, this kind of questions can show the face behind the products. However, all Philips does is show the technicalities and design of their products, and using nostalgic period room settings to do this. For some of the objects it means that their specific story is
45 unclear, as their technicalities, design and science behind it are only visible for those visitors able to interpret them.
Philips has had many great technical innovations and inventions, but obviously also some mishaps, which stories also remain untold. One of the most famous ones is the introduction of a video recorder which they hoped would become the standard on the market, the Video 2000 system. The product is there, but for those who do not remember it, or are not familiar with the story, it is unclear that this product has flopped, even though it was technically better than that of its competitors, according to the curator Pieter Friesen.86 Also, the flopping of this product would make for a great story, as it shows that producing the best product technically is not enough to sell the product, hereby explaining Philips’ focus on marketing as well. This is an interesting story to tell, as it can say something on the larger field of science history, and the development and marketing of products in general.
Volunteers at work
Another major contribution to the nostalgia of the presentation are the volunteers at work there, former Philips employees mostly, telling stories of the Philips company. Pieter Friesen remembers a volunteer who as a student placed television antennas on the roofs of homes, an exciting job as he recalls.87 Other volunteers recollect stories of how the company took good care of its employees, what a good work environment Philips provided, how much fun the work itself was, et cetera. It is very likely that this is in fact what they remember, but it is not so likely that it was all fun and happiness. Philips for instance employed many factory workers, men, women and even children who would perform their tasks alongside a conveyer belt. The volunteers may very well have worked down the production line, which can also be repetitive and hard work. The way the former staff has such fond memories has more to say for the way the corporate branding works, and the pride of the company, than of its actual working conditions (although it does speak for that as well). Also the fact that they currently volunteer at the museum may have some influence on the way they portray the Philips company in their stories.
Little attention goes to the family involvement and influence Philips had on its employees, by housing
86 Interview Pieter Friesen, March 19 2014. 87 Interview Pieter Friesen, March 19 2014.
46 them in Philips villages, with Philips schools, doctors and stores, by working side-by-side with their parents in the factories. These stories would make great opportunity for nostalgic recollection, and would add a personal story to all of the technicalities.
Even though it is likely that the volunteers give positive recollections on working for Philips, and leave out the negatives, they do make up for the personal stories otherwise missing in the presentation. In an interview just before the opening of the museum in 2013 director Olga Coolen said
that the volunteers are the fourth pillar the museum
uses to tell their story, besides the objects, texts and
images. In her opinion, the volunteers are the ones
adding an essential authenticity to the presentation.88
The volunteers actively approach visitors, and are
open to answer all kinds of questions, besides also
working the reception and the café. Their memories of
working for the company in all kinds of capacities
make the presentation more lively for visitors. One
issue with this group of people is the question how
long they can add these stories. In the last decades
Philips has moved its headquarters to Amsterdam and
Teenage bedroom with Philips television, has grown internationally, also opening factories gaming console and tape recorder Picture by myself abroad. The question raises how many volunteers there will be left to tell these stories in the future. However, as museum presentations change over time, so can the Philips Museum change this scheme. For now it is a pleasant addition to the museum’s presentation.
3.4 : Limitations and Benefits of Nostalgia
The two presentations of business history have some similarities in its (partly) nostalgic approach, but they differ in the way they have incorporated nostalgic elements, and this difference can be attributed
88 Corrie de Leeuw, ‘Verhalen Pijler onder dit Museum – Philips op Zoek naar Producten van Philips,’ Eindhovens Dagblad, February 26 2013.
88 to the goals of both museums. For the Verkade Pavilion the main goal is to serve as an example of
Zaandam’s industrial heritage; for the Verkade family it is to have their family business history presented in a manner that shows the virtues of founding and governing the company, and its personnel. The Philips Museum serves as a showcase of Philips’ history, but also its present and future.
It is supposed to serve as an inspiration to the public and the Philips employees. In the Verkade
Pavilion, business history is presented alongside the stories of its personnel and their memories, and the presentation of Verkade products, set to evoke a nostalgic reaction with its visitors. Philips uses this last technique also, by showcasing its products in period rooms visitors may remember from their youths. What they also do is use volunteers to tell the stories of yesteryear, what working for the
Philips company was like. Whether or not a visitor has contacted a volunteer makes a big difference in what story the visitor will take home, while in the Verkade Pavilion the more personal stories of the
Verkade girls cannot be missed.
So both museums use personnel and products, but in different manners which can be attributed to the companies influence itself. In the Verkade Pavilion it is the family mostly who tells their story, and this family is no longer involved in the company. They do not produce new products anymore and have nothing of the present and future to sell, unlike Philips. If business history is looking at history from the business perspective, the Verkade Pavilion does make a contribution to the field, as it serves as an example of local industry. The Philips Museum however does not really contribute to that field. As a museum on the history of Philips and their technical innovations the
Philips Museum misses out in making a connection with the larger history, both of the Eindhoven area, and other fields such as scientific or technical history. As Pieter Friesen explains, from the outset the idea was to present not just history, but also the present and the future of Philips. As the company still operates the museum is also a showcase for their newest products. One of the three fields the company operates in is in medical equipment, quite a complicating line of products to show, which needs a lot of explanation. For Pieter Friesen and his colleagues this is another complicating factor in creating a presentation on the history of Philips, especially since science and its history are complex elements to include in the presentation.89 Overall the museum is more of a celebration and showcase
89 Interview Pieter Friesen, March 19 2014.
48 for the Philips company, more than a historic museum, while the Verkade Pavilion may celebrate the
Verkade family, it does connect to a larger history and thereby is more of a historic presentation.
Coming back to the issue of limitations and benefits of a nostalgic presentation of history there are multiple answers to that question. Nostalgia used to attract an audience, to make them feel involved in the presentation, could be a benefit. When the interest of a visitor is aroused, they may very well be more interested in seeing more, and the presentation may make a more lasting imprint in their mind. This could be used by companies presenting their history to use as branding. However, this can also be a limitation, as nostalgia is often associated as something old, something of the past. A company wanting to present itself in nowadays terms may need to resort to other presenting methods, as they might want to avoid an old-fashioned look. Philips choses to do both and offers a presentation with a nostalgic image and some other areas feature more contemporary design, whereas for Verkade this is not an issue, as the recent products do not play any role in the Verkade Pavilion. The choice of using nostalgia in the Verkade Pavilion is understandable, considering the company is famous for cookies and chocolates, treats associated with fond memories. For Philips it is quite a different story, as the company is most famous for making electronics and lighting, complicated products with technical backgrounds in scientific research. Nostalgia is added so that visitors can envision the people behind the brand, and the people using the brand. For Verkade’s products nostalgia is in its nature, whereas with Philips the nature of their products is technical innovation, and using nostalgia to market their products is the branding of nostalgia.
Seventies kitchen with Philips appliances
Picture by myself
90 4. Branding of Science
Science museums and science centers can be used for educational goals to get the public acquainted with science and technology, how it is practiced, and what the purpose and application of it can be.
Scientific phenomena can be presented to the audience, who can get acquainted with science in a playful way.90 In science centers visitors perform scientific experiments and experience nature’s laws firsthand. The aim of these centers is, according to the Association of Science-Technology Centers
(ASTC) to create “opportunity to develop intuitions about the natural world […] so when they encounter these concepts in other settings, they’ll be likelier to understand.”91 To know how scientific discoveries have come about, understanding these processes and what they involve, and how
“knowledge claims” are constructed, “does not only involve knowledge in science, but also knowledge about science, an understanding of the nature and status of science.” 92 So not only does the public need to understand what it takes to perform scientific research, there also needs to be an awareness of what has preceded to arrive at this stage of scientific knowledge. Not only is science about the instruments and knowledge used, it is also about debate in the specific field of science, and about what type of research gets supported.
Awareness is also important to increase public support for scientific research, as public funding is often involved. Certain research is sponsored by government, and thereby public, money, and if this is not supported by the public it may cause difficulties for the constituency.93 Furthermore, the public can learn to understand why certain scientific breakthroughs have not been realized, and understand the constraints and difficulties scientists and researchers encounter during their work. 94 Also, public understanding of scientific research and the need thereof can also create a positive environment for more research to be developed. for instance the Wellcome Centre for Medical Science does: “The
Wellcome Centre provides money for initiatives in the public understanding of contemporary medial
90 Eva Davidsson and Helene Sørensen, ‘Sponsorship and Exhibitions at Nordic Centres and Museums,’ Museum Management and Curatorship, Vol. 25, No. 4 (2010), 345. 91 ‘About Science Centers,’ on: Association of Science-Technology Centers, http://www.astc.org/about-astc/about- science-centers/, accessed on October 10 2014. 92 Davidsson and Jakobsson, 1231. 93 Dominique Cornuéjols, ‘Outreach from an international laboratory: a task out of reach?,’ in: Graham Farmelo and Janet Carding, Here and now: contemporary science and technology in museums and science centres. London: Science Museum, 1997, 112. 94 Ibid., 107.
50 science because it feels that an informed public should be involved in the important decisions that need to be make about the use of medical technology. A positive climate of opinion is also more likely to allow medical research to flourish.”95 However, as certain research is sponsored, other fields are not, and the public may be less aware of these fields of research. Or as the public is less aware of some fields of research, they may not be as interesting to sponsor. Either way this may be decided for other reasons than it being important subjects, reasons such as the complexity of the subject, or how controversial it is.
A partnership between a science museum and a corporation or government institution has advantages for both parties. For museums, when working together with a privately-funded research institution dealing with the subject of an exhibition, the latest technology and knowledge can be shared, as long as it is not still classified. Also the knowhow of personnel can be of assistance to the staff creating the exhibition. For instance their researchers could join the project team to assist in the creation of the exhibition without having to hire extra personnel. Furthermore the company could provide materials, such as appliances, objects, end products, or even graphic designs, to use in the exhibition.96 For the other party the advantages of the cooperation can be to enhance the image of the company (both corporate and government) as a party performing innovative research, by the objective imago and authority of the museum. The prestige of working together with a well-known company rubs off on the museum or exhibition as well.97 The cooperation offers the company an outlet to show their newest products and research, while the museum can offer some of the latest research results to their audience. For both parties involved the shared marketing and communications channels and networks could be used to get broad attention for both the company’s products and the museum’s exhibition. The visitors the museum attracts may be different than the audience the company reaches with their press campaigns, and vice versa.98
95 Laurence Smaje, ‘Fostering collaboration: Wellcome Trust initiatives,’ in: Graham Farmelo and Janet Carding, Here and now: contemporary science and technology in museums and science centres. London: Science Museum, 1997, 123. 96 Gillian Thomas, Developing partnerships for the display of contemporary science and technology,’ in: Graham Farmelo and Janet Carding, Here and now: contemporary science and technology in museums and science centres. London: Science Museum, 1997, 125-126. 97 AnnMarie Israelsson, ‘Collaboration for development and change – or for the sake of funds?,’ in: Graham Farmelo and Janet Carding, Here and now: contemporary science and technology in museums and science centres. London: Science Museum, 1997, 141 98 Thomas, 126-127.
51
The above mentioned advantages also exist when museums do not need to cooperate to increase the museum’s income, but when under financial pressure the balance between the two parties shifts, making the museum a more dependent party, and granting the funding party more leverage over the museum staff to influence content and design of exhibitions. When accepting grants from a company to create an exhibition, the museum is vulnerable for pressure from that company to show the company’s topic of interest in the exhibition. Also the image of science, how science is practiced, can be influenced by the sponsoring party. Sponsors want something back for their money, and as they attach their name to it they expect a positive image of their line of research. Companies performing specific fields of research can push for these institutions to have an exhibition on their topic, hereby creating public awareness on the topic. This does not have to be a bad influence, as creating understanding can be virtuous. However, when corporations select the topics to discuss they also decide what topics to leave out, and the public is treated to science presentations on topics that may make the best money, not topics that may be of interest for the public but do not generate revenue. Even if the company does not want to affect the scientific content, the very fact that a brand name is attached to an exhibition influences how the public perceives what they see. In an “exhibition where scientific research is presented in relation to private economic interests,” 99 visitors may perceive corporate sponsorship as something positive, enhancing the credibility of the presentation, or as something negatively influencing the credibility of the exhibition. Even if a sponsor does not set any ground rules, the fact that the sponsor’s name is attached to the exhibition may put pressure on the museum’s credibility. 100
Business history may often involve science and technology, and have to deal with these issues too. This chapter will explore how Philips, a company still performing scientific research in the fields they operate in, presents its history in both their own museum and a special temporary exhibition in the Museum Boerhaave. Companies presenting scientific history usually experience difficulties, as it is often complicated matter to comprehend. As this chapter will show, in the Philips Museum these difficulties have been put aside on one hand, as most displays offer the visitors the consumer products itself without explanation of the research behind it. In the Philips Research exhibition in Museum
Boerhaave the process of science is explained using five researchers from the Philips laboratory. These
99 Davidsson and Sørensen, 358. 100 Israelsson, 142.
52 researchers represent the development of the laboratory, and how research has changed since 1914 into what it is today. This chapter will explore whether the scientific background of Philips is explained clearly and thoroughly in both presentations, and what the limitations and benefits of both presentations are. In order to do that, some of the issues with presenting science must be addressed.
4.1 : Exploring the Presentation of Science
Due to partnering up with other institutions that have different educational and promotional goals, many science and technology museums offer an unproblematic image of science, which is a product- oriented and one-sided image. A product-oriented image of science means the presentation shows the end results of years, or even decades and centuries, of research. These end results are likely to be successful products with direct application in society. However, scientific research also includes failures, or even scientific discoveries that do not end up as a specific product. The process of how to get to these end results is left out, and what is left instead is a presentation of science facts without context. Furthermore, often the people behind these discoveries are also omitted, as well as the influence of their beliefs on their research, or the way they discuss their results with other researchers.
Understanding the way researchers reach consensus on a new idea is important to grasp the process of how science is conducted.101 Presenting science this way does not contribute to public debate on how, what, when and where scientists do or should be doing, but only leaves room to celebrate “the wonders of science.” Fostering public debate “entails understanding the nature, processes, and achievements of science. It also entails critiquing the institution and practice of science.” 102 Leaving this out makes for an uncritical celebration of accomplishments. Other areas, such as the role of science in society, how society looks upon science, and what roles did science play in history, will not be covered when looking at science from the perspective of sponsors. Even if these sponsors are government agencies or branch associations the presentation of science is under pressure, because also these organizations have their agendas to be met.
It is also quite difficult to create an exhibition on a controversial subject with all the nuance it needs when other parties are involved. Controversial issues tend to be avoided by companies, as they
101 Davidsson and Jakobsson, 1232. 102 Davidsson and Jakobsson, 1230.
53 prefer not to have to explain their stance on such issues. When they do decide to touch upon controversial issues it is often done for public relations purposes, to show how the sponsor dares to mention the subject, or to enhance their innovative reputation. These issues can also attract a larger crowd, as it may generate more attention from the press. Companies operating in controversial fields of research, such as stem cell, nuclear power, or cloning, can use museum and exhibition sponsoring to display a less controversial image of themselves. An example is when the Teknikens Hus (house of technology) in Sweden was looking for sponsoring, and they found the forestry industry to support them. This industry is controversial in itself, as deforestation is a global problem, and the industry
“was keen to use Teknikens Hus as a means of appearing to be active and environmentally concerned.” 103 The cooperation needs to be carefully designed, but in the end the museum decided to use the funds of the forestry industry only on certain conditions, such as being entitled to decline whatever they do not feel comfortable with. But even if these arrangements have been made carefully, there is still the possibility that the sponsorship influences controversial issues in a negative way. It is likely that sponsors want to avoid controversy, the museum staff practices self-censorship in leaving these subjects out without being asked to do so.104
Historians making presentations are accustomed to comprising a broad field with many nuance into a smaller and comprehensible story, and these skills could be used when presenting the history of science. Science museums and centers have an image of impartiality, as they are often sponsored by public money and their goal is to raise public awareness. 105 However, as they are judged for how many people visit them, what they present and how they present it may very well also be linked to what sells best.106 These institutions work with historians, or employ historians as curators, however it does not always mean that these historians are able to create balanced presentations. Historian
Sharon Babaian, working for a science museum, observes that “while the work of historians is often used by exhibit teams to help develop storylines and themes for exhibitions and programs, the final products seldom reflect the nuances, ambiguities, and critical analysis of the original reports.”107 This means that during the process of setting up the presentation and discussing the storyline the
103 Israelsson, 141. 104 Davidsson and Jakobsson, 358. 105 Thomas, 126. 106 Cornuéjols, 112. 107 Sharon Babaian, ‘So Far, So Good: Ethics and the Government Historian,’ The Public Historian, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Winter 2006), 103.
54 ambiguities of scientific research lose out from the presentation. With company sponsorship this balance could be even more off, as companies also have the goal to sell a certain product or service.
Where governments may want to influence the topic to subjects that are not so controversial or suitable for their political agendas, companies want to attach their name only to commercially savvy subjects. How this plays out for Philips and Philips Research will be the topic of the rest of this chapter, as the limitations and benefits of company sponsored science museums and exhibitions will be exemplified by the Philips company’s presentations.
4.2 : Science History in the Philips Museum
For Philips science plays a major role in everything they do, but this is not directly clear from the exhibition in the Philips Museum. From an early age the company had its own research department, called Natlab (later on they renamed it Philips Research), where scientific experiments were executed.
However in the display in the museum this is only a small part of the exhibit. Even though the museum shows the development of its products from their initial invention to nowadays examples, this does not directly mention the research behind it. The museum shows a product-aimed presentation, in which there is little room for science. It becomes clear that the museum is created from the company’s wishes to present their history, and that this is still an operating company today, wanting to present a positive, understandable image of themselves. Overall the exhibits are displaying the products Philips has created, with the innovative technologies and designs that have made them into the company they are today. It is a celebration of these products and clever entrepreneurship, not of the research behind it, as this is almost absent in the presentation.
There are three displays in which research is clearly mentioned: at the start of the exhibition in the old factory, at the display on Natlab on the history floor, and in the section discussing modern day, recent applications of Philips products at the end of the exhibition. In the old factory the process of making light bulbs is shown, and the story on how Gerard Philips kept experimenting with the bulbs is told. His role as the scientist, instead of the salesman his brother was, is being introduced here.
However, this does not tell how his research came about, or even direct implications of it. Neither does it tell what Gerard’s interest in science was, or how this has come about. The Natlab display on the
55 downstairs, history floor introduces the research laboratory and its researchers to the visitor. But again here a product-aimed presentations is chosen, in which the different important findings are on display.
Not only the end product, such as the Philishave system, but also the more technical products are shown, such as semi-conductors created by Philips. This does not explain how science in the Natlab works unfortunately, it only shows what research led to. The only hint we get at that is that the notebook of the first director is shown, accompanied by an explanation on how it was a golden rule for all Natlab employees to write down every step and thought they had during their experiments.
However it is not explained why this is important for future research. On the top floor, at the end of the exhibition, a section is created on Philips latest inventions, what they are working on to improve lives of people, as they say their goal is. They have a part on research into medical equipment and appliances for patients, such as special lighting systems to help the healing process, and also a part on LED lighting and its different applications, such as special LED lamps to use in horticulture which are more environmentally friendly. Again, even though it is mentioned that these products came Display of Philips Research in Philips Museum about via research, in the end it shows the amazing Picture by myself products Philips makes. In this manner it is in no way clear how science has been conducted in the past, how they are doing it nowadays, or what type of researchers are working in their labs on what subjects.
Another point that is apparent in the displays that are not directly aimed at research, is that research in the sense of innovation is not mentioned anywhere else, even though many other displays show the evolution of their products from beginning to recent models. Innovation is one of the pillars of the company’s strategy and it is one of the two pillars for the museum exhibition as well, together with entrepreneurship.108 So for instance in the display on television there are two large showcases in
108 Interview Pieter Friesen, March 19 2014.
56 which the development of television from their first model to their most recent one is shown. This is
innovation, but nowhere it is mentioned how this developed from the initial model, or even the
technology alone, to the most recent LED television sets. Even more so, in the beginning of the
exhibition the three Philips inventions, or better said improved technologies, that have constituted the
most important innovations of the company next to lighting, being the radio tube, the x-ray tube and
television tube, are shown without hardly any explanation. According to Pieter Friesen, the curator, it is
one of the most important parts of the exhibition to understand where Philips is coming from, but is
also one of the most complicated parts for most
visitors. 109 These three inventions, next to
lighting, have determined the course of the
company for a long time, and they have been
improved by the Philips company and research
lab. However, there is hardly an explanation on
what they are, let alone how they have come
about, or how important these technologies
were scientifically.
The Philips Museum uses its products to
tell its history, however as a company with its Display of Philips radio’s, showing one of the first models developing into later ones own scientific laboratory its shows surprisingly Picture by myself little of scientific history, and this results in a
glorification of the wonders of science, or the wonders of Philips’ science. As one of their pillars is
innovation the museum could have easily spend more attention to the science behind their products.
The fact that from an early stage the company actually has a research department was innovative
enough to be given more attention. The presentation in the Philips Museum may be more of a trip
down memory lane, as the former chapter has suggested, than one with an innovative character. In
the museum the failures of Philips are not left out, as for instance the Video2000 is in display. It was
one of the first video recording systems on the market, and according to Pieter Friesen technologically
the best of all of them. But due to marketing reasons the competitors version, VHS, became a more
109 Interview Pieter Friesen, March 19 2014.
57 popular product instead.110 This story is not told, but the product is on display as a wonder of Philips design. Explaining how science alone is not enough to sell most products would be an interesting story, as it does say something about science and the demand for scientifically solid products. However, leaving out this story just displays the product as a well-crafted design. On the other side, for those that know the story the fact that the product is in the display does show that Philips is open for acknowledging its own failures, that inevitably come with successful research.
4.2: Science History in the Museum Boerhaave’s Philips Exhibition
The exhibition in the Museum Boerhaave, called 100 years of innovation. Made by Philips Research is quite different in design from the Philips Museum. Museum Boerhaave is the national museum of the history of Dutch science and medicine. The museum collection that is has objects from over 400 years of scientific and medical research. Their mission is to show this history to a wide audience, create interest for this history and the importance of research and invention for humanity.111 As curator Ad
Maas explained, their goal with the exhibition is to counter the stereotypical idea of inventors as unworldly, monomaniac men locked in their basements doing all kinds of experiments, by showing the profiles of researchers who work from different angles. The exhibition focuses on Philips Research and the inventions and innovations coming from NatLab, the research center. As Philips Research has its
100 year jubilee this year this division of the Philips company has decided to sponsor the exhibition, also contributing to the focus on research within the exhibition.
Science in the exhibition
The exhibition of Philips Research is aimed at showing the different ways in which Philips Research functioned, the products and inventions that came from the laboratory, and the people behind research. In the opening room an interactive light show can be seen, an innovative invention that responds to the tablets and smartphones visitors bring with them (or borrow from the museum at the
110 Ibid. 111 ‘Missie’, on: MuseumBoerhaave.nl (http://www.museumboerhaave.nl/bezoekersinformatie/over-museum- boerhaave/missie/), accessed on April 1 2014.
58 start of the exhibition). In the next two rooms in which the exhibition is situated we can see different
Philips researchers on the left wall, explaining what makes them different from the others and what their biggest accomplishments were. On de right wall are glass cases showing different themes from the history of Philips and the everyday application of their products, for instance in the glass case that shows how fast many households would have a Philips radio in their home, and how this changed society. There is also a central display of different groundbreaking inventions that have changed the course of the company and the research laboratory, situated alongside a timeline of general historical events.
Even though the exhibition on Philips seems to show a one-sided product focused image of
Philips Research, by showing the products, the people behind science, and the applications for society
they do give a broad image of
science. A large part of the
exhibition is about the products of
Philips and how these products
came about. This suggests that
the research they have done in
the laboratory has always been
directed at finding new innovative
products. However in the
Display of researcher in Philips exhibition, with central display of descriptions of the different products and inventions in the front
Picture by myself researchers it is clear that they were given more freedom to perform experiments that did not aim to create products to sell. Still, in the end, all experiments needed to have a practical application for Philips products, for instance in their research conducted in the beginning into lighting: their initial aim was to enhance the lightning products sold by Philips. The inventions on the one hand in the central display, and the applications in products on the other hand on the right wall give an idea of how scientific research can be used in practical applications.
The focus on the researchers behind the research gives an idea of how one’s personal interests and characteristics influence the sort of research one performs, however it is not clear what this
59 influence has been for the researchers themselves. Included in the exhibition is a game called What
type of inventor are you? This does suggest that everyone can be a researcher, the difference is in
what sort of type you are. To show the faces behind science gives an idea of how scientific innovations
come about, how research solves issues of the past and also calls into being new questions that need
to be researched. For the audience to understand science and scientific processes, as is one of the
aims of Museum Boerhaave, these processes need to be transparent for visitors. It is important to
understand the discussions and argumentation behind scientific research, or the influence the beliefs of
researchers has on how they execute their research. It is made clear how some of their research came
about, what their biggest successes were, and their field of study. But what is not told is what their
specific background was, why they have entered into the field of research and what it is that drives
them as a person. Also the way the researchers discuss their findings and reach consensus is part of
that process and visitors need to
understand how this works. This
may be a lot to include in an
exhibition that spreads over two
large rooms, however part of this
has been done by the museum. By
showing the different influential
researchers and how they differ
from their colleagues is a good Central display with products and inventions, with in left wall display of the use of Philips products starting point on who the humans Picture by myself behind science really are.
However, even though the exhibition is on research, as the main subject is Philips Research,
the company’s products play a substantial role too. It starts with the smart lighting venue the
exhibition opens with, which is a new product application that came out of the laboratory. Even though
it portrays an example of what research can lead to, it also showcases a new innovative product for
Philips, which adds to the positive image of the company. In fact the entire exhibition affects the image
of the Philips company, as it aims to show how progressive the research department is and has been,
hereby adding to the image of the company as well. It may be obvious to use the products and
61 inventions that have been created by the laboratory as objects in the exhibition, but another option could have been to situate those in a rebuilt laboratory for instance, in which the ways of experimenting could have been demonstrated. Even though the researchers as persons behind the exhibition have been used to tell the story of Philips Research, the focus on products is larger than on how science is constituted. Still, Museum Boerhaave has tried to include this process, which is more than can be said of the Philips Museum itself.
4.4: Limitations and Benefits of Science Museums
Science museums and centers face funding cuts, just as other museums, resulting in collaborations with corporations, threatening the image and content of what they present. These institutions can be used to, and are often created for the purpose of, explain science for a larger audience, demystify scientific processes, and create public awareness of the importance of science. Partnering up with companies to be able to create scientific exhibitions has advantages for both parties, such as the use of the most innovative research tools for the museums, and a strengthening of the image of the company. When institutions partner up for financial reasons, the balance between both parties shift and the science museum may be risking compromising its credibility by having to please their sponsor.
Also using sponsorship to realize exhibitions may also result in the museum avoiding controversial topics, or topics that do not sell. The presentations become unbalanced and devoid of nuance when the sponsoring company is putting pressure on the exhibition team.
For business museums this situation may be a little different, as they are not just sponsored, but usually created and owned by companies, but the outcome is not so different, and maybe even more unbalanced. The Philips Museum for instance is a museum created and owned by a company, that uses the museum as promotion of their brand as well. With the company that heavily involved the presentations become one-sided displays of the wonders of science, by showing the wonderful products science has led to, while in fact the process of science could make for a much more interesting story to tell. Science is an important aspect of the daily business of Philips, but in the museum it gets meager attention. In the exhibition sponsored by Philips Research in the Museum
Boerhaave this is different, as the starting point is the research laboratory itself. Even though products
60 are on display, the process of researchers and scientists is explained, using the person behind the laboratory to demonstrate this. However this exhibition could have probably gone deeper into the matter of science, instead of showing how Philips’ products have changed day-to-day lives of people, the attempt of the museum is quite good.
Companies using or owning a museum to show off their brand do so, crudely stated, in order to sell more products, whereas museums getting corporate sponsorship will do so to be able to fund their project. Having a museum adds to the prestige of the company, and it could be used to explain difficult matter, such as the scientific background of the company’s products. Limitations for these companies are that the public may be wary of what they would encounter in a museum that is owned by a company itself, presenting the history of the brand. However, according to reviewers on
Tripadvisor, a well-known venue rating website, the Philips Museum is a very popular attraction, scoring as the second best touristic venue in Eindhoven.112 For companies sponsoring an exhibition about themselves or their line of research the benefits are the same as for owning a museum, and if the museum that is being sponsored has a well-established name the effect may be even bigger. For the museum the biggest benefit is in resources, both financially and materially. The company can assist with acquiring products to display, fund state-of-the-art designs, or offer their personnel to assist with background research or public relations strategies. However, the limitations are that the sponsoring company may want to interfere in what is being presented in the exhibition, or in the museum overall. Specific topics, interesting for the company, receive disproportionate attention for their importance, whilst other subjects are left out overall. Deciding what to show in order to improve and strengthen the image of the scientific company is the branding of science.
112 ‘Philips Museum,’ on: Tripadvisor, http://www.tripadvisor.nl/Attraction_Review-g188582-d4597995-Reviews- Philips_Museum-Eindhoven_North_Brabant_Province.html, accessed on December 11 2014.
62 5. Conclusion
The cultural sector and the corporate world are becoming more involved with each other, and not just
because of financial matters. The trend of storytelling for instance, a new marketing tool used to tell
the story of the company or brand. The skill used is one often used in the cultural sector, by creating a
storyline that tells a story with one central theme, and this storyline is carried out consistently and
coherently. This is what curators do when creating an exhibition for instance, when they need to
comprise a lot of information into one presentation that also needs to be appealing to and
comprehensible for a general museum public, or the museum’s target audiences. On the other hand,
the marketing and communication skills of the corporate sector are becoming more and more used in
the cultural sector, as museums are designing logos for instance, that carry out the main themes of
the museum or its collection, and using this logo on its
merchandise in the museum shop. Take for instance the
logo of the Centraal Museum in Utrecht; a big dot
representing the museum’s central position in the city,
the country, and the cultural sector. This logo is
recognizable, its message contains all that the museum
Logo of Centraal Museum wants to carry out, and it can be easily used in its
© Centraal Museum communication and its merchandise. 113 The business
approach of the cultural sector and the cultural approach
of the business sector in the end have the same goal, which is to interest an audience in what they
have to offer. These developments can also explain a rising interest in business history and its
presentations, by the companies, museums, and the public.
Business history presentations are subject to criticism for being commercially minded, but as
the case studies have demonstrated these presentations are too varied in character to make this kind
of generalizations. Indeed, the Heineken Experience and the Philips Museum are mainly focused on
branding Heineken and Philips. In the Heineken Experience and the Philips Museum the most important
goal of their presentation is to glorify its brand and products, presenting their history in a product-
113 ‘Centraal Museum Gets New Face,’ on: Centraal Museum, http://centraalmuseum.nl/en/news/new-visual- identity/, accessed on December 15 2014.
63 focused manner. For Philips this is taken quite literally, as they present their products directly in displays, for Heineken this is more in the story the Experience tells, in which all elements displayed address the beer Heineken sells. However, the presentations in the Verkade Pavilion, Museum
Boerhaave, and the Stadsarchief Amsterdam display a more complete historical account, including context of the brand, whether this is the city it is founded in, the time period, or the people behind it.
This difference may be ascribed to the presentations have come about, as the exhibitions made by the museums and archives discussed are the more contextualized presentation, even though the sponsoring companies may have set some ground rules of what they wanted to be presented. But whether it is in the curator’s skills, the strife to maintain the institution’s integrity, or the interest of the public, these institutions apply the techniques used to make their historic exhibitions in the same way when creating business historical presentations. As all museums are not equally well-executed, not all business history presentations are equally bad.
As both companies are interested in telling their stories and museums are interested in need of corporate sponsoring, it could be sensible for both to collaborate more in the future. It is likely that in the near future we will see more business historical presentations in museums and other venues, and s companies will be presenting their history, museums may as well assist in doing this in a nuanced and coherent manner. The popularity of museums such as the Grachtenhuis, a museum on the history of the canals in Amsterdam without any original objects except the canal house it is in, show an increasing interest in the entertainment value of history. Museums may be wary of this trend, as entertainment is often associated with shallow and meaningless presentations. However, as the case studies demonstrate, it is possible to combine a commercial interest with a contextualized historical account that is also stimulating and fun. A good example of a business historical presentation that is contextualized and yet exciting is the Red Star Line museum in Antwerp. Hosted in the former building of this cruise line that from mid eighteenth century to mid nineteenth century has shipped immigrants to the United States, and cargo back to Europe, the storyline of the museum is not just that of the company, but also that of immigrants and global immigration throughout the ages, and how this affected Antwerp itself.
With an increasing interest in history by the public and an increasing interest in presenting history by companies, it is unwise for historians to ignore business history, or to label it as bad history. The
64 opportunities that working with companies offer are essential in the recent economic crisis, as many cultural institutions need extra funding, and many historians are unemployed or employed in different sectors. For historians the advantages of working on company histories are in job opportunity, funding, and being able to explore a fairly new field of historical analysis; for companies the advantages of using historians to create their presentations is in creating a believable and balanced account of its history, without it becoming boring. Criticism of historians will not stop businesses from using their history for branding and other commercial purposes, so historians might as well join these companies to prevent them from doing ‘history light.’ Also, companies would do well getting more historians on board when doing history, to make sure they present well-balanced yet stimulating presentations.
These might actually not only strengthen brand name, but also attract a larger audience. As companies do not seem to be finding their way to historians to assist them in these kinds of projects, historians should perhaps present themselves in a more commercial way: the branding of historians.
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70 Appendices & Interviews*
Table of Content
Appendix 1 I
Appendix 2 II
Interview Fokelien Renckens, Director Zaans Museum III
Interview Ad Maas, Curator Museum Boerhaave XVI
Interview Erik Schmitz, Curator Stadsarchief Amsterdam XXVII
Interview Pieter Friesen, Curator Philips Museum XLV
Interview Celine Vleer, Junior Project Manager Heineken Experience LXII
* Appendices and interviews are not included in published version of thesis for reasons of confidentiality of the interviewees.
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