Every brand has a story. From its inception, to its evolution over the years, your company’s history is filled with moments that define its identity.
Yet, many organisations overlook the marketing potential of their own archives. As your milestone anniversary approaches, you have a unique opportunity to celebrate your brand’s journey, engage your audience, and create impactful content that strengthens brand loyalty.
However, a common challenge stands in the way: accessibility.
You may have a treasure trove of historical materials - old photographs, loose letters, bound books, VHS tapes, Betamax, audio reels, film reels, glass plate negatives, even physical items such as product packaging or the products themselves, that hold key moments from your past.
But without the means to digitise, view, or share these materials, their potential remains locked away.
Many brands invest heavily in competitor research and customer insights, yet they often know less about their own rich history.
Rediscovering and repurposing historical materials can be a game-changer for your marketing and branding teams looking to craft compelling anniversary campaigns.
At TownsWeb Archiving, we specialise in digitising archival materials and providing the ultimate online access and discovery platform-PastView.
Whether you need to convert fragile physical materials into high-resolution digital assets or create a seamless online experience for your audiences to explore your history, we can help you unlock and showcase your brand heritage.
Your heritage is a powerful asset. By delving into your archives, you can uncover forgotten gems that showcase your company’s evolution. Mining visual history can lead to creative opportunities, such as:
- Documentary-style brand storytelling.
- Social media nostalgia campaigns (e.g., ‘Then vs. Now’ comparisons of products, staff and office locations etc.).
- Video retrospectives highlighting major milestones.
- Behind-the-scenes insights from the brand’s earliest days.
- Interactive timelines, mapped with key events over the years.
Yet, none of this is possible if your content remains trapped on outdated formats. If your marketing team stumbles upon tapes, reels, or old photographs, but has no way to access them, we can help. Our digitisation services transform these materials into accessible, high-quality assets - ready to be shared with the world through your new PastView website.
Your anniversary isn’t just about celebrating internal success—it’s an opportunity to connect with broader cultural moments.
Positioning your historical brand content within the context of societal trends and events makes anniversary campaigns more engaging and relevant. For example:
- Showcasing how your brand evolved alongside major industry shifts.
- Revisiting old advertisements and repurposing them for modern audiences.
- Celebrating long-standing customer relationships through shared memories.
PastView helps you bring these stories to life, allowing audiences to explore your journey in an interactive and immersive way.
The success of an anniversary campaign hinges on preparation. A well-executed celebration doesn’t happen overnight—it requires strategic planning, ideally up to 12 months in advance.
This ensures time for us to:
- Digitise your historical archive materials, including metadata creation.
- Build your PastView website and populate it with all your digital material, creating an engaging and immersive access and discovery experience.
And for you to:
- Develop a cohesive storytelling approach.
- Align with PR, social media, and content marketing strategies.
- Create high-quality visuals and videos from your newly digitised materials.
If your brand produces physical goods, whether bottled drinks, footwear, or luxury items etc., you have an even greater opportunity to showcase your history. Our 360-degree object viewer within PastView allows you to present your heritage products in stunning detail, giving audiences an interactive way to explore packaging, branding evolution, and craftsmanship.
Whether it’s a vintage whisky bottle, a classic sneaker design, or an early product prototype, PastView bridges the gap between physical history and digital storytelling.
Without digitisation, you risk missing out on incredible content. Physical archives are inaccessible and fragile, making it difficult to integrate them into modern digital campaigns. By digitising your assets and making them available through PastView, you can:
- Protect and preserve your original physical archives.
- Share your brand’s legacy for future generations.
- Repurpose old footage and images for social media, websites, and presentations.
- Create compelling video content for internal and external audiences.
- Ensure easy access to your historical content without outdated playback equipment.
One of the most notable examples of brand heritage storytelling is HSBC’s 160-year celebration. To mark the milestone, HSBC launched the HSBC History Website, providing employees, customers, and researchers a single access point to explore the bank’s journey.
We’re proud that PastView powers this vast digital collection, enabling visitors to discover HSBC’s history through digitised records, smuggled wartime notes, 360-degree models, modern banking innovations, and more. Adding to the experience, their London Archive VR Tour offers an immersive way to explore this culturally significant collection like never before.
From digitisation and metadata capture to seamless online access, our work ensures HSBC’s rich history is preserved and shared in engaging new ways.
TownsWeb Archiving and PastView have helped some of the world’s biggest brands unlock their archives and bring their histories to life. We’ve partnered with:
- M&S (retail & fashion)
- GSK (pharmaceuticals)
- Unilever (FMCG)
- Boots (health & beauty)
- Twinings (heritage tea brand)
- HSBC (financial services)
- Diageo (spirits & beverages)
- Pernod Ricard (spirits & beverages)
- And many more.
No matter your industry, your history is an invaluable brand asset that should be preserved, celebrated, and leveraged for storytelling.
Get in touch with us to explore how we can help transform your history into powerful, shareable content!