Museums are no longer solely the province of ancient skeletons, centuries-old artworks and dusty relics. Some of the world’s most famous brands are now showcasing their history in dedicated museums. Here are some of the most interesting.

The American candy brand with its dispensers is a childhood favourite available in 90 countries around the world. And it's now immortalised in the PEZ Visitor Center in Orange, Connecticut. Over 40,000 square feet in size, it features an interactive historical timeline, PEZ trivia and the largest PEZ dispenser in the world.

Another name associated with childhood, Walt Disney is now a huge multinational corporation with stores and theme parks across the globe. Here, in San Francisco, you can learn all about the famous animator’s life and work, as well as enjoy a number of special exhibitions, including one dedicated to his most famous creation, Mickey Mouse. WIth visitor numbers reaching 400,000 last year, the WDFM is rated the Bay Area’s number one museum.

Perhaps the best-known beverage brand on the planet, it’s no wonder Coca-Cola offers us less of a museum and more a whole ‘world’! Here in Atlanta you can find out about the drink’s bottling process, enjoy scintillating 4-D cinema, and get your photo taken with the famous Coca-Cola polar bear. You can also travel the world in the Taste It! area, with around 100 beverages available for you to try. Be sure to book in advance, however, as this world receives over one million visitors each year.

Another fizzy drink with a global following, the Dr Pepper Museum is in Waco, Texas. With a focus on school groups and tours, there’s a marked educational element within this museum, which features a Liquid Laboratory that allows visitors to explore the science behind soda pop. This museum, unlike World of Coca-Cola, is a small non-profit organisation, although it houses an impressive 100,000 objects and attracts over 600,000 annual visitors.

This is another ‘world’-sized museum, with an original attraction located in Birmingham, England and another in Dunedin, New Zealand. In both, you can learn about the history of the brand, although in the original Cadbury World this takes place over a colossal 14 zones made up of video presentations, multi-sensory cinema, animatronics, interactive displays, and more. The original Cadbury World is one of Birmingham’s biggest attractions and draws over 500,000 visitors every year.

This world, located on the Brooklands site in Weybridge, England, will definitely wow you. All ages are invited to enjoy a variety of driving experiences, including children. However, there is also a Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, Germany, which receives roughly three quarters of a million visitors every year from all over the globe, and houses a number of fascinating exhibitions and events.

The Gucci Museo is in Florence, one of the fashion capitals of the world, and is home to exhibitions of clothing and accessories from the past century. This homage to the fashion house also includes a cafe, a gift shop and a lending library with around 700 art and design books. Needless to say, those of us who are Gucci bag addicts will find plenty to marvel at here. The Museo opened in 1990, when the fashion house itself turned 90.

In 2015, Chanel opened a pop-up museum in New York City, which is becoming an increasingly popular way to promote a brand. The Chanel pop-up in Chelsea chose to focus on the iconic No.5 perfume, allowing visitors to learn about the history of the brand and also to become immersed in its scent at the end of their tour. A ‘red’ Chanel No 5 pop-up also took place last year, again in New York.

Situated in Bentonville, Arkansas, this museum celebrates Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, as well as the history of the popular retail brand. It opened in 1990 and aims to inspire visitors and engage them with Walton’s ‘American dream’. The museum features the tin roof and tiles taken from the very first Walmart store, which was called Harrison’s Variety Store when it opened back in 1951.

Telecommunications giant AT&T showcases its more than 140-year history in its Science & Technology Innovation Center in Middletown, New Jersey. The museum is divided into four sections, covering instruments, innovation, switching, and transmission, and there are various artefacts as well as interactive displays.

Based in an old production factory, the Heineken Experience museum in Amsterdam has enthralled millions of visitors since opening back in 2001. It replaces the Heineken Treat and Information Centre, which had been open since 1991. You can follow a self-guided walk, learning about the beer as well as the brand’s logo, culminating in perhaps the most interesting part of the experience – beer tasting.

Located in Hiroshima, this museum documents the 93-year history of car manufacturer Mazda over five areas: the Entrance Hall, the History area, the Future area, a section on Mazda Technology, and a fascinating exhibition of real rotary engines. The museum can be visited in person or online with virtual tours of the above areas available. There is also a Mazda Automobile Museum in Frey, Germany.

Find out about Hershey chocolates in Hershey, Pennsylvania! This museum is situated in a town which also bears the name of the famous founder. It mixes permanent displays with special exhibitions, and tells the rags-to-riches story of entrepreneur Milton S. Hershey. Machines on show include one which automatically wraps Hershey’s Kisses, and the Philadelphia soda fountain Hershey operated as a means of keeping his brand name in the public eye.

Popping up in Manhattan in 2015, this experience, funded by fragrance and air freshener brand Glade, sought to stimulate memory through its five sense-led spaces, each one cleverly linking to a particular Glade scent. The museum drew in over 45,000 visitors across three weeks it was open, and was designed by the award-winning RadicalMedia.

Also in New York is the Cheetos Museum, dedicated to the cheese-flavoured potato snack. Here, you can enjoy an exhibit comprised of over 128,900 Cheetos, and also enjoy an impressive gallery of oddly-shaped Cheetos which have been sent in by people from all over the world.

Since Corvettes come from Bowling Green, Kentucky, it makes sense that a museum dedicated to the cars should be here too. Opened in 1994, it is a quarter of a mile from the Bowling Green Assembly Plant, which has been making Corvettes since 1981. Keen car enthusiasts can tour the plant as well as the museum, and big fans can opt to buy a new car and collect it from the museum, with a VIP tour of both museum and plant for them and three guests thrown in.

This canned precooked meat brand was once the subject of a now-famous Monty Python sketch. However, despite the links with comedy, Spam is still going strong, and this museum in Austin, Minnesota is a testament to that fact. This 14,000-square-foot space opened in 1991 and is hosted by ‘Spambassadors’, who will guide you around the various exhibits, including one showcasing the 15 varieties of Spam. The Spam Museum received its 100,000th visitor in 2016.

This athletic shoe brand has its HQ in Boston. The Visitor Engagement Center showcases the brand’s history, products and design, which encompasses more than 100 years. The site also includes a sculpture meant to represent the shape of a chicken’s foot, as it's this ‘claw’ which inspired New Balance’s original design shape.

Take a trip to Milwaukee and you can visit this brand museum for ‘full-throttle fun’! There are a number of permanent exhibitions, such as the Experience Gallery, in which you can try sitting on a number of motorbikes, and the Tank Wall, which is exactly as you’d imagine: a number of tanks embedded within a wall. You can also view the oldest Harley-Davidson in existence, and there are more than 450 other items to see as well.

The Suntory Whisky brand is well known around the world, and if you visit Yamanashi in Japan you can enjoy a visit to the Suntory Museum, which is also a distillery. Beginning with photographs of founder Shinjiro Torii, there are videos, images, exhibits such as bottles, and, of course, the requisite whisky sampling. It receives around 120,000 visitors every year.

This sweet treat is now so popular that it has several M&M's World locations around the globe – you can visit in New York, Las Vegas, Orlando, London and Shanghai. The London store alone welcomed 5.3 million visitors in 2016, around the same number as the city’s Natural History Museum. At 35,000 square feet, it is also the largest chocolate store in the world.

Perhaps best known for its tractors, Caterpillar is a brand that’s been in business for over a century. At its dedicated brand museum in Peoria, Illinois, you can take a virtual ride in a mining truck and explore a range of exhibitions and experiences.

The Musee Christian Dior is situated in Granville, France, on a clifftop overlooking the sea. Formerly Dior’s childhood home, it is now a shrine and showcase to the world-renowned brand. It features, among other elements, a ‘fashion theatre’, and a range of ever-changing thematic exhibitions.

Since it opened in 2000, this museum has received more than four million visitors. It spans an impressive seven floors at St James’s Gate Brewery in Dublin, and tells the story, as you might expect, of the world-famous Irish stout drink. Live installations and interactive exhibitions are some of the highlights, as well as the ability to pour your own beer.

The Ferrari museums in Maranello and Modeno allow visitors the experience of sitting in a Formula 1 simulator, plus exhibitions, factory tours and items which tell the story of the classic car and its founder, Enzo Ferrari. Over half a million people visited across the two museums in 2017.

Making your own is a key concept at both of the Cupnoodles museums in Japan, where you can create your own bespoke Cupnoodle snack as well as have a go at making ramen. With sites at Yokohama and Osaka Ikeda, the museums celebrated reaching the milestone of five million visitors in 2016. At that time, they had been open for less than five years.

Opened in Paris in 2002, the aim of the Fondation is to preserve the 5,000 garments, 15,000 accessories and more than 50,000 drawings and objects that founder Yves Saint Laurent created over his lifetime. It receives around 800,000 visitors each year. There is also a Fondation in Marrakesh, Morocco, another city Saint Laurent loved.

The Omega watch brand has been endorsed by various models and actors, including Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman. The brand is now more than 160 years old and has provided timekeeping equipment to famous events including the Olympic Games. Its museum in Switzerland includes 4,000 watches, along with clocks, tools, timepiece movements and mementos such as posters and awards. 

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This distillery in Dublin showcases the famous Jameson brand and also offers guided tours, tastings, a gift shop and a bar. It’s situated on the site of the original distillery which produced Jameson’s Whiskey, the Bow Street Distillery, established all the way back in 1780. In 2017, the Jameson Distillery received 350,000 visitors, making it the most-visited whiskey experience in the world.

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If you’re more a fan of hot drinks than fizzy ones, then tea-loving connoisseurs may find the Twinings Museum more to their taste. Located in London, it’s adjacent to the brand’s flagship store on The Strand, and is situated within the original Twinings tea shop, which opened in 1706. The museum features the history of the business and brand, from packaging and pots to caddies and newspaper clippings, as well as as a cosy little tea bar.

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