Helsinki Congress of the International Economic History Association, 21-25 August 2006: Session 93 Equipment goods and mass brands American business spreading modernity into France? Strategies

2. Power and perception: the technological brand image of American companies (from the 1950s to the 1980s)
These American incursions remained isolated and moreover, the economic downturn in the 1930s followed by the German occupation greatly reduced the momentum; though in the post-war period American companies enjoyed a solid brand image, the entire corporate strategy for the penetration of the French market had to be rethought after 1945: “The success of American firms will depend on how quickly they can adopt and implement innovations, create a more streamlined production system, make a deeper and more systematic study of the problems, build up a more dynamic organization and set a form of management which would be at once more direct and profitable.”³³ The question then is, how did they establish their brand image in post War France? How did they use their material and non-material know-how to build a reputation and capture the market?
A. The American company and European progress: The making of a brand image
American companies not only enjoyed a positive, but one could almost say, a ‘positivist’ brand image. That is to say, that their very name evoked a feeling of progress, of technological advancement and innovation. And that continued well into the 1980s, when it was the Japanese who came, saw and conquered Europe from the East. “Most us investors crossed their nation’s boundaries with a confidence and a sense of superiority in their product and managerial offerings.”³⁴ The Fordian myth which pervaded the automobile market, spread to all the other industrial products, be they industrial goods or household appliances. The “American dream” was first and foremost a technological dream. When the Canadian group of Massey-Ferguson introduced its range of agricultural and farm equipment in France (“the first manufacturer of tractors and combine reaper threshers”³⁵), it adopted as its motto: “Expansion, power, progress”. During the same period (around 1968-1970), General Electric came in strongly into the very heart of “the France of Enlightment”, holding forth its brand image of a company which personified progress: “Clarity. Clarity and light! The first stirrings of life. And also the symbol of General Electric. Because General Electric is ‘The Light’ since 89 years.”³⁶ “For the past 89 years we have been pushing back the night.”³⁷ “General Electric – the first worldwide manufacturer of lamps. Its research team has had great success. They know that they have to always be at the very cutting edge of progress […]. For 89 years General Electric has pushed back the frontiers of night. It needed creativity, investments.”³⁸ A similar theme (the generation of life) was adopted by Clark Equipment to lend a sparkle to their scrapers and other construction equipment: “In 155 countries Clark Equipment creates movement.”³⁹ The American corporations thus built up a kind of informal school of the spirit of enterprise, an idea which might have come as a surprise to the French who always believed in the superiority of the public sector in stimulating innovation. But these advertisements showed exactly how the two cultures differed – it was as though the Americans wanted to “evangelise” France, to convert this closed society and spread the spirit of enterprise by explaining what really constituted innovation and investment….
B. The penetration of the ‘technological’ brand images (in the 1940s-1950s)
The notion of an American technological advancement took root right from the 1940s. In fact, in many countries and colonies throughout the world which were either “liberated” or integrated within the allied sphere of influence, the arrival of American goods allowed the refurbishment and utilization of a large number of languishing equipment. The owner of Cfao, a trading company, wrote on 14^th October 1943: “Some good news for the Abidjan branch. In a few days we expect the arrival of some 40 cases of spare parts from International which, I hope, will be enough to repair all the trucks of that brand in Côte d’Ivoire. And it is the Fao which will be the first to benefit.”⁴⁰ The following period, marked by the post-War Reconstruction and the implementation of the Marshall Plan added to this perception. The “great” United States sent steam locomotives to France which helped greatly in the national recovery. Tractors and transfer machines were also sent and installed at Renault to work on sheets. The departing army left behind its Gmcs which were found crowding work places and, more frequently, the forests. The Caterpillar brand was also sustained by its intense use by the us forces: “The D8 [craweler tractor] was a workhouse for the us military in WW2 in the thousand of units finding their way overseas.”⁴¹ Then, between 1950 and 1966, participation in the Nato alliance constituted the third lever of this economic boom. The alliance saw the placement of large commercial orders termed “off shore” because, while they were placed in France, they were often for the benefit of the other European branches of American companies.
C. The triumph of the innovating brand (in the 1960s-1970s)
This marketing of the American superiority lasted till the end of the 1970s. For a decade more American companies continued to reap the benefits of their good name because the Japanese influence was as yet discrete and modest and confined to the pioneers in the audio-visual and automobile sectors – quite unlike the technological and commercial avalanche launched by Japanese corporations in the next two decades. The American’s capacity for innovation thrust the industrial capital goods industry into the very heart of the production system. At the technological level, they seemed to have an unassailable advantage, rather neatly put by Kodak: “Our technology is our insurance.”⁴² The notion of quality was central to their success and the Americans had accumulated much expertise in the field of high grade steel and a great amount of experience since the start of the second industrial revolution.
In short, the Americans projected themselves as specialists and pros – a claim which they could very well carry off because of their know-how, especially as they had already proven the technology at home. It was natural to suppose that these companies, after having succeeded in the United States, were now crossing the Atlantic to conquer the European market, were indeed “the best”. A John Deere (loading equipment) advertisement had this printed below a close-up of an ant: “There are two specialists in loading. This is the second. The John Deere range: work finished quickly, confidence well deserved.”⁴³ This is an instance of quality forming part of the brand image: “A product from Caterpillar, the sum of whose qualities will satisfy your most stringent requirements.”⁴⁴ “As all Caterpillar products, the self-propelled scrapers are of an exceptional quality. And completely reliable […]. Excavating equipment. Engines. Lift trucks. The Caterpillar quality.”⁴⁵ Advertisements also announced the “long-lasting, ‘Gillette quality’ blades.”⁴⁶ All these companies made full use of the link between the confidence in the quality of a product and the reputation of a brand name.
While it is true that the American firms did transfer some basic technology, they did it with a sense of a “civilizing mission” as though they were doing a service to Europe, a sort of “philanthropy”. “The quality of Timken bearings at the service of the European automobile industry. […]. Call upon our experience. We are specialists, and an international brand.”⁴⁷ “The technological advancement brought by General Electric regarding the training, handling orders, dispatching and automation in the milling industry has helped to reduce production costs while improving the quality of the product.”⁴⁸ The 3M group also used the notion of quality to improve its brand image and push the sales of its new magnetic tape, the Scotch 777GP : “It is not after it is made that we test a tape. More than a hundred checks made in the course of its manufacture guarantees a defect free tape. Functions without any breakdown […]. The tape remains error-free even after thousands of passes.”⁴⁹
The superior quality of American goods was also the result of a greater effort at research and development: “The magnitude of our engineering and design department ensures the technological quality of our products and our experience in the fields of compressed air and fluid transportation (compressors, turbines, pumps) has resulted in us being chosen to participate in installations of the greatest importance.”⁵⁰ (Worthington). Timken (ball bearings) devoted an entire page to its Canton research centre in Ohio: “This will be the most important centre of research and development in the entire bearing industry.”⁵¹ General Electric’s power of innovation was also evident: “Thousands of researchers, in hundreds of laboratories, engaged in creating lamps to meet the ever-growing demands of industries and the public.”⁵²
Consequently, in a number of sectors, the capacity for innovation became the force behind the brand name. “The aluminum screw plug is another Alcoa ‘first’.”⁵³ (1925) proclaimed the company which launched an enormous information campaign regarding its innovations with a series of publicity leaflets: “1918. We found the first Aluminum research laboratory. Then, in 1929, we built a complex in the ‘campus’ style, the first of its kind in the industry.”⁵⁴ “Alcoa aluminum has been used in the manufacture of elevator grilles since 1891 […]. 1960. One of the most popular Alcoa innovations is the quick opening system, so convenient for boxes […]. Aluminum in the service of invention, is to begin with Alcoa.”⁵⁵ “The modern alchemists […]. Corfam was thus added to the already lengthy list of the innovative products developed by Dupont of Nemours.”⁵⁶
The advertisement campaign launched by the computer industry was massive, in keeping with the technological gulf between the two sides of the Atlantic, due to the speed with which punched cards were giving way to the magnetic tape. Naturally, this technological innovation itself gave rise to a loud and recurrent publicity campaign. “End of the punched card […]. Keytape. Your computer will read data up to 10 times as fast and at 30 per cent less cost.”⁵⁷ (Honeywell). Still, the competition heated up with the entry of Hewlett-Packard which hammered home its brand image thus: “At the cutting edge of social and technological innovation” ⁵⁸ with “research: the priority of priorities” in computer systems. Xerox drove home its brand and its image with an explosive advertisement which pictured a massive Babylonian temple. Just as Griffith was making “the first epic movie, Intolerance”, Xerox “had come up with a spectacular product in the field of communication with its Xerography.”⁵⁹ “Rank Xerox – a European industrial group. Twenty five years of innovating to boost office productivity.”⁶⁰ The following advertisement boasted of both a high level of technology as well as the beauty of the machine: “The Burroughs C300 electronic calculator. It is at home at Saclay. It is at home in the Museum of Modern Art.”⁶¹ The advancement in technology was put on display at the annual salon of office equipment (Sicob) which was held in Cnit at the heart of the new Defence quarters; the American marketing and commercial blitzkrieg was then at its height, especially in the publications which appeared during the period that Sicob lasted, that is, the months of October and November. Scores of pages blared forth the reasons for choosing machines designed in the United States. The 3M group bought several pages of the September 1968 issue of L’Expansion to blazon its products⁶². The general impression within the salon was one of awe and fascination⁶³ at the proposed future progress and the trend of these American brands: “An idea of what Sicob 1964 would be like: a salon of science-fiction. In fact, with every passing year the Salon resembles more an exhibition of the technological future.”⁶⁴
This was especially true in the consumer goods market where the capacity for innovation was the single most important factor in the promotion of American brands. Thus Gillette: “Neither blade, nor motor, just a band. Gillette reinvents shaving!”⁶⁵ “Super Silver Gillette eclipses all other long lasting blades. Super Silver Gillette easily shatters all durability records” thanks to “two Gillette innovations which change everything: microchrome steel […], and the E.B. 7 treatment” which “endows the plastic micro-film which covers the blade with superlative anti-wear properties.”⁶⁶ “The history of Procter & Gamble is a story of innovations – memorable innovations.” Dash, a detergent specially formulated for drum washing machines made its appearance in 1962; M. Propre, a new multi-purpose liquid household cleanser⁶⁷ was launched in 1966. “In 1968 Ariel brought about a revolution in the washing machine sector by introducing its famous enzymes which could remove all stains.”⁶⁸ The technological advantage and brand image of Procter & Gamble was such that when it launched the pan-European brand of diapers Pampers in the early 1970s, it straightaway grabbed a massive share of the market (for example, 98 per cent in France in the mid-1970s). The rebirth of the Kodak brand name in the middle of the 1960s was doubly dependent on innovations: Instamatic was as much a technological innovation (the automatic camera) as a sociological one (a camera for the masses). The concept was then transferred to the movie camera and the super 8: “After the worldwide success of the Instamatic, Kodak revolutionized amateur film making industry with the introduction of the Instamatic 8.”⁶⁹ The force behind Kodak’s success was the output of its laboratories in Rochester which made it the leader in France in spite of German competition and gave it the punch to unseat the local manufacturer (Lumière was subsequently bought over by the British Ilford) and capture a huge share of the market – till the advent of the Japanese in the 1980s.
D. The corporate identity: displaying the power of the American groups
The various American conglomerates had somewhat different strategies regarding their publicity campaigns in France. Some of them were happy to simply present their brands, without any other consideration than the immediate commercial. That was the case with Itt and its car rental venture under the brand name Avis. There was no attempt at any clear link with the group as a whole. It was the same with Procter & Gamble which, like its competitor Unilever, did not project an “umbrella brand” but left each of its smaller brand names to be developed autonomously. In contrast, the names of some other groups and their commercial brands were tied tightly together, as in the case of Caterpillar and Gillette. It must be said though that the Gillette group did not pose itself as a commercial or institutional “powerhouse” and its advertisements never referred to the entire group – the brand name was nothing more than just that, a commercial communication. In the case of Caterpillar there arises a certain ambiguity because the group relied on its distributors who used their own commercial brand image. Still, the group did talk about the power of its world-wide organization and the diversity or the power or goods handling capacities of its range of construction equipment⁷⁰. While Caterpillar took full advantage of the cult status that it enjoyed in France as well as elsewhere (in the public sector, among purchase managers in the civil engineering sector and the owners of equipment rental firms), it never rested on its laurels and continued to improve its product range with the help of a series of major innovations. The 1950s saw the advent of self propelled scrapers, hydraulic shovels, and pipe layers, wheel loaders came in the 1960s and large dumpers in the 1970s. Meanwhile it continued to upgrade its range of bulldozers, from the D8 and D9 of the 1950s to the D8H and D9G (1961-1974) before introducing the D10 (1978-1986) which was 50 times as powerful as the D9H, whilst developing a whole range of hydraulic excavators and wheel-loaders, thus cementing the whole range of machines and leaving no void space for competitors. All this kept its competitors (Euclid, Allis-Chalmers) in France as well as in the French companies working abroad, at bay, just as was the case with Razel, specialists in overseas civil engineering. ⁷¹ The adjective “legendary” as in the “legendary D9H” began to be heard ever more often among the aficionados, be they active or retired, and Caterpillar took on all the trappings of a “cult brand” in an era when such an adjective was normally used for consumer goods only. At the same time, this brand image was also the result of an unmatched technological reliability: “The company’s quality of engineering, the dealerships, parts availability, even warranties, were second to none in the industry.”⁷²
“Toronto: the headquarters of a worldwide industrial, business and financial group. By its origins, by its present size, by the range of its activities, Massey-Ferguson is the archetype of the large, decentralized multinational […]. Its factories, its organization constitute an integral part of a group engaged in a wide variety of activities, the Massey-Ferguson group.”⁷³ Without hesitation or discretion this Canadian company used its powerful image to promote its brand, its reliability and its technological expertise. “Kodak is of course what you think it is, but it is also much more than that: it is a worldwide industrial organization catering to four major sectors dedicated to the handling and spread of information.”⁷⁴ In the same vein: “Singer is no doubt the sewing machine, but it is also: the growth of sewing, fashion, household equipment, space, the office.”⁷⁵ The diversification into electric household appliances and office equipment showed the capacity of taming the emerging technology and deep pockets. One of the advertisements of the Dow group began thus: “Dow. A name which we have not heard the last of…”⁷⁶ This formed part of the publicity campaign it launched in Europe: “Dow in Europe. Dow is one of the largest chemical industries of the world […]. Its products are sold all over the world. They are sold in Europe. And they are made in Europe.” ⁷⁷ The implicit idea was that of the “group”, the “conglomerate”. It was a question of projecting the feeling of “power”, but a benevolent power (technological progress, creativity, etc.). Some advertisements stressed the multinational aspect of the group. General Electric for example, maintained that it increased “the profitability of iron and steel works the world over.”⁷⁸ Kodak on the other hand talked of its worldwide pre-eminence: “You can rely completely on Kodachrome films, the largest selling film in the world! A triumph of color, a triumph for Kodachrome!” ⁷⁹ But the ad which symbolized best this projection of multinational power was the one designed by the John Deer corporation (“The world’s largest manufacturer of tractors and farm equipment” ) which showed a director introducing the John Deere 1020 to a pseudo-general assembly of the United Nations: “United nations for producing a worldwide range of tractors.” ⁸⁰ In a similar fashion, when Honeywell attempted to enter France, it sought to catch the eye by mixing the classic with the ultra-modern: “Your goose with the golden eggs lays one every nanosecond. Your goose with the golden eggs is a Honeywell computer!” ⁸¹
E. Respecting French sensibilities: “Superiority” tempered with “modesty’’
Having said that, this technological superiority had to be put across gently. The Americans had to be careful in order not to hurt French sensibilities by giving the impression of a hegemony which could result in a patriotic indignation and provoke a backlash. This explains why many of the American advertisements laid as much stress on the services which they could render to the client as on their intrinsic qualities. The famous “technology transfer” was not to be done by any show of force or with the feeling that the material was imposed in any way. On the contrary, the need for the product had to be sown in the client. It was a question of giving the right “perception”, of a psychological persuasion. The commercial drive had to be directed away from a purely brass-tacks market-share and profit oriented selfish enterprise towards a more service oriented organization which would emphasise efficiency and profitability of client companies. “Have a good look at how Alcoa’s research efforts can help you, whether it be your professional projects, your future or your near and dear ones.”⁸² The Dow chemical conglomerate insisted that “Dow helps you succeed!”⁸³ Saddled with more sterile technologies, Ge flavoured its sales pitch with the notion of a profitable expansion: “General Electric’s industrial automation systems can increase the efficiency, the quality of the product and your profit margins. All these are made possible due to General Electric’s experience.”⁸⁴ “Let us be concrete.” Continued the advertisement, giving a detailed list of its big-name clients. Similarly, we learn “how, thanks to Friden, Martell [cognac] was saved from an avalanche of paper”⁸⁵ by using its calculating and invoicing machines. America’s modern technological know-how came in to buttress French historical savvy. Xerox’s innovative might was also projected as a service which would help the client companies which could then make full use of their French strengths while basing themselves on American equipment: “Poclain made 12 models of its hydraulic shovels with 2000 workers, 215 secretaries and 8 Rank Xerox 3600 […]. You can see why Poclain is the first manufacturer and the first European exporter of hydraulic shovels.”⁸⁶ This coupling of the power of innovation with modesty was also utilized in many advertisements which stressed greatly on the simplicity of the American technology and how it was ideally suited to the structure and size of French companies: “In a few months, this simple gesture won over several hundred users of the 3M 209.”⁸⁷ “The large electronic set-ups could do the work of an entire service. A single person armed with the Burroughs E2000 electronic accounting calculator would suffice.”⁸⁸