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

F. Corporate communication campaigns
The American corporations were well aware of the problems posed by an over aggressive projection of their brand image. They knew that they ran the risk of being seen as capitalist, transatlantic Trojan horses and fought hard against such a negative impression. Many firms contented themselves with having their name appear in a basic organizational communication which would just introduce the name, as it might not be known in France. Many of these communications were nothing more than stories relating some aspect of the firm’s history and recalling its founder (such as Herbert Dow for the Dow conglomerate)⁸⁹. As these were published in reviews and magazines targeted at professionals and managers, they simply named, made reference to and drew a wider, non-threatening picture beside the French and European brands. “Come, meet Alcoa, the world’s premier name in Aluminum”⁹⁰ did not confront head-on the well known brand and “national champion” Pechiney.
As the country was in the grip of a strong, almost chauvinist wave of Gallicism which bordered on anti-Americanism, by an unsaid mutual consent, American firms were unanimous in insisting on their French roots, their French factories, French networks and their contribution to the growth and power of France. Thus, in 1968-1969, Texas Instruments did not tire of repeating that its components were “made by Texas Instruments France”. And again: “Eleven hundred Frenchmen and their families, adding up to some five thousand individuals. That is the Ti team, centered mainly around the factory at Villeneuve-Loubet (Alpes-Maritimes).”⁹¹ Itt’s subsidiary Cgct (established in France in June 1971), published a six-page infomercial in the popular economic magazine L’Expansion: “Cgct, a tradition of innovation”⁹². In an era when the powers that be were strongly in favor of a French telecommunications industry, the Cgct found it wise to project its nationalist roots, its long history in France (directly since 1925), its “industrial might”, its research laboratory and its exports. Though the infomercial comes forth as a little dry, it was very useful when the famous “press releases” were circulated within the Government’s economic apparatus and in the political arena. Meanwhile, Itt’s other subsidiary Lmt helped in the development of French aeronautics by delivering electronic components of flight simulators for the Concorde, Mercure and Airbus aircraft and for the air navigation systems. Itt itself thought of refurbishing its image with the aid of a promotional drive: “Discovering, developing, sharing.”⁹³ The whole idea was to safely navigate the anti-American undercurrents which swept through the land, be they due to the Left which was hostile to multinationals or the Gaullist right which was wary of the American capitalist incursions into France.
Meanwhile, the electrical engineering group Westinghouse launched its first ad campaign in L’Expansion in June 1969. It had been embroiled in a big political debate regarding technological issues raised by the government on the civilian electro-nuclear program – something we shall come to later. Since then the company had tried hard to be known, if not by all, at least within the managerial and decision-making circles. It wanted the readers of such magazines to appreciate the many strong points of this multinational conglomerate and to be convinced that it conformed to the French “value” of “public service”: “This is how Westinghouse solves transportation problems […]. You are at peace with Westinghouse.”⁹⁴ “Everything concerned with man’s needs, concerns Westinghouse.”⁹⁵ “Four years back we promised this nuclear power plant for the production of electricity. Here it is, fully functional.”⁹⁶ Interestingly, though the Gte group was practically non-existent in France (except in the lighting industry and in television via Sylvania), it launched a publicity campaign in the beginning of the 1970s in the telecommunications sector, which was its specialty: “Sixty companies employing 195,000 people all around the world, a rapidly growing organization to meet your growing needs.”⁹⁷ It could be that at that time, the group wanted to bring under its brand the entire range of its European products, but without anybody coming to know of it. Be that as it may, this publicity campaign shows the tendency of the American multinationals to project their brand without any great hesitation. Meanwhile, its rival Ge also began its own media blitz. The two giants were competing for government contracts and wanted to be seen as companies which kept the local interests foremost, whether they involved business or the man on the street. Between 1967 and 1970 Ge invested in a large number of advertisements to project its diversity and its activities. In both cases, the main aim was to eradicate the image of the “predator”, which had begun to spring up in too many French minds at the very mention of American multinationals, and to be seen rather as economic and social “aids”. In a different field, the 3M group established its new corporate headquarters at Cergy-Pontoise and began its own campaign to project the diversity of its operations in France. Four factories,“45 principal ranges”, with “A few figures: personnel: 3,945, turnover: 2,046 million Francs of which 389 from exports.”⁹⁸ From time to time some companies had an “identity crisis” due to the fact that they needed to grow by acclimatizing American technology while treading carefully so as not to step on chauvinist toes by proclaiming too loudly any American superiority. These bouts of “guilty conscience” clearly explain the reason for showing the French – or at least those who read the financial magazines – all the “good” done by American companies and their contribution to the growth of the nation.
3. A tidal wave of marketing and publicity know-how: The spread of the American way of life and of modernity (from the 1950s to the 1980s)
There were a number of ways by which the American corporations promoted the American way of life. For example, “a republic of consumers”⁹⁹ went down well with the French. Frigidaire’s popularity is a case in point. This brand name which belonged to the General Motors group¹⁰⁰, entered the language as the commonly understood term for the refrigerator; a Frigidaire was so much more evocative than its competitor Frigéavia which, by the way, was made by a French public undertaking¹⁰¹. It came to a point when advertisements had to highlight its originality: “Frigidaire, the original.” This explains why it held the second spot¹⁰² in the market in 1965, selling 78,000 refrigerators in 1966, far ahead of its competitor American Motors which sold some 35,000 Kelvinators that year. In the same fashion, Kimberly-Clark’s Sopalin (a brand of tissue paper) was used as a generic term to designate the product itself. The same happened with “Kleenex” (from the same group) and “Coca”. In the mid-1960s, one of the first issues¹⁰³ of the newly designed (as a magazine) weekly L’Express, carried three advertisements for Gillette, Skip and Timex. The idea was to introduce the American-style consumer way of life. Male shaving and grooming, household cleansers and the wide-spread use of (battery operated) watches. Timex’s penetration into the watch market before the advent of the Japanese quartz watches is a good example of the commercial offensives launched on the French market: “Timex launches its electronic watches.”¹⁰⁴ It was a new concept which helped to bring in the idea of the “easy” life. The notion of the expensive, higher-end watches, usually reserved as precious gifts made at important landmarks in life, slowly gave way to a mass-produced and easily affordable accessory which could be easily replaced: “Change the Kelton!”¹⁰⁵ For a while, the American model of housing complexes also became quite popular when the housing development group Levitt began its ad campaign¹⁰⁶ in the mid-1960s in the name of “comfort” and “ready to live” (with two to three bathrooms, a refrigerator, etc.).
A. Promoting the American brand of comfort
The American penetration went deeper than we would have thought, especially in the household electrical appliances market in the mid to high ranges. This was before the advent of the low and medium ranges brought in by the Italians and Yugoslavians and the setting up of the French industry around Thomson-Brandt. The sheer size of the market created by this “American way of life” shows the technological and practical gap which existed regarding these appliances. For the next 15 years or so a window of opportunity had opened wide.
No doubt, some form of the tradition was kept alive. Singer reinforced its French presence by modernizing its factory at Bonnières-sur-Seine (in 1950). It also revamped its entire range in response to the growing number of houses which were being connected to the electric grid and the rising urbanization. By 1965, half of all sowing machines in French households had been sold by this subsidiary – a success which necessitated the opening of a second factory at Alençon. By the end of the 1960s, it took advantage of this popularity and capitalized on its brand image to introduce a wide range of household appliances¹⁰⁷. At the same time, the idea of the “American comfort” was being reinforced by other companies too, such as the American Standard. Its subsidiary, Ideal Standard made its presence felt in the bathroom fixtures segment, heating and hot water installations in apartments and individual homes. It did this by either going directly to homes or through plumbing companies. The Ideal Standard brand was practically taken as a French brand, equivalent in that regard to other French brands such as Saunier-Duval. At the same time, it did not shy from proclaiming its international status and insistently stated: “Experience accumulated over a century puts Ideal Standard at the very forefront of this industry.”¹⁰⁸
The establishment of these two companies coincided with the departure of two rival corporations, Kelvinator and Pontiac, which thought it better to avoid the growing competition in the French market, and the arrival of several other American enterprises who wanted a piece of the French household appliances pie. Hoover consolidated its production capabilities with a factory at Longvic-les-Dijon. “One of the giants of the American household appliance industry has just entered the French market.”¹⁰⁹ In 1964 the American group Scovill created Scovill France. In February 1965, it took over Laurent (250 employees) of Lourdes to enter into the French market for the smaller household appliances and face Moulinex and Seb¹¹⁰. Later Scovill tied up with Tornado, ranked second in the French vacuum cleaner industry and used it to enter the rest of Europe, including Great Britain, where it took over the Scovill factory at London. As regards kitchenware, the domination of the Americans in plastics explains the success achieved by Tupperware in the 1960s when it began its direct selling campaign with products imported from Great Britain¹¹¹.
B. Promoting the American brand of hygiene
Meanwhile, the “consumer revolution” was spreading rapidly throughout France, fueled by the growing fascination with the “American way of life”¹¹² and the beginnings of the “marketing revolution”¹¹³. One of its clearest symbols was the creation of Procter & Gamble France¹¹⁴ in 1954 and the entry of personal care products into the French day-to-day home life. In October 1954 it launched Tide, a synthetic detergent developed at Marseille in a factory rented out to Unipol-Fournier-Ferrier¹¹⁵, a group in the oilseed industry. Technological know-how was well complemented by commercial savvy in the launching of Tide along with the distribution of Vegetaline, a kitchen product made by the partner Unipol-Fournier-Ferrier. The Procter & Gamble commercial juggernaut set itself rolling and almost immediately Tide captured 15 per cent of the market. Around 1958, this subsidiary took up the marketing of the Monsavon and Camay brand of products. In 1961, it set up the Union savonnière to manufacture Monsavon and Camay products in a factory at L’Oréal¹¹⁶ which was replaced in 1965 by big plant at Amiens. The Procter & Gamble “commercial machine” came to symbolize American technology and marketing. In management schools and within consumer goods companies one talked of “Procterians” to designate the young managers who were trained in the Procter & Gamble sales methods – methods which were soon taken up by the entire industry¹¹⁷. In 1958, it launched the detergent Bonux, before introducing Ariel in 1967, a detergent with active biological enzymes. “In the 1960s Procter & Gamble were instrumental in the diversification of the detergent and bath- soap market in France.”¹¹⁸ “This increasing diversification was justified by the ever expanding consumer requirements and the increasing sophistication of household appliances and textiles.” Procter & Gamble participated in this trend with a splew of innovations: Dash in 1962, M. Propre in 1966¹¹⁹, Ariel in 1967 and Vizir in 1982. Its range of products too increased: Pampers (diapers) made their appearance in France in 1978 followed by Head & Shoulders (shampoo) in 1984.
Still, Procter & Gamble had to face stiff competition from European (Unilever) as well as American companies such as Colgate Palmolive which, in 1952, revived its subsidiary Cadum along with its factory at Courbevoie, just before establishing a second factory at Compiègne in 1954. It was Palmolive which launched the first brand of detergents in France with Paic in 1948. Subsequently, Colgate-Palmolive France¹²⁰ took up the marketing of household and sanitary products in the wholesale market. From then on, the French market was also considered to be “strategic” and given the same status as all the other countries which had a high standard of living and a level of urbanization which resulted in a homogenization of the lifestyle. The American conglomerates fought tooth and nail with their European counterparts such as Henkel and Unilever, especially in 1970, to grab a chunk of drum washing machines. After the launch of Ariel in January 1968, Procter & Gamble reigned supreme with 12 per cent of the market in the enzyme-detergent sector, ahead of the second placed Unilever.
Gillette’s appeal was irresistible. Though the “old France” of barbers was still resisting, the personal shave had come to stay and Gillette was its chief promoter, drawing on its technological edge and its commercial savvy. The factory at Paris reopened in 1945 and was instrumental in Gillette’s systematic penetration of the French market in the 1950s. “The company’s ability to resume blade manufacturing expeditiously was a key to Gillette quickly gaining a leading share of the French market, which subsequently grew to become one of Gillette’ top markets worldwide.”¹²¹ The succession of newer and better blades (Superblue Blade in the 1960s, Super Silver and Techmatic in 1966 in France, the double blade GII in 1971 and the Contour in 1979), followed by the widening of the Gillette range to include all aspects of personal grooming (shaving foam in 1953, deodorants in the form of aerosols in 1960, the shampoo Activ, etc.) allowed Gillette’s commercial organization to match itself precisely to the scale of the French market. There too, the notion of “comfort” was paramount and the “civilization of the Gillette shave” came to symbolize the “American civilization” in terms of personal comfort and the comfort of the skin. All this justified a massive investment in an extensive publicity campaign, especially in journals read by executives (L’Express, etc.) which finally resulted in Gillette’s grabbing a whopping 80 per cent of the manual shaving market in 1968.
Managing the cleanliness of the house itself became and issue. American Home Products which had acquired O’Cedar in 1956, enlarged its market share of household products by taking over another famous French brand, Jex in October 1970. In November 1968, Scott Paper, the leader in the us tissue paper industry, famously bought over Bouton-Brochard, the well-known French tissue company¹²² and pumped into it finances, technology and its commercial savvy¹²³.
C. Promoting the American lifestyle at home
Surprisingly, the American industry also made major inroads in the French agri-food business, in spite of the fact that France had a strong agricultural base and remained very traditional regarding the serious business of food. On the other hand, the Americans had a clear edge in packaging technologies, managing brand names, marketing and dealing in the wholesale market. Thus, we find that in the 1960s, the Corn Products Company (Cpc) had already a established a strong foothold with a range of solid brands like Alza, Maizena and Knorr. It had established itself via its subsidiary, the Société des produits du maïs, with two factories at Nancy and Haubourdin. The Carnation group too had established a well-known brand during the same period (Gloria, powdered milk) and launched Friskies, its brand of pet food. General Foods too established a subsidiary in 1963, and it had reached in 1969 the first rank among its subsisidaries outside the us¹²⁴.
The largest corporate strongholds were erected in the biscuit industry when the Anglo-Saxons attempted to introduce the French to the delectable joys of having ready-baked cakes at tea-time (especially for children), instead of home baked Viennese pastry or, the more commonplace bread with chocolate or fruit paste. As with the “breakfast ready” cereal munchers, the “tea-time ready” crowd and the “snack craving” population of all ages were all instrumental in creating a mouthful of a market for American biscuit manufacturers. The American company Nabisco¹²⁵ bought over Gondolo in 1961 and Belin in 1963, both of which were modest in size but rich in the potential of their brand names. They were merged in October 1965, with a consequent transfer of commercial know-how: “Belin took readily to the trans-Atlantic commercial strategies. In 1966 the management initiated its first market surveys and launched its first publicity campaigns. The creation of a sales department caused major upheavals in its distribution network. Up till then Belin products had been distributed by sales agents and independent wholesalers. But at a time when the “grande distribution” (big super- and hypermarkets) had begun to seriously dominate sales and the competition was growing alarmingly, the old system began to flounder. “Belin began pruning its network, retaining only its best distributors who, while maintaining their independence, made Belin their exclusive brand. These dealerships, jointly known as Sodibel (“Sociétés de distribution des produits Belin”, distributors of Belin products), divided the national market into six sectors […], meanwhile the Belgian and Luxembourgian markets were explored by an independent agency, American Industries.”¹²⁶ Nabisco also gave its subsidiary a large assortment of savories¹²⁷ which quickly grabbed the top spot, with one third of the market share in 1967. In 1970, Belin climbed to the second spot among French biscuit manufacturers with 1,500 employees and 11 per cent of the market share. It stood behind Lba which retained 16.5 per cent of the market and surged ahead of the Nante-based Bn which held 10.4 per cent. The American assault on the French biscuit industry was completed when General Mills snapped up Bn¹²⁸ while Pillsbury swallowed Gringoire-Brossard. At about the same time, General Foods placed its finger in the French pie by acquiring the French coffee brand Legal which had a 7 per cent share of the market while Standard Brands did the same with Ufima which also boasted of identical figures in the French coffee market¹²⁹. In fact, these American conglomerates helped to unify the fragmented French agri-food industry which had, for example, some 1,400 small time coffee roasters and stockists in the coffee industry and 400 manufacturers of biscuits. No wonder then that these American giants, with their expansion plans and financial clout, found it so easy to enter the French market. The other reason for the American buy-outs was to acquire a portfolio of regional (at the European scale) brands which would allow them an easy access to extensive distribution networks¹³⁰.
The infiltration of the American style of consumption (big national brands, marketing, publicity, etc.) culminated with the institutionalization of Coca Cola, just as it happened in all the other developed countries. The company came to symbolize and vindicate the notion of the “brand” and the concept of specialized packaging when it introduced its iconic bottle in 1915. Though the company had launched itself internationally in 1923 and had entered France in as early as 1933¹³¹, it became popular only after the Libération – sometime before the introduction of the 330 ml can in 1960 and the stay-on tab can in 1964. It was especially helped by the “cold revolution”, the introduction of refrigerators in cafés and the proliferation of automatic refrigerated vending machines which popularized the “ready to drink” beverage at the expense of syrups, which needed to be mixed by hand. Sprite was introduced in 1961. It is also true that a vast publicity campaign went behind the popularization of the brand ¹³².
Similarly, in the clothing sector, the watchwords were ‘comfort’ and ‘style’, as in the case of the Frenan group’s subsidiary, the Manufacture moderne de chemiserie et lingerie¹³³. Having grown strong with the help of their huge retail outlets and the size of the middle class market which gave them great economies of scale, the big American clothing companies had a decisive advantage over the French clothing smes which were slow to modernize themselves in an environment dominated by small-scale private enterprises. This explains the frequent, though largely symbolic, corporate assaults launched by American conglomerates on French clothing manufacturers. In September 1969, the Warnaco group bought over Rosy¹³⁴, the first French manufacturer of brassieres, While Arrow-Decton launched its shirts in France by tying up with a French importer and advertising their “incomparable comfort” due to the new fabric, Dacron, a happy blend of cotton and polyester (from Dupont of Nemours). Levi’s first advertisement appeared in L’Express on 6 June 1966: “A leading American brand in France.” The Catalina brand of swimwear was also introduced at around the same time, though it did not survive for as long.