Peter Miskell

Acquisitions and firm growth: creating Unilever's ice cream and tea business

The role of acquisitions has been widely discussed in management literature. There is considerable evidence that many acquisitions fail, often because of post-acquisition problems. More recently business historians have examined their role in the restructuring of the British, American and other economies after World War Two. Yet the historical and management literatures have been poorly integrated. This article seeks to address some of the issues raised in the management literature by contributing a longitudinal case study of the use of acquisitions by Unilever to build the worlds largest ice cream and tea businesses. The study supports recent resource-based theory which argues that complementary rather than related acquisitions add value. It identifies the importance of local knowledge as a key complementary asset. It also identifies reasons why Unilever was able to integrate acquisitions quite successfully, including clear strategic intent and the fact that employee resistance was reduced because most acquisitions were agreed. Finally Unilever could take a long-term view because of its size, and relative unconcern for shareholder interests before the 1980s.

Seduced by the Silver Screen: Film Addicts, Critics and Cinema Regulation in Britain in the 1930s and 1940s

It is irrefutably contended that the film serves a political and social need as a narcotic . . . there is an inescapable hypnosis attached to the movie screen that can catch up from his plush seat a sane, balanced, even well-read, adult person, and emotionally implicate him in a novelette-in-motion that, transposed into its literary equivalent, would be scorned by a twelve-year-old schoolgirl. His mind may reject the film utterly, but he will be powerless to move while banality grips him.

Resolving the global efficiency versus local adaptability dilemma: US film multinationals in their largest foreign market in the 1930s and 1940s

Existing literature has identified a number of exogenous advantages that enabled US firms to dominate the global film industry. This article explores how these firms actually operated in their largest foreign market, and in doing so looks for evidence of endogenous advantages that may have enabled some US firms to outperform their rivals. It finds that firms which developed the most distinct local element to their production portfolios typically achieved a greater share of the British market. However, it does not find evidence that locally-based producers were any more effective at developing such locally-themed films than those based in Hollywood.

International films and International Markets: The Globalisation of Hollywood Entertainment, c.1921–1951

The international appeal of Hollywood films through the twentieth century has been a subject of interest to economic and film historians alike. This paper employs some of the methods of the economic historian to evaluate key arguments within the film history literature explaining the global success of American films. Through careful analysis of both existing and newly constructed data sets, the paper examines the extent to which Hollywoods foreign earnings were affected by: film production costs; the extent of global distribution networks; and also the international orientation of the films themselves. The paper finds that these factors influenced foreign earnings in quite distinct ways, and that their relative importance changed over time. The evidence presented here suggests a degree of interaction between the production and distribution arms of the major US film companies in their pursuit of foreign markets that would benefit from further archival-based investigation.

Hollywood in the world market: evidence from Australia in the mid-1930s

By the mid-1930s the major Hollywood studios had developed extensive networks of distribution subsidiaries across five continents. This article focuses on the operation of American film distributors in Australia – one of Hollywoods largest foreign markets. Drawing on two unique primary datasets, the article compares and investigates film distribution in Sydneys first-run and suburban-run markets. It finds that the subsidiaries of US film companies faced a greater liability of foreignness in the city centre market than in the suburban one. Our data support the argument that film audiences in local or suburban cinema markets were more receptive to Hollywood entertainment than those in metropolitan centres.

Cavity protection or cosmetic perfection? Innovation and marketing of toothpaste brands in the United States and western Europe, 1955-1985

This article examines how the marketing and advertising of toothpaste brands evolved in the twentieth century, particularly from the 1950s to the 1980s. During these decades, the promotional strategies employed by leading toothpaste manufacturers were at odds with general developments in consumer product marketing. As branding strategies were being revolutionized by the discovery of a “Pepsi Generation,” the toothpaste market was itself being transformed by a technical innovation that was to have far-reaching consequences for the marketing of leading brands.

Managing uncertainty in creative industries: Film sequels and Hollywood’s profitability, 1988–2015

The film industry is a creative industry in which novelty is an essential aspect. As a consequence, it is characterized by high levels of uncertainty for both producer and consumer. Yet the firms that dominate global film distribution have remained remarkably stable over the last century. The ability to transform uncertainty into risk, and to manage these risks effectively, has arguably been the outstanding achievement of major American film studios since the 1920s. This article examines how the risk management strategies of these firms have evolved over time, with a particular focus on the growing prevalence of sequels during the last 30 years. We analyse data on the box-office earnings and budgets of over 4000 films released between 1988 and 2015 and find that sequels have become an increasingly important source of industry profits since c.2000. We place this trend in historical context, and argue that while sequels themselves are not new, their role within film portfolios has changed, and that this represents a distinctive approach to risk management within the industry.

Americanization and its limits: United artists in the British market in the 1930s and 1940s

Motion pictures are silent propaganda, even though not made with that thought in mind at all … Imagine the effect on people … who constantly see flashed on the screen American modes of living, American modes of dressing, and American modes of travel … American automobiles are making terrific inroads on foreign makes of cars [because] the greatest agency for selling American automobiles abroad is the motion picture.1