LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Unilever: Brands
built 176 days ago
Lever Brothers, Unilever's first and major affiliate, was remarkably successful in interwar America. After a slow start, especially because of "the obstinate refusal of the American housewife to appreciate Sunlight Soap," Lever's main soap brand in the United Kingdom, the Lever Brothers business in the United States began to grow rapidly under a new president, Francis A. Countway, an American appointed in 1912. 13 Sales rose from $843,466 in 1913, to $12.5 million in 1920, to $18.9 million in 1925. Lever was the first to alert American consumers to the menace of "BO," "Undie Odor," and "Dishpan Hands," and to market the cures in the form of Lifebuoy and Lux Flakes. By the end of the 1930s sales exceeded $90 million, and in 1946 they reached $150 million.
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Unilever continued to make acquisitions in the mid-1990s, completing more than 100 purchases between 1992 and 1996, more than half of which were in foods. In 1993 Unilever gained the number one position in the U.S. ice cream market through the completion of two acquisitions. The company paid $155 million to Empire of Carolina Inc. for the Klondike and Popsicle brands, and about $215 million for the ice cream business of Philip Morris's Kraft General Foods unit, which included the Sealtest and Breyers brands. The acquired brands were merged with the Good Humor line within Good Humor Breyers Ice Cream Company, a subsidiary based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Also in 1993 Unilever launched a restructuring, taking a US$750 million charge against earnings to close or consolidate 60 plants and lay off 7,500 employees.
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Much of Unilever's history from the 1960s revolved around the tension between retaining the benefits of local market knowledge and decision making, and containing the disadvantages of excessive decentralization and fragmentation. It proved difficult to change ingrained routines and practices. Shared values and strong networks kept Unilever together, but the need for agreement and discussion before taking action meant that it was hard to move quickly on major issues. It took twenty years to implement coordination in Europe. It took longer to rationalize production and brands on a Europe-wide basis. Unilever's "hands-off" approach to the U.S. affiliates persisted even after the decline of the detergents and margarine businesses, and the failure to grow an ice cream business, became widely discussed public knowledge.
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Unilever decided to experiment with different interaction models to diffuse the image of a huge multi-national corporation and create an alternative and explorative means of interacting with the site. This was intended to create a more enjoyable experience and, in turn, create a positive impression of the Unilever brand.
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