Ilford and the death of film

Christian Sandström holds a PhD from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. He writes and speaks about disruptive innovation and technological change.

The British company Ilford is almost as old as

photography itself.

Founded in 1879, the company started to

manufacture photographic plates.

Over the years, Ilford became a well established player in the film industry.

In 2004, the year when the company celebrated its

125th birthday – Ilford filed for insolvency.

What an odd coincidence.

The rise of digital photography had put the company in deep trouble

over the last years.

Demand for film had decreased rapidly and most of Ilford’s business therefore reached

a dead end.

Let’s take a look at what happened to Ilford.

In the 20th century, the company emerged as one of

the dominant film manufacturers with a

particularly strong position in black and white photography.

A square image in black and

white – this photo is

most likely taken with

a Hasselblad, using Ilford

film.

Henri Cartier-Bresson, perhaps the greatest photo journalist in history, used Leica in combination with

Ilford film.

This image of the Vietnam war was captured by Ilford and Leica.

Photos of

Marilyn Monroe

Cartier-Bresson was one of the great ambassadors for

black and white film. Coincidentially he passed

away in 2004 when Ilford was in deep trouble.

Ilford also launched some cameras and colour film from the 1940s and on.

But the company flagship was always the niche product

black and white film.

Since film was a consumable good, there was always demand for it back in the analogue era.

Though the firm met some competition with the rise of the

Japanese companies in 1950-1970, it still remained healthy and profitable.

With the rise of digital imaging in the 1990s, the photo community

started to discuss whether and to what extent film would be replaced

by digital cameras.

"I use both, but I can put my heart into film. I don't think we'll

ever see it totally disappear.“

// Hideki Fujii, director of the Nippon Photography Institute, a

Tokyo-based photo school

"The fact is, people prefer film.“

"The look and feel of it puts it on a different level to digital

output.“

// Steven Brierley, sales director at Ilford Photo of Britain, 2006

Though it was far from obvious that film would die, Ilford still decided to

stop putting R&D into it.

In the mid 1990s, the Swiss branch of Ilford in Marly started to explore

the area of inkjet paper and nanotechnology.

The Swiss branch had been in the colour segment of film and

had always been more technologically advanced.

Maybe such investments could help Ilford to survive in the digital area?

Doing so was a bit risky, since no one really knew whether this would

create any revenues at all.

For about five years, these investments did not contribute at all

to the business of Ilford.

The Swiss group started off by focusing on

colour film but continuously moved away from this and towards papers for

digital prints.

In this period, they went from basic research into full production of inkjet

paper which enabled film quality. It turned out to be a huge and growing market.

At the same time, the core film business started to

decline rapidly.

The explosion

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

Number of film and digital cameras sold in the United States (guess which one is digital!)

In 2000-2004, the film

business decreased at about 10-20

percent annually.

Given that there are a lot of fixed costs

related to production, this implied huge losses

for Ilford.

While the Swiss branch kept growing, the old, traditional Ilford faced extinction and

several layoffs took place in these years.

Profits kept rising in the digital inkjet printing while the old business collapsed.

In the first seven months of 2004, film sales declined with

a mortal 26 percent. Up to this point, more than 50

percent of the UK employees had been fired and the

company had accumulated a debt of £40 million.

In mid 2004 the company became insolvent and was

restructured through a management buy-out.

The new ‘old’ Ilford kept producing black and white film and even re- introduced some old products.

The company is now owned by what is called Harman Technologies Ltd (Harman was the founder of Ilford) and is traded under Ilford Photo.

They’ve found a niche where film can survive on a small scale.

The expanding Swiss branch was sold to Oji, a Japanese paper company and

has kept growing ever since.

They still use the llford brand and sell some colour film as well.

“Oji’s corporate strategy is to build global networks for existing products

and to develop new product capabilities to meet the demands of the changing

marketplace. The acquisition of ILFORD in July 2005, meets this overall strategy.”

// From the webpage

Summing up: the old Ilford survived in a different shape after a lot of downsizing

and a few ownership changes. The Swiss business prospers today after

having developed inkjet printing paper.

A lot of shareholder value must have been created from the strategy to go for inkjet paper and nanotechnology back in the mid

1990s.

The manager in charge of the Swiss and British sites had to decide whether to

spread resources thinly or put them all in one uncertain basket.

He was brave enough to go for one basket, and this turned out to

be crucial for the company.

In a fast-moving industry which is heading for a digital revolution,

hedging and playing low-risk does not seem to be an option.

Sources

The British Journal of Photography Credit Suisse Ilford Chronology

Image attributions

Find out more about the camera industry:

www.christiansandstrom.org