Asteroid (Pearl & Dean theme)
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| Private | |
| Industry | Media advertising |
| Founded | 1953 |
| Headquarters | London, England, UK |
| Products | Cinema advertising |
| Website | www.pearlanddean.com |
Pearl & Dean is a British cinema advertising company, founded in 1953.
Pearl & Dean is now owned by Willowbrook Investments Ltd, and controls advertising at many UK cinema sites including multiplex operators such as Empire, Showcase and AMC; the company also represents approximately half of the UK's independent cinemas.
Pearl & Dean was formed in 1953 by Ernie and Charles Pearl and Bob Dean to sell advertising on British cinema screens prior to the showing of the main feature. The short adverts, with which British cinema audiences quickly became familiar, were the idea of Joe Morris (born Joseph Iglitsky), one of Pearl & Dean's in-house advertising executives. The initial staffing of Pearl & Dean was by members of staff of Theatre Publicity and Langfords (The Rank Organisation) who followed the Directors when they left to form the company upon obtaining the advertising rights in the ABC Cinemas, the first time that group had accepted advertising in their cinemas.
In 1966 Pearl & Dean formed a subsidiary company called Radiovision Broadcast International (RBI) to represent the marketing interests of the American Broadcasting Company radio and television stations in Europe. During the same year, the company signed an exclusive contract to represent the sale of advertising time on the offshore pirate radio stations Swinging Radio England and Britain Radio. This contract with the offshore stations became mired in controversy due to lack of sales and led to the headline-making bankruptcy of the original London management company for the two offshore radio stations that had been created by a private investment group formed by Don Pierson of Eastland, Texas, USA.
Pearl & Dean were acquired by British Lion Films in 1969, following a successful decade for the company, having 52% of the market share in cinema advertising, competing with Presbury, Faber Advertising Services and Rank Organisation. A few years later they changed owners to Mills & Allen. Around the same time, Rank acquired Presbury and Faber. However, under Mills & Allen's ownership, their share depleted to a 12%, an all-time low for the company.
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