History of advertising tactic that he used was to associate the Pears brand with high culture and quality. Most famously, he used the painting "Bubbles" by John Everett Millais as an advertisement by adding a bar of Pears soap into the foreground. Barratt continued this theme with a series of adverts of well groomed middle-class children, associating Pears with domestic comfort and aspirations of high society. Barratt introduced many of the crucial ideas that lie behind successful advertising and these were widely circulated in his day. He constantly stressed the importance of a strong and exclusive brand image for Pears and of emphasizing
Pears (soap) article and under Marketing below. Following Barratt's death in April 1914 Lever Brothers took a major shareholding in A & F Pears. The takeover process was completed in 1920 and marketing and other secondary functions moved to Port Sunlight in north-west England, but production continued at Isleworth. In the mid to late 1950s each batch of soap, about 12 a day, was tested to ensure the absence of excess alkali or free fatty acid. Production moved to Port Sunlight in the 1960s when Unilever, successor to Lever Brothers, set up a cosmetic development laboratory on the Isleworth site. A major