The Londonderry Heirs

-c-The two owners, who were also the entire staff of a San Francisco company named Londonderry, paid out a hard-earned $89 last January to place a two-inch advertisement in three publications: the San Francisco Chronicle, the magazine section of the Christian Science Monitor and Simset Magazine. The ad read: "Ice Cream. As low as 8 a pint. Sure to be pure--you make it. Combine cream, milk or evaporated milk, sugar and Londonderry. Whip--then freeze--that's all. No ice crystals ... 15-c- package makes 2 qts., any flavor."

By last week the same copy was appearing almost word for word (major change: the cost was up to 11-c- a pint) in 1,576 U.S. daily papers. Cost every two weeks: $40,077. Londonderry could well afford it. The powder which streamlines home ice-cream making is now on the shelves of stores throughout the U.S. The company, now employing 75 people, has expanded from a single dingy room into almost an entire fluorescent-lighted floor. Its gross promises to be $877,000 this year.

This quick-mixed success is the work of Milton A. Holmes and his wife Gladys L. Both are 49, both experts. Milt is a grey-haired, double-chinned efficiency expert; Gladys, a cooking expert. Her greying hair in soft upswept waves is matched by grey rims on her slightly upswept glasses.

Gladys & Milt first met in 1937--and immediately disliked one another intensely. Montgomery Ward had hired Milt to open its new Peoria store, Gladys to run the cooking school. They bickered over the way to run the school until Milt walked into one of Gladys' lectures one day and spotted a pot roast she had cooked. It tasted so good he kissed Gladys in front of the tittering class, 18 months later married her.

Gladys & Milt got the idea for making a home ice cream while Milt was "experting" in a Des Moines ice-cream works. But Gladys experimented for two years before she hit on the present powder in 1940. They literally plucked the name out of the air, while their car radio was playing the Londonderry Air.

In the next three years they spent $30,000 running big, lush color ads in newspapers--all, Milt says disgustedly, "with uniformly lousy results." The trouble, he feels, was that these ads plugged the name Londonderry instead of telling people how they could make ice cream cheaper at home than they could buy it. Now Londonderry ads stick to the cold facts. This year, telling them will cost $576,000.

Last week Milt & Gladys launched another ad campaign. They spent $15.60 to notify their 70 U.S. brokers that they will bring out Londonderry pudding mix. Said Milt: "There are only 21,000,000 refrigerators in the U.S. and that's all the people we can sell ice cream to. But there's another 35,000,000 families in America to eat pudding."

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