The Man from Lion & Unicorn

Despite the widely noted success of Schweppes, Yardley's and Beatles records, British exports to the large and lucrative U.S. consumer market are rarely worth the effort. One reason is that British manufacturers are unfamiliar with U.S. sizes and forget that its warmer climate generally calls for light er fabrics. Another is that they do not understand the quantities in which the U.S. buys. "When the U.S. wants fish hooks," an American buyer recently told a visiting British businessman, "she wants them in millions." To provide the millions--and to help their nation improve its trade balance--a group of Britons has organized a marketing company called Lion & Unicorn, Ltd. after the royal coat of arms.

Lion & Unicorn will act as a kind of transatlantic middleman offering "the best of Britain." From offices in London, it will counsel British concerns on what they can sell to Americans--and how to go about selling it. Meanwhile in the U.S., now from a New York office and eventually from branches in other major cities, it will back its British clients with market research, advertising and promotion. Next month Lion & Unicorn will bring a couple of nubile nobles, Lady Mary Gaye Georgiana Curzon and her sister, Lady Charlotte Elizabeth Anne Curzon,* to New York to model mod clothes. The com pany hopes to sell $15 million worth of goods during its first 15 months, earning commissions of up to 10%.

The idea of Lion & Unicorn was conceived by Lieut. Colonel V.A.J. (Villiers Archer John) Heald, 49, a onetime Scots Guardsman and wartime aide-de-camp to Dwight Eisenhower. Heald last year accompanied the Duke of Edinburgh on a U.S. tour to tout British goods. He heard complaints everywhere that Americans could never find suitable British products in their stores. Heald returned to London to round up partners and money, formed Lion & Unicorn as "an effective way to bring people together by trade."

Heald has so far signed twelve British clients and has set a goal of 75.

The group ranges from makers of garden tools, shoes and carpeting to a London manufacturer of crossbows and another that makes 10-ft.-tall toy elephants that move on battery power and cost $10,000 apiece. Heald warns each of his clients that, elephants and crossbows excepted, the days of snob appeal in the U.S. are over. "It is no longer enough to sell an item on the fact that it is made in Britain," says Heald.

*Granddaughters of Francis Richard Henry Penn Curzon, who was fifth Earl of Howe and one of Britain's best-known racing drivers between the Wars, and distant cousins of George Nathaniel Curzon, first Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, who as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in 1920 devised the Curzon Line as a boundary between Russia and Poland.

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