Auckland Company's Export Venture

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31206, 2 November 1966, Page 14

Auckland Company's Export Venture

(Special Crzpdt. N.Z.P A > SYDNEY, November 1. An Auckland company which has built up a £640.000 export trade in toys to Australia in the last 18 months is this week launching a new export' drive which should further help New Zealand’s balance of payments. The company is Lincoln Industries (Penrose) Ltd., which began sending toys to Australia in May, 1965, and now exports to 23 countries. Through its subsidiary. Lincoln International, Ltd., the company is marketing a range of revolutionary unbreakable and boilable kitchenware in Australia. All the goods are manufactured in New Zealand and sent to Australia by air. Launching the new product at a press conference yesterday, Mr lan O'Hara, of Auckland, marketing director for the Lincoln group said: “We in New Zealand have to export goods to survive. We have had great success with our toys, and I think this new product is going to earn a lot more money for New Zealand.” “Many people here are surprised to learn that we are a New Zealand company, but we are doing nothing that any other company in New Zealand could not do,” said Mr O’Hara later. “Export opportunities are tremendous today if you go the right way about if ”

Lincoln Industries’ success in the toy field has been by playing Australian manufacturers at their own gameusing the “hard sell” in television advertisements, and vigorous promotion. The company’s kitchenware will be handled the same way, and New Zealand television personality, Graham Kerr, who helped Lincoln to design the new products, will be featured in a massive television, press and radio campaign. Mr O’Hara predicted that

about £40,000 (N.Z.) a year will be spent on advertising Mr O’Hara said: “The total toy market in Australia is worth about 60 million dol lars a year. We have got 1,600.000 dollars of this, but I am sure the prospective market for kitchenware is much, much bigger and we are determined that New Zealand will get a big share of this.”