RED DRAGON:- Lyons Maid : RASPBERRY FLAVOUR ICE LOLLY 1970s Wrapper.
Lyons Maid were as big a name in '70s Britain as Pot Noodle and Wimpy's. Lyons, who first started making ice cream in 1894 for a very seasonal British market, shipped their product across the country by train. By 1954, after World War II and the banning of ice cream production due to rationing the popularity of ice cream continued to grow, bolstered by the introduction of the frozen ice lolly and Lyons Maid developed its business, expanding and buying up smaller regional companies, increasing their market share and reach.
Many of Lyons Maid's (J. Lyons & Co.) products, especially the more popular lines, were repackaged from time to time to meet the changing catering needs and growing home freezer ownership. A large number of products were targeted at children, these so-called hand-held confections started to appear after the Second World War and progressively became more sophisticated. By the 1970s this market represented about half of the total ice cream sales. Take-home desserts also became more popular as the tendency to make puddings fell off.
The Lyons ice cream subsidiaries of Bertorelli, Tonibell and Midland Counties Ice Cream manufactured and marketed their own products. Bertorelli specialised in high quality catering ice creams to hotels etc. Tonibell sold from travelling vans and Midland Counties Ice Cream made similar products to Lyons. In fact all the ice cream companies copied each other so as not to lose market share.
An early description of ice-cream manufacture at J. Lyons & Co. can be found in 'The First Food Empire, A History of J. Lyons & Co.'.
Exploring the contents of chiller cabinets from years gone by!
In the 60s, 70s and 80s, purveyors of ice cold snackage successfully prised pocket money from the nation's children by firstly linking their lollies to well known characters from film and TV. Later on, this marketing gimmick would blossom into branded icy treats, a wild world where characters as diverse as the Daleks, King Kong, Bananaman, and the Mister Men would get their own lines of ice lollies. However these kinds of tie-in deals cost money and could be something of a risky proposition, for the favour and fashions of the playground are fickle and hence while the Daleks conquered the chiller cabinets for several years, and during many of which they didn't cross paths with the Doctor on the telly mark you, no one was particularly rushing out to buy the Black Hole lolly when Disney's answer to Star Wars died a death at the box office.
However, and let's be honest here, as makers of all kinds of tat have realised down the years, kids are bloody morons. If you can make something that is bright, colourful and sounds cool, even if it is a truly bloody awful product, you can create a playground sensation. Back in the 60s and 70s, no one had coined the term "viral marketing", but the concept that some products could magically capture the public's imagination was already well understood. And in the world of the ice lolly, if you could create a playground craze for your frozen wares, you were quids in. And hence many makers of lollies and assorted sweeties discovered that the right wrapper and the right name could outsell the biggest branded tie-ins.
Now, at first many lollies had just had names derived from their flavours - the all-time classics being the Orange Maid and the Mini Milk - but soon lollies with more inventive names started to appear such as Wiz, Rev, Woppa, and Mivvi. And this was a major breakthrough, as such names gave no clue to their flavours but still sold well because they sounded hip and cool. After all, what self-respecting junior hepcat wants a boring old Lemonade Fizz when you could discover what a Kinky tasted like?
However while this advance in lolly nomenclature was a seismic shift in the way icy treats were sold, the novelty of giving lollies trendy and abstract names soon became normalised. And hence in the early 1970s, lolly branding was to evolve again, and various characters started to appear in the chiller cabinets that didn't exist anywhere else. Given the hazy and ephemeral nature of ice lolly history, I am not entirely sure who first made this next breakthrough, but a good contender is probably Lyons Maid who launched the Red Devil in April 1973. A regular in the freezers for many years, the Red Devil was a lolly comprising of an ice cream centre encased in fruity red ice. Some of us who remember this lolly may well be inclined to think that perhaps the name came from the fact that it was indeed a bit of a devil to eat, as all too often the crimson ice would fall away from the ice cream and seek out brand new tops to stain and ruin.
However despite this lolly's propensity for getting kids in trouble with Mum, I suspect it was simply a case of the marketing chaps casting about for a suitable name that was a bit trendy and sounded cool without mentioning a flavour. But the real stroke of genius came when the graphics department designed a wrapper with a little cartoon imp on it. And in a stroke the concept of a brand name and an image coalesced into the idea of creating brand characters, for looking at Lyons Maid's production history, the Red Devil was closely followed by a range of lollies that crystallize this moment in marketing (including the impressive looking 'Red Dragon'!).
Now all of these lollies were united by the fact that they appeared at the same time but also were accompanied by a series of button badges to collect [NB: No badges are included in the wrapper sale]. A vanilla ice cream bar with chocolate chips was named Freckles, which clearly was the name of the cute cartoon spotted dog on its wrapper. Then there was Captain Cody, an old school cartoon hunter whose lolly was cream soda flavour with a "raspberry kreem centre" apparently. However typifying the fact that lolly branding was at a tipping point, the range also included Freak Out, a strawberry and lemon ice cream whirled together to allegedly "form a psychedelic pattern on a stick", whose badge featured a trippy vision of a long haired singer of indeterminate gender and sanity radiating acid drenched colours. However my favourite of this bunch was the brilliantly designed Jelly Terror. The lolly itself comprised of a creamy vanilla shell, topped with chocolate, and entombing a strawberry jelly centre, but despite this generous combo of flavours the real draw was the titular Jelly Terror, a marvellous monster with fangs, swirling eyes and a great many legs/arms/tentacles/whatever they are.
Part of the success of this bunch which were launched back in April 1973 was down to the nature of the graphics themselves. Quite cleverly, Lyons Maid had opted for a style that was very kid-friendly. It was individual, energetic and lo-fi, but perhaps most importantly of all, generally the characters looked like something that a kid - admittedly a talented kid - had drawn on a school exercise book. Clearly they were on to something here, for the following year, they even launched a rival to their own Orange Maid, in the form of the Orange Dragon lolly, with a mythical fire-breather rendered in the same style. And in 1974 some new lines sporting freshly dreamed up characters would appear too. And naturally other companies soon followed suit...
An original 1970s full colour ice lolly wrapper with great cartoon red dragon breathing fire artwork, logos (including Lyons Maid 3 children logo at the head) and details to the front - repeated on the reverse.
I have owned this wrapper from new (in the 1970s) & it has been in storage ever since and never displayed, so is in good condition.
At the time of listing I cannot see any more of these original UK wrappers available for sale worldwide (and none sold anytime recently - if any even exist!) - grab an extremely rare good condition bargain.
[Please no low-ball offers - if you are not prepared to come anywhere near the 'Buy It Now' price. These are extremely rare and never come up for sale, and have been priced competitively to sell already, thank you].
Perfect for all Red Dragon, vintage Lyons Maid or classic 1970s mythical monster / fantasy fans & collectors.
Produced in the UK in the 1970s by Lyons Maid Limited, Glacier House, Hammersmith Grove, London W6 ONG. Ingredients (as visible): Glucose Syrup, Citric Acid, Sodium Pyrophosphate, Calcium Pyrophosphate, Stabiliser, Calcium Phosphate, Flavouring, Saccharin, Colour [not included obviously!].
(Will be sent in a cardboard box envelope by courier with extra protection for a safe delivery - or in comparable materials depending on number of items ordered. NB: I cannot combine shipping on Global Shipping Programme orders due to eBay policies, thank you).
The approximate (complete and flat as shown) sizes are:- Width 2.35" (5.9cm) x Height (Portrait) 5.4" (13.7cm).