The Brothers Move On

Two of the world's most famous beards are about to get a sprucing up, and the Smith Brothers can stand it.

Though the cough-drop business prospered under the founder's bearded sons, William ("Trade") and Andrew ("Mark"), Smith Brothers in recent years has lagged far behind such aggressive drops as Vicks and Luden's.

In business for 117 years, the firm operated out of a half-century-old factory in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., never spent much on advertising, only recently tested TV for the first time and has stuck tenaciously to its one product. Though the firm name is almost synonymous with cough drops, Smith Brothers has watched its sales slump to $3,500,000 a year.

Last week, by arrangement with trust funds that own the Smith Brothers stock, the small firm was merged into huge Warner-Lambert Pharmaceutical Co. (1963 sales: $300 million), joining such recent Warner-Lambert acquisitions as DuBarry cosmetics and West Indies Bay toiletries. Warner-Lambert President Alfred E. Driscoll, two-term (1947-54) Governor of New Jersey, plans to move Smith's cough-drop marketing into his American Chicle division, which turns out Chiclets, Dentyne and Rolaids. Chicle's crack 500-man sales force is likely to give competitors a few sore throats.

Driscoll is also considering adding other products to the Smith name, but has no intention of tampering with the secret formula for the cough drops. It is known only to the late William Smith's stepson, now vice president in charge of product development, who each six months mixes a new batch of the formula in solitude.

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