Coca-Cola (often "Coke") is a carbonated cola and the world's most popular soft drink.[1] The Coca-Cola Company's headquarters are located in Atlanta, Georgia, where the drink was first concocted around 1886. Coke's inventor John Stith Pemberton was not a shrewd marketer of his drink, and the ownership of Coke eventually passed to Asa Candler, whose company remains the producer of Coke today. Candler's successful marketing, continued by his successors such as Robert Woodruff, established Coke as a major soft drink first in the United States and later around the world. Originally designed to be sold at soda fountains, Coca-Cola was later sold in bottles whose distinctive shape has become a part of the drink's branding. Major advertising campaigns have established Coca-Cola slogans such as "The pause that refreshes" and "Always the Real Thing" as part of popular culture. The formula for Coke, whose status as a trade secret has been embellished by company lore, originally contained an uncertain amount of cocaine, though this was reduced over time (falling to 1/400th of a grain, or 0.16 milligrams, per ounce of syrup by 1902),[2] and eliminated around 1906 as health regulations were tightened. Nevertheless, Coca-Cola has been criticized for its possible negative health effects, spawning many urban myths. In addition, the commercial success of the drink has been periodically challenged, particularly by its main rival Pepsi. This tension reached its peak during the 1980s, at the height of the Cola Wars, which eventually resulted in the heavily publicized introduction of "New Coke." The widely unpopular decision was eventually rescinded in the face of public opposition. The Coca-Cola Company has on occasion introduced other cola drinks under the Coke brand name. The most famous of these is Diet Coke, which has become a major diet cola but others exist, such as Cherry Coke and Vanilla Coke. There are also some drinks marketed by the company but which remain unaffiliated with Coca-Cola the drink, such as Sprite. Early years Columbus, Georgia druggist John Pemberton invented a cocawine called Pemberton's French Wine Cola in 1885, although it was originally meant to be a headache medicine. He was inspired by the formidable success of French Angelo Mariani's cocawine, Vin Mariani. The same year, when Atlanta, Georgia, and Fulton County passed prohibition legislation, Pemberton began to develop a non-alcoholic version of the French Wine Coca. His bookkeeper (and later lead marketeer), Frank Robinson, coined the name Coca-Cola, because it included the stimulant cocaine and was flavored using kola nuts, a source of caffeine. Pemberton called for five ounces (140 grams) of coca leaf per gallon of syrup. The first sales were made at Jacob's Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 7, 1886, and for the first eight months only an average of nine drinks were sold each day. Pemberton ran the first advertisement for the beverage on May 29 that year in the Atlanta Journal. Coca-Cola was initially sold as a patent medicine for five cents a glass. Pemberton claimed Coca-Cola cured myriad diseases, including morphine addiction, dyspepsia, neurasthenia, headache, and impotence. In 1887, Pemberton sold a stake in his company to Asa Griggs Candler, who incorporated it as the Coca Cola Corporation in 1888.[3] In the same year, Pemberton sold the rights a second time to three more businessmen: J.C. Mayfield, A.O. Murphey, and E.H. Bloodworth. Meanwhile, Pemberton's son Charley began selling his own version of the product. Three versions of Coca-Cola — sold by three separate businesses — were on the market.[4]
Under Candler and Woodruff In an attempt to clarify the situation, Pemberton declared Charley the owner of the name Coca-Cola, but the other two manufacturers could continue to use the formula. In the summer of 1888, Candler sold his beverage as Yum Yum and Koke. After both failed to catch on, Candler set out to establish a legal claim to Coca-Cola in late 1888, in order to force his two competitors out of the business. Candler apparently purchased exclusive rights to the formula from Pemberton, Margaret Dozier and Woolfolk Walker. However, in 1914, Dozier came forward to claim her signature on the bill of sale had been forged, and subsequent analysis has indicated Pemberton's signature most likely was a forgery as well.[5]
Coca-Cola was sold in bottles for the first time on March 12, 1894. The first bottling of Coca-Cola occurred in Vicksburg, Mississippi, at the Biedenharn Candy Company in 1891. Its proprietor was Joseph A. Biedenharn. The original bottles were six-ounce (170-gram) Hutchinson bottles manufactured by Biedenharn and sealed with a rubber gasket. Reportedly leaky, they were soon replaced with "crown top" bottles with straight sides, and sealed with a metal cap; variants of this design remain in use today. The distinctive "hobble-skirt" bottle design now associated with Coca-Cola was introduced in 1915.[7] Initially, Candler was tentative about bottling the drink, but the two entrepreneurs who proposed the idea were so persuasive that Candler signed a contract giving them control of the procedure. However, the loosely termed contract proved to be problematic for the company for decades to come. Legal matters were not helped by the decision of the bottlers to subcontract to other companies — in effect, becoming parent bottlers. This meant that Coca-Cola was originally sold in a wide variety of bottles, until the introduction of the iconic, standardized "hobble-skirt" bottle in 1916.[8] After the advent of bottling, the company began taking advertising even more seriously than it had before, hiring William D'Arcy, whose creations set the tone for Coca-Cola advertising that his successors would follow. D'Arcy associated Coca-Cola with typical everyday scenes of people going about their daily business; his personal view was that "Coca-Cola advertising should create scenes that drew people in and made them part of the pleasant interludes of everyday life." Instead of targeting particular population segments, D'Arcy attempted to appeal to as broad a class of people as possible, with advertising copy such as "All classes, ages and sexes drink Coca-Cola."[6] After Candler, the next executive to have a major impact on Coke's future was Robert Woodruff, who focused on expanding the scope of the business to the rest of the U.S. A noted workaholic, Woodruff would continue to have a major influence on the business long after his retirement, until his death in the 1980s .
and Central American countries. It was Woodruff who assumed responsibility for designing Coca-Cola's foreign advertising campaigns, affixing the company logo to racing dog sleds in Canada and Spanish bullfighting arenas. He also introduced some new forms of distributing Coca-Cola, such as the six-pack carton, which made bulk purchases of Coca-Cola substantially easier.[9] In 1929, the onset of the Great Depression led to fears that sales might be depressed for the year. However, an advertising campaign spearheaded with the slogan "The pause that refreshes" led per capita consumption of Coca-Cola to actually double. That same year, sales of bottled Coca-Cola overtook those of Coca-Cola sold at soda fountains for the first time. Throughout the Great Depression, Coca-Cola advertising continued to be upbeat, despite the bleak economic outlook; a 1935 advertisement depicted a man nonchalantly smiling on his way to work, presenting an idealized view of American life at the time.[6][9] The proliferation of Coca-Cola, and a newcomer to the soft drink market, Pepsi, during this period led to a decline in the sales of Moxie, which had outsold Coca-Cola as recently as 1920, and continued to rival Coca-Cola's dominance of the American market. The decision of its manufacturer to cut back on advertising expenditure led to Moxie's eventual marginalization in the United States.[10] The Great Depression, however, also saw a setback for Coca-Cola with the arrival of new competitor Pepsi; by offering twelve-ounce bottles for the same price (five cents) as Coca-Cola's six-ounce bottles, as well as a musical jingle in its advertising campaign, PepsiCo succeeded in becoming a challenger to Coca-Cola's dominance of the American market, with its profits doubling from 1936 to 1938.[6]
When the United States entered World War II, sugar rationing in the United States meant Coca-Cola was unable to produce drinks at full capacity. However, a deal was struck between the U.S. government and Coca-Cola whereby the company was exempted from
sugar rationing, while Coca-Cola supplied free drinks to the United States Army. The U.S. Army permitted Coca-Cola employees to enter the front lines as "Technical Officers" where they operated Coke's system of providing refreshments for soldiers, who welcomed the beverage as a reminder of home. After the war, the soldiers brought home their newfound taste for Coca-Cola, further popularizing the drink. A survey of soldiers after the war indicated that veterans preferred Coca-Cola to Pepsi by an 8 to 1 ratio.[6] Coca-Cola was criticized for its decision to continue trading in Nazi Germany. Eventually, the difficulty of shipping Coca-Cola concentrate to Germany and its occupied states, due to the Allied blockades, led to the creation of a new drink (Fanta) by the Coca-Cola Company. Fanta is still sold worldwide to this day. Another wartime innovation was the trademarking of "Coke" by the Coca-Cola Company, validating it as a way of referring to Coca-Cola. Although widely prevalent in vernacular usage, the company had initially fought against this practice with the reasoning that "nicknames encourage substitution." Advertising campaigns encouraged people to "ask for 'Coca-Cola' by its full name," but people persisted in asking simply for "Coke." In 1941, the company resignedly began advertising Coca-Cola jointly as Coca-Cola and Coke. In 1945, the "Coke" name was trademarked; nonetheless, Coke (or coke) has found wide use as a generic term for cola drinks, and in parts of the Southern United States is sometimes used to designate carbonated soft drinks of any type.[11] After World War II, Coke began expanding worldwide. Initially having been restricted only to North America and Western Europe, Coke was soon being distributed in numerous other countries, especially those, such as the Philippines, which had been occupied by the Americans during World War II. The process was aided by the company assuming control of a number of Coca-Cola manufacturing plants which had been established during the war by the army, with help from the company, in order to spur distribution of the drink to soldiers.[6] 1985 to the Present In April 1985, The Coca-Cola Corporation launched a reformulated Coca-Cola, dubbed New Coke with an intense marketing effort. New Coke was an almost complete market failure. Public backlash to the new formulation was significant, and The Coca-Cola Corporation re-launched the original formula in July 1985 under the brand "Coca-Cola Classic." By 1986, New Coke market share was at 3%; by 1998, it was almost completely absent from the market.[12] Also, the "classic" moniker has yet to be removed from the original drink. Internationally, sales of Coke vary from country to country, although it is the dominant soft drink in virtually every country it is sold. Coke is considered to be one of the most widely distributed products in the world, and can be obtained in nearly everywhere, from rural Nepal, to Africa, to Beijing.
Notes
|
 |
