Coca-Cola & Advertising

Coca-Cola is one of the longest surviving brands in the world as it has been on the market for over 125 years. It has been so successful due to its strong and innovative marketing and advertising campaigns. Although Coca-Cola produced advertisements in the past to get their product known by more and more people. Now as Coca-Cola is one of the most recognizable trademarks in the world, that is recognized by about 94% of the world's population. Therefore, the advertising that Coca-Cola does now is more focused on keeping the brand in the public's mind.

Below is the first ever advertisement by Coca-Cola. It appeared in the Atlanta Journal in 1886. There is nothing special about it and it is nothing compared to the advertisements that appear in the following 100 years.

In the early 1900s Coca-Cola advertising relied on young women as their spokespersons. The first spokesperson of Coca-Cola is model Hilda Clark.

A Coca-Cola Christmas

Coca-Cola is responsible for creating the modern image of Santa Claus, i.e. an old, jolly and fat man in a red, white and black suit. Coca-Cola invented the red and white jolly Santa in the 1930s. It eventually replaced the image of Santa Claus as in a green or brown suit and even the image of him as an elf. The illustration of Coca-Cola's jolly and fat Santa Claus was done by Haddon Sundblom. Before, pretty young women endorsed Coca-Cola like Hilda Clarke above, and then Santa came along. Coca-Cola were the first beverage company to use Santa for winter promotion. Coca-Cola's famous red colour brushed off onto the the modern day image of Santa Claus. They did not originally set out to do this but as their image of Santa Claus appeared through their advertisements for decades, people began to consider that the real Santa Claus. And children who grew up at this time always saw this red, jolly man with a beard.This was the Santa they knew and it was passed down from generation to generation from then on. Below are some images and adverts for Coca-Cola. These ads were seasonal and would appear in the winter at Christmas.

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Here is a famous Coca-Cola christmas commercial That I am sure you are all familiar with. When we see this on TV we know for sure that "the holidays are coming".

 

Here is another Christmas ad I love by Coca-Cola. It is a bit more recent as it was the 2010 Christmas ad.

Coca-Cola Begins to Grow

When Coca-Cola first appeared in 1886, it was brought out as a soda fountain beverage. It sold for 5 cents a glass. An average of nine glasses a day were sold that year.
In 1988 Asa Candler bought a part of the company off Pemberton as he was in a state of poor health. Over three years from 1888-1891, Asa Griggs Candler secured the rights to the business for $2,300. Candler took a very innovative marketing approach to increase sales and get the brand known. He hired traveling salesmen to pass out coupons to people for a free glass of Coke. His goal was for people to try this new drink, enjoy and like it, and buy it the next time they are at a soda fountain. In addition he put the logo on countless novelties. It was one step in trying to make Coca-Cola a national brand, rather than just a regional brand.

Coca-Cola Coupon

From: www..wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola

The business continued to grow with Candler's new ideas and innovative marketing strategy. In 1894, the first Coca-Cola syrup factory outside Atlanta was opened in Dallas, Texas. Others opened in Chicago, Illinois, Los Angeles and California in the following year.

In 1895 Candler announced in his annual report to the shareholders of the Coca-Cola Company that, "Coca-Cola in now drunk in every state and territory in the United States."

The soda's popularity and success meant that it needed to keep having new marketing strategies to keep the company and brand growing. In 1894, Joseph Biedenharn, a businessman from Mississippi put Coca-Cola in bottles for the first time. He sent twelve bottles of Coca-Cola to Candler who didn't respond in the way that Biedenharn would have hoped. Even though Candler was a brilliant and innovative businessman, he didn't see the brilliance and potential of bottled coke at that moment in time. He didn't realise that the future of Coca-Cola would be in portable glass bottles that customers could enjoy anywhere. In 1999 two Chattanooga lawyers got exclusive rights from Candler to bottle and sell the beverage.

The first bottling plant under the new contract opened in Chattanooga 1899. Another opened in Atlanta in 1900. They realised though that they could not raise enough capital to build bottling operations nationwide. So they started to distribute Coca-Cola syrup to independent bottlers. The Coca-Cola Company makes and sells the concentrate. This concentrate is then distributed to beverage distributors who hold a Coca-Cola Franchise. They have a contract with the Coca-Cola Company that allows them to produce the finished product and put it in bottles and distribute it. The concentrate they have been supplied is combined with filtered water, sweeteners and carbonated water, to give it it's fizz.

 The Contour Bottle

From: www.hashtaghashtag.com

In 1916 the contour bottle was introduced and became one of the few packages ever granted trademark status by the U.S. Patent Office. Today it is still one of the most recognised icons in the world.
Coca-Cola needed a new bottle design to distinguish itself from other competitors and imitators who were proving to be a huge problem. This new contour bottle was a great change from its previous straight-sided bottle that was easily confused with other brands trying to imitate Coca-Cola and declare they are no different from the official Coca-Cola brand, when in fact they are very different.

In the 1920s there were over a thousand Coca-Cola bottlers operating in the U.S. In 1923 six-bottle cartons were introduced and proved to be very popular. By the end of the 1920s, bottle sales well exceeded fountain sales of Coca-Cola. 

Timeline of the Coca-Cola bottle

 From: www.thecoca-colacompany.com

The famous Coca-Cola script was created by Pemberton's partner and bookkeeper, Frank Robinson. He suggested the name thinking that the two Cs would look well together. He penned the now famous logo and trademark "Coca-Cola" in his unique script that Coca-Cola is still recognised for today.



Frank Robinson                                              

              The Logo Through the Ages

	1887-1890s – Inserting the ‘Trademark’ Two little words were added to the first C that read 'Trademark Registered'		1969 – That famous white wave Here the iconic white wave was added.
	1890-1891 – Extra swirls For only one year, the logo changed a lot. It gained some extra swirls. The logo returned to its previous font after a year.		2003 – Keeping it real With the introduction of the ‘Coca‑Cola... Real’ campaign, a streak of yellow was added to the white wave along with some bubbles.
	1941-1960s – Tail tweaked In this design, the words in the tail of the first C were removed.		2007 – A classic design A simpler design than the previous.
	1958-1960s – A fishy shape This period saw the introduction of the Arciform or ‘fishtail’ logo. It was a different shape surrounding the script.		2011 – 125 years of happiness With 125th anniversary of Coca‑Cola came a new logo of bubbles bursting from thee famous contour bottle. It is very different from previous logos.

 

Where It All Started

Dr John Pemberton

Coca-Cola was invented by Dr John Pemberton, Atlanta Georgia in May 1886. John Pemberton was a local pharmacist.

Pemberton's original formula was a coca wine that he named Pemberton's French Wine Coca. But a law was enforced that prohibited Pemberton from distributing this alcoholic beverage. He responded though by creating a non-alcoholic version. He brought this new syrup out as a patent medicine to Jacob's Pharmacy in Atlanta.



Coca-Cola was first sold at

5 cents a glass.

 

It was sold at soda fountains for five cents a glass. The syrup was mixed with carbonated water. It was very popular at this time as people believed that carbonated water was good for your health. Pemberton claimed that this medicine cured a few diseases including morphine addiction, indigestion and headaches.
 It was immediately pronounced "Delicious and Refreshing", a despription that is still commonly used today.



Jacob's Pharmacy, Atlanta, Georgia
Where It All Started...





Hi, my name is Isabelle.

I am writing this blog for a Transition Year Environmental Studies Project.
What I will be blogging about is the geography of Coca-Cola. This basically means where it originated and why, and also how it has changed and developed over the years.
Also we will hopefully find some interesting little facts about Coca-Cola and broaden our knowledge of all things fizzy.