Evolution of Coca Cola
Have your grandma ever told you about the drink of her youth? Oh yeah, you know where this article is going to just by looking at the title and the picture on the right, but seriously one of the all time greatest brands deserves to be credited as the best, whether you like it or not, since it has a big history. Is it the quality of the drink that brought Coca Cola the fame it has, are those advertising campaigns to be blamed or something else - we don't know and we're not about to blab about it, we are going to rewind the time to the point when Coca Cola was born.
How it all began (some history facts)
John Stith Pemberton (1831.) was a graduated pharmacist and druggist, chemicals, herbal medicines, cosmetic products and even a perfume seller in the early stage of his life (Sweet Southern Bouquet was Pemberton's most famous perfume). As a herbal expert and morphine addict, he began working on a headache relieving beverage called coca and cola, based on Kola nut and Coca plant. The kola nut has a bitter flavor and contains caffeine and Coca is a plant best known for the stimulant drug cocaine, that is chemically extracted from its new fresh leaf tips. On May 8th 1886. Pemberton finished his experiment. He chilled the beverage, drank it and surprised himself with a pleasant taste of a drink. Mixed it with carbonated water, tried it again - whoa, bingo! The taste of a drink was surprisingly good. Unfortunately he failed in his mission, but who cares, he succeeded in making a highly addictive drink! So he decided to sell it as a fountain drink, as an alternative for root beer and ginger ale. Sadly, Mr Pemberton had to sell the business in 1891. to Asa G. Candler for only $2,300.
Ok now let's get to the coolest part; the way Coca Cola company advertised from the start is just amazing and what's even more amazing - looking back to the way those ads looked like now, over a hundred years ago. Here is the first one, dating from 1904. (almost 104. years ago!):
Let's see how Coca-Cola ads looked like in period from 1905 - 1910.
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Coca Cola ads from 1910. - 1919.
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In the year 1919th, the Coca-Cola Company was sold to a group of investors for $25 millions. In 1923. Coca-Cola was sold to Ernest Woodruff for 25 million dollars, who gave the Company to his son Robert Woodruff. Woodruff's leadership made a enormous commercial success and made Coca-Cola one of the biggest brand world wide. This man made some big steps in Coca-Cola Company business - first raised the syrup prices for distributors and drastically improved efficiency at every step of the manufacturing process, improved the sales department which caused the increased productivity, emphasized quality control, and begun a large-scale advertising and promotional campaigns. He was well known as "The Boss". No wonder..
In 1927. was made the first Coca-Cola radio advertisement.
Coca Cola ads from 1920. - 1935.
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Further Coca-Cola Company resumed with the business with only greater success. In 1931th the first Coke Santa was introduced as a Christmas promotion which became a tradition in Coca-Cola future (you've all seen those cool Christmas ads Coca-Cola has and you know they always have to be the best); in 1934. Johnny Weissmuller, and Olympic champion swimmer, and Maureen O'Sullivan, a motion-picture star, appeared on a metal serving tray for Coca-Cola.
Coca Cola ads from 1936. - 1945.
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As time passed by, the fashion changed and Coca-Cola followed the fashion. Everybody else followed Coca-Cola. You can see in these magazine ads exactly what was popular at the time they were released. Also you probably noticed that until 40's there were no real photographies of people. In late 40's it changes, but not drastically; in 1960 Coca-Cola Company introduced a twelve ounce Coke.
From 1960. and up tho the 80's Coke madness continues; in 1971. the song "I'd like to Buy the World a Coke" was released:
Coke ads from 60's and 70's:
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1982. brought us a Diet Coke in July.
Let's see some Coca-Cola ads from the 80's:
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1985. was the year Coca-Cola made its first big mistake, after a 4 million dollars worth research, they changed the formula for Diet Coke and now it was a sweeter variation with less tang and slightly smoother and it was the first flavor change since the existence of the Coca-Cola company and unfortunately a bad change. People from all over the world protested against the new formula of Coke and announced that they'll turn to a Pepsi Cola, Coca-Cola's biggest concurrent (this reminds me of an eternal struggle between baby Gerald and Maggie Simpson). Of course Pepsi saw a great opportunity and used it. But not for long, Coca-Cola had to come up with yet another new formula, but only few months later, the old Coke was brought back in addition to the new one. This was greatly due to dropping market share and consumer protests.
In 1993. Coca-Cola came up with their famous slogan "Always Coca-Cola"
They say that from 1886. until today, 122 years (!!!) later, Coca-Cola hasn't change its original taste. Even if I knew someone alive for more than 100 years I wouldn't be sure how accurate his/hers memories might be, but it's enough for me that I haven't sensed the change in Cola's taste for more than 20 years. After all - original is original...
Copyright information:
This article was written by whatheck.net - some rights are reserved. However, "Coca-Cola", "Diet Cola", "Coke" and all images and brand names are copyrighted by The Coca-Cola Company.
WhatHeck.net does not claim to own any right to the material (images and brand names) used in this article.
We simply wrote it as big admirers of Coca-Cola products.
credits:
and of course, the one and only Coca-Cola.
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