It is said that the Coca-Cola bottle is the most recognised object in the world. Hundreds of millions of people can recognise a Coke bottle by its shape, even if they cannot see it! And the famous Coca-Cola logo is the most famous logo in the world. Unlike any other famous commercial logo, it has not changed in 100 years!
The Birth of Coca Cola
The name of Coca-Cola was a suggestion given by Pemberton’s bookkeeper Frank Robinson. As the recipe for the syrup called for coca leaf extract and caffeine from the kola nut, the name Coca Kola was easy to come up with. However, Robinson, who was known for having excellent penmanship, thought that using two Cs in the name would look striking in advertising. As such kola became cola, and the brand name was born. Robinson can also be credited with creating the first scripted “Coca-Cola” using the flowing letters that serve as the famous logo of today.
The soft drink was first sold to the public at the soda fountain in Jacob’s Pharmacy in Atlanta on May 8, 1886. About nine servings of the soft drink were sold each day. Sales for that first year added up to a total of about $50. The first year of business wasn’t much of a success, though, as it cost Pemberton over $70 in expenses to create the drink, resulting in a loss.
Asa Candler
After John Pemberton died,in1888, a man called Asa Candler bought the recipe for Pemberton’s medicine He decided to sell it, not as a medicine but as a drink. In 1892, he spent $ 12,000 on advertising it. The Coca Cola advertising campaign hasn’t stopped since then! And it has worked brilliantly. Coke has been the most popular drink in the USA for more than sixty years.
Coca Cola and World War II
In 1941, when the USA entered Word War II, American soldiers began to travel all over the world .The President of the Coca Cola Company promised to send their favourite drink wherever they went, Five billion bottles of Coke were sent around the world to the soldiers! And that’s why, since the War, Coke has been famous everywhere. if you look on a bottle of Coke you will find that one of the ingredients is called simply ‘natural flavourings’. What are those flavourings? No one will tell you! The recipe for Coke has been a secret for a century. The Coca Cola Company keeps it in a safe in Atlanta. In 1985, the company made a small change to its famous drink. Millions of people complained. The company had to go back to the recipe in the safe!
The Birth and Death of New Coke
On April 23, 1985, the trade secret “New Coke” formula was launched in response to declining sales thanks to an increasingly competitive cola market. However, the new recipe was considered a failure. Coca-Cola fans had a negative, some say hostile, reaction to the new recipe, and within three months, the original cola that captured the hearts and tastebuds of the public returned. The return of the original cola taste came with new branding of Coca-Cola Classic. New Coke remained on the shelves, and in 1992 was rebranded Coke II, before finally being discontinued in 2002.
As of 2017, Coca-Cola is a publicly-traded Fortune 500 company with more than $41.3 billion in annual revenue. The company has a workforce of 146,200 employees, and its products are consumed at a rate of more than one billion drinks per day.