Coca-Cola Company
The Coca-Cola Company, founded on January 29, 1892, is a leading American corporation renowned for its flagship beverage, Coca-Cola, which is the best-selling soft drink globally. The origins of the drink trace back to 1886 when Atlanta pharmacist John Stith Pemberton created a syrup that was later carbonated. Asa G. Candler, who acquired the company in the 1890s, played a pivotal role in expanding its reach and innovating marketing strategies, including the introduction of coupons and merchandise with the trademark logo. Over the decades, Coca-Cola has diversified its product offerings, now producing and distributing over 3,500 beverage products worldwide, including variations like Diet Coke and Coca-Cola Zero, catering to health-conscious consumers.
The company has faced significant competition, particularly from PepsiCo, prompting strategic decisions such as altering its original formula in 1985, which ultimately led to the reintroduction of the classic version due to consumer demand. As consumer preferences evolved, Coca-Cola adapted by launching new initiatives, such as the "Share a Coke" campaign and exploring the alcohol market with ready-to-drink cocktails and hard seltzers. Despite challenges in the diet beverage segment and unsuccessful ventures in the energy drink market, Coca-Cola continues to innovate and engage with a diverse consumer base through strategic marketing and product development.
Coca-Cola Company
The Coca-Cola Company is one of the largest American corporations, and its iconic, eponymous beverage is the best-selling soft drink in the world. Through the years, the company has deployed memorable advertising in all media, the latest technology, and a model production and distribution system to increase and maintain its success.
IDENTIFICATION: Soft drink manufacturer and distributor
DATE: Founded on January 29, 1892
On May 8, 1886, an Atlanta pharmacist, John Stith Pemberton, invented Coca-Cola syrup and mixed it with carbonated water to create a soda fountain drink. Pemberton’s bookkeeper, Frank Robinson, named the drink and designed the trademark, which would be registered in 1893. They sold the syrup to local soda fountains.
Before he died in 1888, Pemberton sold his business to several partners. By 1891, Atlanta pharmacist Asa G. Candler had acquired sole ownership for $2,300. On January 29, 1892, he formed the corporation, the Coca-Cola Company. Candler opened manufacturing plants in other states, and by 1895 Coca-Cola was sold throughout the United States. He also developed new marketing ideas, such as distributing coupons for free drinks, as well as selling calendars, clocks, and other souvenirs bearing the product’s trademark. In 1899, Candler gave Benjamin Thomas and Joseph Whitehead exclusive rights to bottle and distribute Coca-Cola. They developed high-speed bottling and a distribution system that became a model for the American soft drink industry.
In 1919, investors led by Ernest Woodruff and W. C. Bradley purchased the company for $25 million. In 1923, Ernest Woodruff’s son Robert Woodruff became president. During the 1920s, Woodruff introduced revolutionary merchandising tools such as a six-bottle carton and a metal, open-top cooler that enabled Coca-Cola to be sold ice-cold. He envisioned Coca-Cola as an international product. The Summer Olympics of 1928 saw the first sale of Coca-Cola at an Olympiad. The automatic fountain dispenser was introduced at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. During World War II, Woodruff built more plants overseas to supply the armed forces, and many non-Americans tasted Coca-Cola for the first time.
In the following decades, global recognition and sales grew, as the company developed successful packaging, marketing, and new products. In 1955, new ten-, twelve- and twenty-six-ounce “king-size” and “family-size” bottles became popular, and plastic two-liter bottles arrived in 1977. The company’s advertising slogans have been among the most recognized in American culture. They have included "It’s the Real Thing" (1942, 1969), "Coke Is It!" (1982), "The Coke Side of Life" (2006), "Open Happiness" (2009), "Taste the Feeling" (2016), and "Real Magic" (2021). While Coca-Cola (sometimes sold as Coke) remained the company’s flagship product, by the early twenty-first century the company produced and distributed more than 3,500 beverage products among hundreds of brands available in more than two hundred countries.
At the same time, the company did experience some industry competition that also influenced marketing strategies and product development. PepsiCo had long served as Coca-Cola's biggest rival, with its flagship beverage, Pepsi, drawing in a share of customers who preferred a slightly sweeter soft drink. As part of an effort to take sales back from PepsiCo, Coca-Cola leadership made the decision to tweak their soft drink's signature formula and, in 1985, replace traditional Coca-Cola with the new formulation, offering only the latter for sale instead. While many loyal customers criticized this move and PepsiCo attempted to capitalize off of such backlash, the company did continue to make a profit overall. Still, the response led Coca-Cola to sell both the classic version of Coke and the new version of Coke.
In addition to sponsoring various major organizations and events, including the National Basketball Association (NBA), the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR), the television series American Idol, and the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the Coca-Cola company has changed its marketing strategies over the years to continue appealing to a wide range of consumers. While Diet Coke was released to the market in 1982 to offer a sugar-free version of the company's iconic beverage, it was not until 2005 that another diet product was released to target a more elusive segment of the increasingly health-conscious American population: men. That year, Coca-Cola began selling Coke Zero, which also contained the artificial sweetener aspartame but came in a black can and was meant to taste almost identical to the original. This product successfully appealed to men as well and the company saw growth in sales over the subsequent years. In a further effort to compete in a market whose consumers were leaning more toward low-calorie options, the company unveiled Coca-Cola Life in 2014. Sweetened through the use of cane sugar and the natural stevia plant, the soft drink boasted only 90 calories per green can. However, diet soda sales began struggling in the 2010s due to increased consumer concerns regarding the consumption of sugar substitutes. Also in 2014, Coca-Cola initiated its "Share a Coke" campaign, replacing its logo on the labels of its cans and bottles for the first time with some of the country's most popular names to add a personal touch to the beverage's packaging. After experiencing some success, the company continued the campaign in 2015 with a wider variety of packaging and including one thousand different names.
Just as transitions to more health-conscious foods and beverages had prompted the release of new products, Coca-Cola also remained cognizant of the public's interest in alcoholic beverages, particularly as the market for ready-to-drink cocktails grew. As soda consumption had continued to decline, the year 2018 had seen the company's experimentation with a ready-to-drink alcoholic beverage sold in Japan. By the 2020s, the company had made further moves into the alcohol industry, particularly with the release, in partnership with the major whiskey maker Jack Daniel's, of the canned Jack and Coke cocktail. First for sale in Mexico in 2022, the cans became available in other countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom in 2023. By that point, Coca-Cola had also introduced alcoholic versions of its Fresca brand as well as a line of hard seltzers. At the same time, its attempt to enter the energy drink market with the launch of its own brand in 2020 had proven unsuccessful.
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