Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta, Georgia. The secrecy around the formula has been used by Coca-Cola in its marketing as only a handful of anonymous employees know the formula.
1) It is a famous product that is counted as a symbol of American capitalism, and is the number one selling soft drink in the United States. In general, it is recognized as the undisputed number one in the cola industry.
2) Coke produced by The Coca-Cola Company is the world’s best-selling beverage, with 730 million cups sold every day. Along with McDonald’s and iPhone, it has become a trademark symbolizing American capitalism and globalization.
3) It was made by American pharmacist John Stith Pemberton (1831 ~ 1888), and originally contained digestive agents and wine. However, when many people could not drink because of the alcohol contained in the wine, the wine was replaced with carbonated water to create a new drink, and Frank M. Robinson, an accountant at Pemberton, combined the names of the main ingredients to give it the name Coca-Cola. was pasted
4) In 1886, it was made purely with coca leaf extract ingredients, coca bark undiluted solution, and carbonated water without any additives.
5) Coca-Cola sold for 5 cents a glass on the soda shelves of his pharmacies, but it didn’t sell very well. Two years later, he sold all the rights to manufacture and sell this soft drink for only $238.98, and the person who bought the right was Acer Candler, a pharmacist.
6) Acer Candler saw the potential of this soft drink and, together with Frank Robinson, founded The Coca-Cola Company (TCCC) in 1892. Since then, sales have skyrocketed thanks to Acer Candler’s excellent sales skills, and it has grown into a soft drink that symbolizes the United States.
7) The design of the current Coca-Cola bottle was adopted by Candler in 1915 for a $1 prize money to create a unique bottle that could be recognized as Coca-Cola just by looking at it.
8) In this competition, a design proposed by five employees including Alexander Samuelson and Earl Dean, who were designers of The Root Glass Company, was selected.
9) One theory said that it was made by looking at a dress wearing a corset, but in fact, it is said that, ironically, the bottle shape was not invented by Coca-Cola, but was made by mistaken for unrelated cacao beans.
10) In general, it is recognized as the undisputed number one in the cola industry, but depending on the era and region, Pepsi, the rival, has the upper hand. However, as Pepsi recently competed with Diet Coke for 2nd and 3rd places, the word rival has faded.
11) In fact, until 2012, the brand was strong enough to occupy the undisputed first place in the Interbrand Brand Value Ranking. There was no comparison between Microsoft and McDonald’s. However, since 2019, the brand value of IT companies has grown rapidly, and it is ranked 6th in 2020 as of 2020. Nevertheless, it is still a huge corporate brand that exerts tremendous influence in the global beverage market.
12) In the southern United States, coke and cola are used broadly to refer to carbonated drinks. For example, if a clerk asks, ‘What kind of coke would you like?’, the customer answers ‘Dr. Pepper.’
13) Coca-Cola’s distinctive curved glass bottle was created in 1915 by Alexander Samuelson and Earl R. Dean, engineers of the Root Glass Company. And the name of the person who made the glass bottle was also known as ‘Root’. There is a widespread story that the motif was made with the motif of wearing a hobble skirt, which was popular among women in the 1910s.
14) Whether it is true or not, since such explanations appeared in CFs at the time, it is a story that Coca-Cola also officially acknowledges. Perhaps, Coca-Cola lovers have many memories of opening that Coca-Cola glass bottle when they first used the bottle opener as a child.
15) Since Coca-Cola’s production line is kept secret, there is a famous urban legend that Coke is made with the Coke undiluted solution sent from the headquarters even when an overseas plant is established.
16) In common sense, there is no way that food authorities in each country will approve an unidentified food with unknown ingredients. Even if it’s not a regulatory issue in the first place, it’s only a matter of time before we take chemists and analyze the ingredients to find out what it’s made of. However, just like the secret of a restaurant, even if you know the recipe, it is difficult to make it as delicious as a restaurant and produce the same taste.
17) Under the Food Act, there is an obligation to disclose 100% of the raw materials used, but in the case of the so-called BOM (Bill of Material), the mixing ratio and cooking method are recognized as corporate assets and are not disclosed.
18) Coca-Cola entered India in 1956 and had a dominant market share. However, after withdrawing from India in 1977 due to the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA), 1973, which prohibits foreign companies from owning more than 40% of their shares without the use of precision technology, an Indian company called Parle Agro Thums Up Iranian Coke was launched.
19) Coca-Cola is known for its aggressive marketing. Coca-Cola, in particular, does a lot of TV commercials, and there are a lot of TV commercials featuring self-produced CM songs and catch phrases.
20) There are several images that represent Coca-Cola. Contour bottle, polar bear, santa claus and cursive logo. Among them, the Coca-Cola logo, written in white cursive letters on a red background, may be the most representative image.
21) The logo was created by Frank Robinson, who was with Pemberton when he first created Coca-Cola in 1886. Robinson was contemplating developing a special logo, and writing the logo in a sophisticated Spencer typeface was the beginning of the Coca-Cola logo. The logo back then is not the logo it is today.
22) It has changed little over the past 129 years, but a red background was added between 1958 and 1960, and the “Fish Tail” logo reminiscent of a fish tail was completed. And in 1969, smooth curved white wave graphics were added. In 2011, to commemorate the 125th anniversary, a special logo was created in which carbonated bubbles burst out of the contour bottle. As such, Coca-Cola’s cursive type Spencer logo has become a representative image of Coca-Cola.
23) Next, the image that symbolizes Coca-Cola is the shape of a bottle containing cola solution. A glass container that holds Coca-Cola is called a contour bottle. This bottle was born in 1915, and the reason for this bottle was that it was planned to form a unique identity of the bottle through Coca-Cola’s unique bottle, as many products imitated Coca-Cola at the time came out.
24) The bottle was designed by Alexander Samuelson and Earl Dean, who were then working in a glass factory. And later, around 1923, Earl Dean could not find the fruit of the coca tree, so he saw the shape of the cocoa fruit and designed a contour bottle that most resembles the present shape. This unique bottle has inspired many artists. Surrealist painter Salvador Dali first introduced the Coca-Cola bottle in his work in 1953, and pop artist Andy Warhol presents several Coca-Cola-related works, including 210 Coca-Cola Bottles.
25) In the 1960s, the Coca-Cola Company registered the Coke bottle as a trademark with the US Patent and Trademark Office, making it a representative icon of Coca-Cola that no one can imitate. As Raymond Loewy once said, “The Coca-Cola bottle is the most perfect design in the world.” The design of this Coke bottle, recognized by people around the world, is becoming the most important key to properly marketing the corporate image of the Coca-Cola company.
26) In 1969, Coca-Cola set the new slogan ‘It’s the real thing’ and started radio commercials with a song for The Fortunes. Then in 1970, he started a TV commercial in the US with the same song.
27) In 1971, an advertisement in the United States singing I’d like to teach the world to sing was a hit. The ad, dubbed Hilltop, becomes an icon for the Coca-Cola ad.
28) The United States aired an advertisement called ‘Coke is it’ from 1982 to 1985, which was the first attempt in Coca-Cola’s history to be a common advertising phrase around the world.
29) It is a little-known fact that the Coca-Cola Company owned Columbia Pictures and started making films, but the film company sold out to Japanese Sony in 1989 after a series of failures caused great damage.
30) Polar bear is an indispensable character in Coca-Cola commercials. This commercial was shown in the United States around 1993 and also in Korea in the winter of 1993. Since then, advertisements featuring polar bears have been shown periodically. In the beginning, it looked a bit clumsy due to the limitations of CG technology at the time, but the appearance of the polar bear changes cutely with the development of technology.
31) In 2000, global campaigns and local (regional) campaigns were held at the same time. In particular, overseas, under the concept of happiness, there are a lot of big campaigns or interesting marketing like a global company. The video is an advertisement sent out in the United States during the 2009 Christmas season, using Train’s single ‘Shake up Christmas’.
32) “Turn Up Your Rhythm” first released in Indonesia on January 8, 2021. It is broadcast all over the world globally. The original song BTS was sung, and there was no official article for 5 days, but the official article was published on January 13th.
33) There are many people around the world who collect Coca-Cola cans and bottles. There are a lot of people who collect the letter logos as well.
34) It is the only officially sponsored beverage company for the world’s two major sporting events, the Olympic and Paralympic Games and the FIFA World Cup.
35) Coca-Cola can use the five rings mark, Ajitos, and the name of the World Cup for commercial purposes, and only the beverages related to Coca-Cola are exclusively sold in the competition.
36) In fact, if you go to a sports event sponsored by Coca-Cola, in the case of bottled water and beverages, for sponsor protection, you cannot enter Coca-Cola, Sprite, or Powerade, other beverages marked with brands other than Coca-Cola. In the case of athletes, they drink more Powerade, which is designated as an official sports drink, rather than soda.
37) In the case of the Olympics, it started by giving tasting samples to athletes during the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics. After that, they supported the US Olympic team from the 1968 Grenoble Winter Olympics, and from the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, signed an agreement with the first IOC and acted as the TOP sponsor of the Olympics. have.
38) It has a rivalry with Pepsi, the same cola producer. A number of Coca-Cola men changed clothes into Pepsi men before the law was enacted to prevent them from moving to the same company seven years ago, and in some parts of the United States and foreign countries, there was a cooperative relationship.
39) When Pepsi couldn’t beat Coca-Cola by competing with Coke and carbonated drinks, it developed another soft drink and attempted a detour and now it exceed sales of coca cola.
40) Pepsi featured Michael Jackson in an ad, when Pepsi surpassed Coca-Cola’s sales for the first and last time. However, it is considered an unfortunate history for Michael Jackson personally, and the existing vitiligo worsened due to a burn while filming an advertisement.
41) In the early 1980s, when Pepsi first surpassed Coca-Cola’s sales and grew rapidly, a sense of crisis was gripped. The sense of crisis reached its climax as it won a landslide victory in blind testing. It was said that Pepsi-Cola tasted better than Coca-Cola when you took off the label. Therefore, Coca-Cola developed ‘New Coke’ in 1985 after researching for 4 years whether it was judged to be a problem of taste. It tasted closer to Pepsi than to Coca-Cola’s original taste. And New Coke beat Pepsi in blind testing.
42) However, when this new coke was released, it was a huge failure as it received complaints from consumers saying, “Bring my memories!” Humans tend to be reluctant to deviate from the original order. This is called the ‘Status Quo Bias’ or ‘the fallacy of persistence’. Instead of keeping the existing Coke and adding a new Coke to it, it was replaced with New Coke, so it was brought up by the existing fandom. In the end, Coca-Cola, unable to withstand the sharp drop in sales, produced two types of ‘Coca-Cola (New Coke)’ and ‘Coca-Cola Classic’ within three months.[59] After that, New Cork was eventually withdrawn from the market, and in 2009, the original Classic was removed from the classic mark.
43) Coca-Cola did a limited reissue of New Coke in 2019 to coincide with Netflix’s third season of Stranger Things.
44) Still, Coca-Cola is ten times as powerful as Pepsi in terms of brand value and recognition. As of 2020, Coca-Cola’s brand value is 37,935, calculated in units of 1 million dollars, and Pepsi is about 1/2, or 18,922. Microsoft has an overwhelming value at 117,072. It is surprising that Pepsi, a brand that has a short history and is a subsidiary of PepsiCo, is competing with and rivaling Coca-Cola.
45) Coca-Cola has a higher proportion of fragrance ingredients than Pepsi, such as directly feeling the scent of vanilla and cinnamon. Instead, the sugar content is lower than Pepsi. So, the flavor of cola without steam is better with Pepsi with a strong caramel flavor. Pepsi becomes sugary water, while Coca-Cola becomes something less sweet and indescribable.
46) Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola have almost the same sugar content. Based on 250ml, Coca-Cola is 27g and PepsiCo is 28g, so it is difficult to see a significant difference in viscosity. It is 21g and 22g even in 200mL standards, and the reason why they appear the same in 100mL standards is simply because of rounding.
47) In some countries, such as the United States, there is a vending machine called ‘Coca Cola Freestyle’ that mixes Coca-Cola with various syrups. It can be combined in various variations, such as the discontinued lime flavor or the orange flavor that was released as an event. It is said that a PET bottle version will be released in the future. If you look closely at the display, you can see that almost all of its products are also handled. Some Canadian McDonald’s and Wendy’s have it.
48) During the Second World War, people in US military uniforms were marketed at a low price of 5 cents. Perhaps because of that, if you look at pictures of US soldiers at that time, there are quite a few scenes with Coca-Cola.
49) Soviet Field Marshal Georgi Zhukov is said to have fallen in love with the taste of American Coca-Cola obtained during World War II, but even during the Cold War, he asked the U.S. government to drink specially made Coke disguised as vodka.
50) Josef Stalin also admitted that Coca-Cola was a great drink, but the fact that it was made in the United States caused a ban on Coca-Cola imports and ordered a drink to replace it. Adolf Hitler liked Coca-Cola very much, so he drank it well before declaring war on the US in 1941, and when the war broke out and Coca-Cola imports were stopped, Fanta was made by Coca-Cola in Germany to replace it. It is now acquired by Coca-Cola.
51) The 2008 Ig Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Professor Anderson for discovering that Diet Coke has a contraceptive effect. It was an attempt to clarify the urban legend that Coca-Cola, especially Diet Coke, has a spermicide effect that kills sperm. And the co-winner is a research team at Taipei Medical University in Taiwan who produced contradictory results.
52) Coca-Cola claims that the optimum temperature for Coca-Cola is 4 degrees.
53) It has been an official sponsor of the IOC since the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics. It is also a sponsor of FIFA.
54) At the 2010 Super Bowl, an advertisement featuring the Simpsons appeared. As you can see, Burns goes bankrupt.
55) Coca-Cola was the Beatles’ favorite drink. That’s why Coca-Cola appears in the lyrics of the Come Together song.
56) In the past, when traveling to any part of Southeast Asia, Coca-Cola was cheaper than water and cleaner than bottled water sold locally, so I bought and drank Coca-Cola, but an empty bottle was more expensive than the contents. In that case, if you request it separately, you can put it in a plastic bag and purchase it for the price minus the cost of an empty bottle.
57) Donald Trump’s favorite drink is Coca-Cola. During his time as president of the United States, he usually ordered orange juice at a dinner table, but he said he liked to drink Coca-Cola.[146] So, it is said that he liked to drink Coca-Cola to the extent that Donald Trump’s Oval desk even installed a red button that looked like an ICBM launch button, allowing White House staff to bring in Coca-Cola Zero. And, it is said that this button was immediately removed as soon as Joe Biden took office as the new president of the United States as the regime changed.
58) Tic Tac candy is also available in Coca-Cola flavor. A red Coca-Cola logo is engraved on a white candy.
59) Official sponsor of UEFA Euro 2020, Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo has sparked controversy during a press conference when he removed a Coca-Cola bottle and said, “Drink water for your health.” It is not clear if it was the aftermath of Ronaldo, but Coca-Cola’s stock fell 1.7% the next day after the incident.
60) In the summer of 1985, the two companies, Coca-Cola and Pepsi, were competing to include each other’s Coke in the cosmic diet. In this fierce competition that doubled as a media promotion, Coca-Cola was the winner in the end. The prototype was first developed by PepsiCo at a cost of $14 million, but NASA chose Coca-Cola’s product. Coca-Cola is said to have invested $250,000 to create a specially crafted can.
61) Then, on July 12, 1985, Coca-Cola, which was also aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, became the world’s first soft drink to go on a space flight.
62) In 1995, the Space Shuttle Discovery was equipped with a Coca-Cola Fountain Machine, which provided not only Coca-Cola, but also Diet Coke and Sports Drink Powerade.
63) Currently, soda is not included in the American space diet. Coke’s criticism of the aforementioned Pepsi space can is actually a serious problem. Coca-Cola has solved the problem of floating gas in zero gravity with a pressure can, but the phenomenon of liquid coming out when burping in zero gravity is still an unresolved problem. Since the burping comes out like a bubble in weightlessness, it may block the airway opening and cause breathing difficulties. And the phosphate contained in the soft drink has a problem of weakening the bones, and in space, it is coupled with the phenomenon of calcium escaping the bones, further weakening the muscles.
64) The Coca-Cola Museum is located in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Upon entering, the staff greets you, introduces you briefly, and then watches the video. After viewing the video, you can freely watch it. You can take pictures with polar bears and learn about the history, secrets, and manufacturing process of Coca-Cola.
65) Our competition is water, not other beverages. We are the unrivaled No. 1 in the beverage market with a 40% share, but only 3% of the total water market. We still have a long way to go.
Former Coca-Cola CEO Roberto Goijuetta
