The Whole Truth About Coca-Cola: How Was the Global Brand Created?

Even opponents of sugary sodas have tried or heard of Coca-Cola at least once in their lives. A brand is the strongest business tool today. But in order for a brand to be called a brand, it must stand the test of time by constantly improving its marketing communications and management decisions. We hardly notice how the brand enters our lives and becomes our style. In this article, I will describe the history of formation, brand features and other secrets of the most famous drink in the world.

After the American Civil War of 1861-1865 between the slave-owning South and the non-slave-owning North, the Southerners recovered from their defeat. One of the consolations of the people of Atlanta was the medicine "for all diseases" that was brought from North America. As a rule, these were alcohol tinctures. At that time, residents of the South had already begun to actively fight alcohol, promoting a healthy lifestyle. Therefore, local pharmacists needed to come up with a new medicine in which alcohol would be replaced by another substance that was not harmful to health and was "morally pure". That remedy was COCAINE... Cocaine was (and still is) made from coca leaves, which are rich in nutrients and are very helpful for digestive and respiratory problems. Such a medicine was called "Wine Coke". This drink contained cocaine and alcohol, but the alcohol had to be replaced with another substance as teetotaler activists increasingly pressured local pharmacists. This is how Cola appeared in the drink. This is the merit of the slaves of the slave-holding south. Slaves brought kola nuts from Africa, which relieved hangovers. Thus, in May 1886, the drink "Coca-Cola" appeared, which was created by the local pharmacist John Stith Pemberton. Coke began to be sold in Atlanta for 25 cents per bottle or on tap.

The first composition of Coca-Cola: water, sugar, caffeine, extract of coca leaves and kola nut. This drink was a brown syrup and did not taste very pleasant. It had to be diluted with water so that it could be drunk normally. Once, in Jacobs' pharmacy, where Coca-Cola was sold, there was an incident that played a colossal role in the formation of the recipe of the drink. One customer was suffering from a severe hangover and asked the worker who poured the soda, Willie Venable, to dilute his Coca-Cola with water. Willie didn't want to go across the room to dilute the drink with plain water, so with the customer's permission, he diluted it with soda. This random combination changed the taste of the drink very significantly - and since then it has been drunk only in this way.

It is worth considering the colors of the Coca-Cola logo separately. The color scheme of the logo can change not only the mood of the buyer, but also his desire to buy the product. A color value of up to 80% plays a role in online shopping, advertising, and marketing campaigns. The white, red colors of the logo and the dark brown colors of the drink itself are a perfect contrasting combination, which can be called a "classic of the genre".

► White is one of the universal colors. It creates a beautiful contrast to reds and dark shades. Also, this color symbolizes purity, truth, peace, innocence, and all the other good qualities. White can't be used on its own, but it's the perfect background for red or dark title text It can also be used as a color for text on a red/dark background, as demonstrated by Frank Robinson when he came up with the name and logo that is still used today.

► The brown color is reminiscent of wood or earth, which already implies some benefits from this drink. Brown refers to a warm palette of colors. This color does not attract attention, does not catch the eye, but at the same time evokes a sense of simplicity, harmony and responsibility. This color is often used when creating logos, cups for coffee/tea drinks. The color of tea and coffee is usually associated with something warm and reliable. Coca-Cola is not a drink that is usually drunk warm, but its brown color evokes quite positive and trusting emotions among its customers.

► Red. Along with purity, peace, warmth and reliability, the color scheme of Coca-Cola is red, which is very active and dilutes the colorfulness of the drink's logo. It is very important to "play" this color correctly, as the activity can be both bad and good. This color calls for action, drive, hunger, love, and passion. Throughout the history of the drink, the red color has changed slightly. At first, the white letters were on a dark red background, which gave nobility to this drink. At one time, only the cap of the bottle was red, and on the glass bottle, against the background of a dark drink, it was written "Coca Cola".

Thanks to Frank Robinson, Coca-Cola, from the point of view of color (it is visually that we can evaluate the product in the first place) can be characterized as a reliable, clean, harmless and "cheerful" drink. It is worth noting that this is not the only merit of Robinson in the formation of the Coca-Cola brand. This man drew the name of the drink in his calligraphic handwriting, which can still be seen on store shelves to this day. The rounded shapes of the letters evoke positive emotions, as it is the circle that is subconsciously characterized with the Sun and the Earth.

In 1887, Pemberton was very weak. Profits from the sale of beverages were not large enough to gain financial independence, so the founder of Coca-Cola sold two-thirds of his share to Willis Venable, who first mixed brown syrup with soda. Pemberton died a year later. Not long after, an immigrant from Ireland, Aza Kendler, appeared in Atlanta, who, with only $1.75, got promoted and soon bought a recipe for Coca-Cola from Pemberton's widow for $2,300. This entrepreneur, along with his brother and two other associates, founded The Coca-Cola Company. This happened in 1993. The initial capital of this company was $100,000. This year, the company began paying dividends to its shareholders ($20 per share) and is still paying dividends today.

Then, the company wanted to increase sales of the drink in winter, since cola was bought mainly in the warm season. Therefore, various marketing tricks were invented: images were created where Santa holds a bottle of cola in the middle of the store in a crowd of people and invites everyone to drink it, as well as the slogan "Thirst knows no season".
The year is 1931. Dear readers, if you go back to the initial picture of this article, you will see Santa. But I don't know everything
1. At the age of 75, the image of Santa Claus appears in the form of an artist named Haddon Sundblomu, who "dressed" Santa in the colors of Coca-Cola.
2. Before that, Santa Claus was depicted in a variety of variations, besides, he constantly dressed in different clothes of various colors.
In 1933, the first Coca-Cola bottle vending machines appeared. And then there were small refrigerators containing 6 glass bottles of the drink. In this way, the product became as close to the buyer as possible, because there was no need to look for a drink and then cool it. All you had to do was go to the refrigerator, which was placed in the most visible place, and pick up the drink. Personally, I've often noticed refrigerators near the checkouts in megamarkets that contain Coca-Cola drinks.

The Sosa Sola company is one of the largest in the United States. One of the largest shareholders of CocaCola is the American holding company Berkshire Hathaway (9.25% of shares). The stake in this company is the share capital of Warren Buffett, the most famous and successful investor in the world. Buffett is already 93 years old, but he is active, healthy and cheerful. Buffett is very happy to advertise this drink, and claims that the secret of his longevity is Coca-Cola: he drinks 5 cans of the drink daily, and one of them is cherry-flavored.

P.S. The first bottles of Coca-Cola sold for 25 cents, and today they paid $57,285,000 for a drawing of such a bottle at Christie's.

To be honest, I didn’t even think about how the Coca-Cola brand appeared. But reading your information was interesting and informative.

I only know that they carefully protect the composition of their drink. And the fact that diet cola is no different from regular cola.

Yes, the recipe is carefully hidden. It is known that today there is no cocaine in cola at all :-)
Well, when the first founder of Coca-Cola sold 2/3 of the company to the pharmacist who first mixed cola with soda, an inventory record was discovered that contained the following recipe for cola: oil of lemon, lime, nutmeg, nutmeg extract, coca leaves, vanillin, citrus acid, orange elixir, orange blossom oil, caffeine.
Of course, everything changes, I won’t say how useful or harmful the current product is. I can say that Mac cola tastes much better than store-bought cola for me. I have heard a lot about the harmfulness of such drinks. But one of my friend’s attending physician prescribed her cola during pregnancy, because she had certain digestive problems or something like that. And she really helped! This was a couple of years ago. In any case, this drink played its role - Cola became a brand that the whole world knows about)

I can imagine what the original drink was like. Probably all the current energy sources are not guessable. It was some kind of supertonic drink. Coca is the raw material for cocaine and kola nut, which also has an invigorating effect.

At McDonald's you just get high on everything, and you don't realize how even cola tastes better, and you wouldn't choose anything else there. And in my opinion, Pepsi will taste better, but I try not to drink too much.

Once again I am convinced that marketing and advertising plays a very important role. Packaging also plays a very important role.