Coca-Cola advertising through the years.

Coca-Cola is a much loved and well known brand. It is one of the longest serving brands and s considered among the most successful companies ever. This could be because of their strong advertising and marketing. Coca-Cola has always relied on advertising to promote and market their products. Coca-Cola advertising has indeed greatly affected American pop culture and even the whole world. It all started on May 8th, 1886 when John Pemberton sold his first Coca-Cola drink at a soda fountain in Jacobs pharmacy, Atlanta. He published the first Coca-Cola advertisement in the Atlanta journal.

There is little creativity found in the first as its just some text. No fancy fonts, no images, no gimmicks. The first newspaper ad showed the company’s first (and last) tagline: ‘Delicious! Refreshing! Exhilarating! Invigorating!’ Soon afterwards john Pemberton ran a longer and more persuasive newspaper ad. It still promoted the drink with the same tag line but added more promises that the drink is an ‘intellectual beverage’, ‘Temperance drink’, ‘brain toxic’ and it even claims to be able to cure ‘headaches, neuralgia, hysteria, melancholy’ and more.

Of course these claims were not plausible but hundred years before there were no organisations that regulated advertising and the false advertising laws were pretty much non-existent. Newspapers during this time were full of fraudulent advertisements.

In the 1900’s Coca-Cola relied on young women as the spokespersons. The first spokesperson of Coca-Cola was a model Hilda Clark.

Coca-Cola is often known for its image of the modern Santa Claus as an old jolly and fat man in a red and white suite. Coca-Cola invented the red-and-white Santa during the 1930’s, the illustration done by Haddon Sundblom. Before Santa pretty young women were used to endorse Coca-Cola.

The image of Santa appeared in the ad’s for three decades. Before Coca-Cola Santa’s image was always different and varied. He could be big, small, fat, elf-like, young, old, etc. He has worn all kinds of suites even donning priests robe or even huntsman animal skin.

Until 1970s people enjoyed cola in ice cream parlours or the local soda fountain. The soda fountain counter was a place for socializing with other people. However at this point the fountain was already losing its popularity as bottled drinks and commercialized fast food quickly rose to popularity. As you can see previously, until 1960’s Coca-Cola advertising shows people holding their drink in a glass rather than the iconic bottle.

In 1969 they made their new advertising slogan ‘it’s the real thing’. The campaign now focuses on the Coca-Cola bottle itself.

It was in some points during the sixties or eighties that Coca-Cola went global. The company has now spread to 163 countries worldwide. Year after year it has captured markets such as Macau, turkey. Paraguay, and the Philippines, to name a few. Not only this, Coca-Cola has also expended into many different flavours such as Fanta and sprite. With the swift exspansion Coca-Cola went with a massive advertising campaign. Coca-Cola always believe in advertising. The international appeal of coke was shared in the advertising with the slogan “I’d like to buy the world a coke”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8H5263jCGg&feature=player_embedded- Buy the world a coke.

The ad appeared in 1971 and later became the basis of the song ‘I’d like to teach the world to sing’ by the new seekers. The ad was considered one of the most loved and influential tv ads in history.

The eighties marked the birth of diet coke.

This decade also marked the introduction of the new coke. It was a desperate effort after Coca-Cola saw a drastic decline in sales and increased competition from Pepsi. The company execs responded by changing the formula of Coke. On tests people favoured the new taste. But in reality people hated it! People missed the classic coke taste and there were eighth thousand calls complaints and constant angry letters everyday. New coke is considered the companies’ biggest blunder. The problem was not the taste but maybe because it broke tradition. Many coke lovers were attached to the familiar and well-loved taste that was coke. With this coke admitted their mistake and announced that it will be using its former recipe again.

Aside from Santa Claus one of Coca-Cola’s most memorable symbols of the company were the animated Polar Bears. It came from northern lights advertising campaign. The first ad featured polar bears watching a movie a play of aurora borealis while drinking Coca-Cola..

The ad campaign ‘the coke side of life’ launched in 2006 and its main theme centers around people drinking coke and feeling happy and positive. You drink coke, you feel good. The

campaign has optimistic and positive vibes and it captures the very essence of life. It encourages people to love spontaneity and to see the world in full colour.

Among cokes most successful endeavours of today is the ‘happiness machine’, or in some countries, the ‘happiness truck’. Coca-Cola is grounded in its heritage, at the same time, showed that it can keep up with the times. The happiness machine uses elements of both guerrilla marketing and viral advertising by using YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsJa76xVrVg&feature=player_embedded-Happiness strikes at DAV college Chandigarh.

Coca-Cola implemented the happiness machine in various places and campuses including London, India, Germany, Hungary. Hong Kong and more. The happiness truck appeared in various countries too like Rio de Janeiro and the Philippines. You can see the videos authentic happiness the people get when they receive their coke surprise.

Two centuries ago in 1886 Coca-Cola was born in a tiny pharmacy. Now Coca-Cola continues to provide magic too everyone who drinks. It has expanded globally to the most far-reaching places offering 500brands and products to the world. Coca-Cola is one of the most well-loved brand today, and it continues to serve more than 1.7 billion servings in one day. Coke has now more than a dozen flavours including diet, zero, cherry, vanilla, citra and so many more. Products by coca-cola are now over 3,500 including A&W Dr.Pepper, Real gold, Royal Tru, L ift, Ponkana, Minute Maid, Fanta, Earth and Sky and Eight O’Clock. What is next for Coca-Cola? Who knows? But all I know is none of this would’ve probably happened ahd they had not been advertised in the right way.