Coca Cola Brief History

HISTORY:

There are some major events in the life of the Coca-Cola Company that have an impact on the company today, these include:

• 1886: Coca-Cola, the beverage, was first produced by John Pemberton. It was sold at fountains at a Jacobs’s pharmacy, a local pharmacy in Atlanta, for 5 cents a glass. Frank Robinson named the drink Coca-Cola and wrote it in his own unique script, to this day Coca-Cola is written in the exact same way. They used to sell an average of 9 glasses of Coca-Cola a day.

• 1891: John Pemberton sells the company to Atlanta businessman, Asa Griggs Candler for $2300. Asa brought vision to the business and the brand. He used innovative ways to introduce people to the drink. He made sure people saw the Coca-Cola symbol everywhere by using aggressive promotion.

• 1893: Pepsi-Cola, Coca-Cola’s biggest rival, is created, originally called “Brads Drink”

• 1894: The drink gets put into bottles- the beginning of the portable drink.

• 1895: The drink started to go national, Candler opened syrup factories in Dallas, Chicago and LA.

• 1898: Ernest Woodruff purchases the company from Asa Candlar

• 1899: Coca-Cola is now sold for $1.00 per bottle

• 1900: Two bottling companies operate for Coca-Cola

• 1902: The first Pepsi-Cola factory is formed due to its increasing popularity and demand

• 1916: The formation of the contour Coca-Cola bottle, to counter against competitors. It is still used today.

• 1920: Total of 1000 bottlers for Coca-Cola

• 1923: Robert Woodruff becomes new company president- vision for the company was to make Coca-Cola within “arms reach of desire, across the globe”

• 1941: America enters WWII, Woodruff orders that “every man in uniform gets a bottle of Coca-Cola for 5 cents, wherever he is, and whatever is costs the company.”- This strategy helped introduce the Europeans to the beverage for the first time. By the time peace came, Coca-Cola was already doing business overseas. Coca-Colas “post-war America” that it painted in its advertisements was alive with optimism and prosperity- happy couples at the drive-in, carefree moms driving big yellow convertibles thus it incorporated itself into what we now know as the American Culture.

• 1960: The number of countries carrying out Coca-Cola bottling operations doubled from what they were in 1940.