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COCA-COLA
The wave shape (known as the "dynamic ribbon device") present on all Coca-Cola cans
throughout the world derives from the contour of the original Coca-Cola bottles.

Coca-Cola (also known as Coke, a name which was trademarked by The Coca-Cola
Company after it was discovered many people called it by that particular name) is a
very popular cola, a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants and vending
machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by the Coca-Cola Company
(NYSE:KO), which is also often referred to as simply Coca-Cola or Coke. Coke is one of
the world's most recognizable and widely sold commercial brands; its major rival is
Pepsi.

Originally intended as a patent medicine when it was invented in the late 19th century,
rumoured to be originally green; Coca-Cola was bought out by shrewd businessman Asa
Griggs Candler, whose aggressive marketing tactics led Coke to its dominance of the
world soft drink market throughout the 20th century. Although faced with critiques of its
health effects and various allegations of wrongdoing by the company, Coca-Cola has
remained a popular soft drink well into the first decade of the 21st century.

The company actually produces concentrate for Coca-Cola, which is then sold to various
Coca-Cola bottlers throughout the world. The bottlers, who hold territorially-exclusive
contracts with the company, produce finished product in cans and bottles from the
concentrate in combination with filtered water and sweeteners. The bottlers then sell,
distribute and merchandise Coca-Cola in cans and bottles to retail stores and vending
machines. Such bottlers include Coca-Cola Enterprises, which is the single largest Coca-
Cola bottler in North America and Europe. The Coca-Cola Company also sells
concentrate for fountain sales to major restaurants and food service distributors.

History

FirstName LastNameEarly years

Coca-Cola was invented in Columbus, Georgia, by John S. Pemberton, originally as a

cocawine called Pemberton's French Wine Coca. He was inspired by the formidable
success of European Angelo Mariani's cocawine, Vin Mariani.
In 1885, after Coca-Cola moved, when Atlanta and Fulton County passed Prohibition
legislation, Pemberton responded by developing Coca-Cola, essentially a carbonated,
non-alcoholic version of French Wine Cola. The beverage was named Coca-Cola because
originally, the stimulant mixed in the beverage was coca leaves from South America. In
addition, the drink was flavored using kola (Cola) nuts, the beverage's source of
caffeine. Pemberton called for 5 ounces of coca leaf per gallon of syrup, a significant
dose, whereas in 1891 Candler claimed his formula (altered extensively from
Pemberton's original) contained only a tenth of this amount. Favorable to popular belief,
Coca-Cola did actually contain cocaine at one point ([1], [2]) per se, which is a highly
refined extract of coca leaves and was always far too expensive to use in a mass-
market beverage. However, as cocaine is one of numerous alkaloids present in the coca
leaf, it was nevertheless present in the drink. Today, the flavoring is still done with kola
nuts and the coca leaf; however, the coca leaves used today are "spent" leaves - the
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leftovers of the cocaine-extraction process - however, one cannot extract cocaine out of
the leaf at a molecular level; therefore, the drink still contains trace amounts of the
stimulant.
Coca-Cola was initially sold as a patent medicine for five cents a glass at soda fountains,
which were popular in the United States at the time thanks to a belief that carbonated
water was good for the health. Pemberton claimed Coca-Cola cured myriad diseases,
including morphine addiction, dyspepsia, neurasthenia, headache, and impotence. The
first sales were made at Jacob's Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 8, 1886, and for
the first eight months only nine drinks were sold each day. Pemberton ran the first
advertisement for the beverage on May 29 of the same year in the Atlanta Journal.
By 1888, three versions of Coca-Cola — sold by three separate businesses — were on
the market. Asa Griggs Candler acquired a stake in Pemberton's company in 1887 and
incorporated it as the Coca Cola Company in 1888. The same year, while suffering from
an ongoing addiction to morphine, Pemberton sold the rights a second time to three
more businessmen: J.C. Mayfield, A.O. Murphey and E.H. Bloodworth. Meanwhile,
Pemberton's alcoholic son Charley Pemberton began selling his own version of the
product.[3]
In an attempt to clarify the situation, John Pemberton declared that the name Coca-Cola
belonged to Charley, but the other two manufacturers could continue to use the
formula. So, in the summer of 1888, Candler sold his beverage under the names Yum
Yum and Koke. After both failed to catch on, Candler set out to establish a legal claim to
Coca-Cola in late 1888, in order to force his two competitors out of the business.
Candler purchased exclusive rights to the formula from John Pemberton, Margaret
Dozier and Woolfolk Walker. However, in 1914, Dozier came forward to claim her
signature on the bill of sale had been forged, and subsequent analysis has indicated
John Pemberton's signature was most likely a forgery as well.[4]
In 1892, Candler incorporated a second company, The Coca-Cola Company (the current
corporation), and in 1910 Candler had the earliest records of the company burned,
further obscuring its legal origins. Regardless, Candler began aggressively marketing
the product — the efficiency of this concerted advertising campaign would not be
realized until much later. By the time of its 50th anniversary, the drink had reached the
status of a national icon for the USA.
Coca-Cola was sold in bottles for the first time on March 12, 1894, and cans of Coke
first appeared in 1955. The first bottling of Coca-Cola occurred in Vicksburg, Mississippi,
at the Biedenharn Candy Company in 1891. Its proprietor was Joseph A. Biedenharn.
The original bottles were Biedenharn bottles, very different from the much later hobble-
skirt design that is now so familiar. Asa Candler was tentative about bottling the drink,
but the two entrepreneurs who proposed the idea were so persuasive that Candler
signed a contract giving them control of the procedure. However, the loosely termed
contract proved to be problematic for the company for decades to come. Legal matters
were not helped by the decision of the bottlers to subcontract to other companies — in
effect, becoming parent bottlers.

World War II

Before and during World War II, Coca-Cola adopted an apparent policy of ignoring the
practice of eugenics and anti-Semitism by Nazi Germany. Several of Coke's top
executives in Germany were prominent members of the National Socialist German
Workers Party. The difficulty of shipping Coca-Cola concentrate to Germany eventually
led to the creation of a new drink under the Coca-Cola brand, Fanta.
When the United States entered World War II, Coke began to represent itself as a
patriotic drink by providing free drinks for soldiers of the United States Army. The
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United States Army permitted Coca-Cola employees to enter the front lines as
"Technical Officers" when in reality they rarely if ever came close to a real battle.
Instead, they operated Coke's system of providing refreshments for soldiers, who
welcomed the beverage as a reminder of home. As the Allies of World War II advanced,
so did Coke, which took advantage of the situation by establishing new franchises in the
newly occupied countries.
Coca-Cola set up bottling plants in several locations overseas to assure the drink's
availability to soldiers, setting the stage for the company's post-war overseas
expansion. The popularity of the drink exploded as American soldiers returned home
from the war with a taste for the drink. The beverage had become synonymous with the
American way of life.
For more corporate history, see The history of the Coca-Cola Company.

New Coke to the present

New Coke stirred up a controversy when it replaced the original Coca-Cola in 1985. The
original formula was reinstated as Coca-Cola Classic within a few months of the new
Coke's introduction into the market.
In 1985, Coca-Cola, amid much publicity, attempted to change the formula of the drink,
without changing its name. Some authorities believe that New Coke, as the
reformulated drink was marketed, was invented specifically to respond to its commercial
competitor, Pepsi. Double-blind taste tests indicated that most consumers preferred the
taste of Pepsi (which has more lemon oil, less orange oil, and uses vanillin rather than
vanilla) to Coke. In taste tests, drinkers are more likely to respond positively to sweeter
drinks, and Pepsi had the advantage over Coke because it is much sweeter. Coca-Cola
tinkered with the formula and created the new Coke. Follow-up taste tests revealed that
most consumers preferred the taste of New Coke to both Coke and Pepsi. The
reformulation was led by the then-CEO of the company, Roberto Goizueta, and the
president Don Keough.
It is unclear what part long-time company president Robert W. Woodruff played in the
reformulation. Goizueta claims that Woodruff endorsed it a few months before his death
in 1985; others have pointed out that, as the two men were alone when the matter was
discussed, Goizueta might have misinterpreted the wishes of the dying Woodruff, who
could speak only in monosyllables. It has also been alleged that Woodruff might not
have been able to understand what Goizueta was telling him.
The commercial failure of New Coke therefore came as a grievous blow to the
management of the Coca-Cola Corporation. It is possible that customers would not have
noticed the change if it had been made secretly or gradually, and thus brand loyalty
could have been maintained. Coca-Cola management was unprepared, however, for the
nostalgic sentiments the drink aroused in the American public; some compared
changing the Coke formula to rewriting the American Constitution.
The new Coca-Cola formula subsequently caused a public backlash. Gay Mullins, from
Seattle, Washington, founded the Old Cola Drinkers of America organization, which
attempted to sue the company, and lobbied for the formula of Old Coke to be released
into the public domain. This and other protests caused the company to return to the old
formula under the name Coca-Cola Classic on July 10, 1985. The company was later
accused of performing this volte-face as an elaborate ruse to introduce a new product
while reviving interest in the original. Donald Keough, company president at the time,
responded to the accusation by declaring: "Some critics will say Coca-Cola made a
marketing mistake. Some cynics will say that we planned the whole thing. The truth is
we are not that dumb, and we are not that smart."
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The Coca-Cola Company is the world's largest consumer of natural vanilla extract. When
New Coke was introduced in 1985, this had a severe impact on the economy of
Madagascar, a prime vanilla exporter, since New Coke used vanillin, a less-expensive
synthetic substitute. Purchases of vanilla more than halved during this period. But the
flop of New Coke brought a recovery.
Meanwhile, the market share for New Coke had dwindled to only 3% by 1986. In 1992
the company renamed the product "Coke II" (not to be confused with "Coke C2", a
reduced-sugar cola launched by Coca-Cola in 2004). However, sales falloff caused a
severe cutback in distribution. By 1998, it was sold in only a few places in the
Midwestern U.S.
On February 7, 2005, the Coca-Cola Company announced that in the second quarter of
2005 they planned a launch of a Diet Coke product sweetened with the artificial
sweetener sucralose ("Splenda"), the same sweetener currently used in Pepsi One. On
March 21, 2005, it announced another diet product, "Coca-Cola Zero", sweetened partly
with a blend of aspartame and acesulfame potassium.

Coca-Cola formula

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}} The exact formula of Coca-Cola is famously a trade secret. The original copy of the
formula is held in SunTrust Bank's main vault in Atlanta. Its predecessor, the Trust
Company, was the underwriter for the Coca-Cola Company's initial public offering in
1919.[5] A popular myth states that only two executives have access to the formula,
with each executive having only half the formula. The truth is that while Coca-Cola does
have a rule restricting access to only two executives, each knows the entire formula and
others, in addition to the prescribed duo, have known the formulation process.

Coca-Cola's advertising
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Specially designed Christmas labels featuring Santa Claus give a seasonal twist to these
Coca-Cola bottles. The characteristic shape of the bottles is trademarked. It was
designed to be universally recognizable, even when broken.
Coca-Cola's advertising has had a significant impact on American culture, and is
frequently credited with the "invention" of the modern image of Santa Claus as an old
man in red-and-white garments; however, while the company did in fact start
promoting this image in the 1930s in its winter advertising campaigns, it was already
common before that.[6] In the 1970s, a song from a Coca-Cola commercial called "I'd
Like to Teach the World to Sing", produced by Billy Davis, became a popular hit single,
but there is no evidence that it did anything to increase sales of the soft drink.
Coca-Cola has a policy of avoiding using children younger than the age of 12 in any of
its advertising as a result of a lawsuit from the beginning of the 20th century that
alleged that Coke's caffeine content was dangerous to children. However, in recent
times, this has not stopped the company from targeting young consumers. In addition,
it has not been disclosed in exact terms how safe Coke is for consumption by young
children (or pregnant mothers).
Coke's advertising has been rather pervasive, as one of Woodruff's stated goals was to
ensure that everyone on Earth drank Coca-Cola as their preferred beverage. Advertising
for Coke is now almost ubiquitous, especially in southern areas of North America, such
as Atlanta, where Coke was born.

Sport Event Sponsorships

Coca-Cola was the first-ever sponsor of the Olympic games, at the 1928 games in
Amsterdam and has been an Olympics sponsor ever since. This corporate sponsorship
included the 1996 Summer Olympics hosted in Atlanta, which allowed Coca-Cola to
spotlight its hometown. Since 1978 Coca-Cola is the main sponsor of FIFA and has
sponsored each FIFA World Cup and other competitions organised by FIFA. In fact, one
of the FIFA tournament trophy: FIFA World Youth Championship from Tunisia in 1977 to
Malaysia in 1997 was called "FIFA - Coca Cola Cup". In addition, Coca Cola sponsors the
annual Coca-Cola 600 for the NASCAR Nextel Cup auto racing series at Lowe's Motor
Speedway in Charlotte, North Carolina. Coca-Cola has a long history of sports marketing
relationships, which over the years have included Major League Baseball, the National
Football League, National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League, as
well as with many teams within those leagues. They also sponser the [[International
Rules football]] test game played between Australia and Ireland every year
During the 1980s, Pepsi-Cola ran a series of television advertisements showing people
participating in taste tests in which they expressed a preference for Pepsi over Coke.
Coca-Cola ran ads to combat Pepsi's ads in an incident sometimes referred to as the
cola wars; one of Coke's ads compared the so-called Pepsi challenge to two
chimpanzees deciding which tennis ball was furrier. Thereafter, Coca-Cola regained its
leadership in the market.
In an attempt to broaden its portfolio, Coca-Cola purchased Columbia Pictures in 1982.
Columbia provided subtle publicity through Coke product placements in many of its
films while under Coke's ownership. However, after a few early successes, Columbia
began to under-perform, and was dropped by the company in 1989.
Coca-Cola has gone through a number of different advertising slogans in its long
history, including "The pause that refreshes", "I'd like to buy the world a Coke", and
"Coke is it" (see Coca-Cola slogans).

Criticisms
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Acidity and urban legends

Coca-Cola has been the target of urban legends decrying the drink for its supposedly
copious amounts of acid (its pH value of 2.5 is midway between vinegar and gastric
acid), or the "life-threatening" effects of its carbonated water. These urban legends
usually take the form of "fun facts" — for example, "highway troopers use Coke to clean
blood from highways after accidents, "somebody once died in a Coke-drinking
competition," or "Coke can dissolve a tooth overnight". All of these claims are false.
(While Highway Troopers do not use Coca-Cola for this purpose, it was proven on the
television program MythBusters (a slightly scientific "myth testing" show) that Coca-
Cola can be used quite well as a blood cleaning agent.) Evidence has been presented in
numerous cases against Coca-Cola since the 1920s that decisively proves that the drink
is not more harmful than comparable soft drinks, or indeed acidic fruit juices like Mr
Juicy apple juice. Under normal conditions, its acidity causes no immediate harm.[7] A
2005 experiment by the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry found the pH of the
mouth to be 5.5, 5.6 and 5.7 5, 10 and 20 minutes (respectively) after swishing 15ml in
the mouth for one minute. None of those are in the critical range to damage tooth
enamel. Diet Coke was found to be slightly less acidic. [8]
One unusual use for Coke is as a rust-control substance—the phosphoric acid in coke
converts iron oxide to iron phosphate, and as such can be used as an initial treatment
for corroded iron and steel objects being renovated, etc. It has also been experimentally
used as a pesticide by Indian farmers in Andhra Pradesh.[9]
The numerous urban legends about Coca-Cola have led the Urban Legends Reference
Pages to devote a whole section of their site to "Cokelore". One false legend claims that
Coke was once green, or was accidentally carbonated when a clerk squirted syrup into
the wrong glass.

Adverse long-term health effects

While many nutritionists believe that "soft drinks and other calorie-rich, nutrient-poor
foods can fit into a good diet", it is generally agreed that Coca-Cola and other soft
drinks can be harmful if consumed to excess, particularly to young children whose soda
consumption competes with, rather than complements, a balanced diet.[10] Studies have
shown that regular soft drink users have a lower intake of calcium (which can contribute
to osteoporosis), magnesium, ascorbic acid, riboflavin, and vitamin A.[11]
The drink has also aroused criticism for its use of phosphoric acid[12] and caffeine.[13]
The soft drink industry dismisses many of these criticisms as urban myths.[14] There are
some reports that Coca-Cola is addictive, although the veracity of these reports has yet
to be established.
For more, see phosphoric acid in food.
Since the late 1980s in the US, Coke has been made with high fructose corn syrup
instead of sugar glucose/fructose. This was done largely due the prices of sugar
increasing during these times. There are some groups who criticize this move to use
high fructose corn syrup over sugar due to the fact that the corn in which the corn
syrup is maintained may come from genetically altered plants.
In India, the Centre for Science and Environment, a non-governmental organisation, in
2003 said aerated waters produced by soft drinks manufacturers, including
multinational giants Pepsico and Coca-Cola, contain pesticides and insecticides. Coke,
Pepsi, Seven Up, Mirinda, Fanta, Thums Up, Limca, Sprite and many others carry
"deadly" insecticides like lindane, DDT, malathion and chlorpyrifos.
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They conducted tests which showed that Pepsi's soft drink products had 36 times the
level of pesticide residues permitted under European Union regulations; Coca Cola's 30
times.
The CSE said in all 12 of the soft drinks it tested it found toxins including lindane, DDT,
malathion and chlorpyrifos — pesticides that can contribute to cancer and a breakdown
of the immune system. CSE said it had tested the same products in the US and found
no such residues. Coca Cola and PepsiCo, the US soft drinks companies, angrily denied
allegations that their products manufactured in India contained toxin levels far above
the norms permitted in the developed world.
Coca-Cola had registered a 15 percent drop in sales after the allegations were made.

Business practices

Main article: Coca-Cola Company: Criticisms

As the largest seller of soft drinks in the world, including its flagship Coca-Cola drink,
the Coca-Cola Company has been criticized for some of its corporate actions, from
issues such as monopolistic practices, reliance on low health standards, racist
employment practices, the privatization of water supplies, to the abuse of workers'
rights, including the assassination of union members. There are many criticisms of both
the company's products and trade practices.

• A number of universities in the UK, the U.S. and Ireland boycott Coca-Cola products
for concerns over human rights abuses.
• In India, the corporation has provoked a number of boycotts and protests as a result
of its perceived low standards of hygiene and adverse impact on the environment.
• Coca-Cola was denounced in the UK for weaning young children onto junk food.
• In Colombia, the company is alleged to be responsible for 179 major human rights
violations, including nine murders; this is undergoing international arbitration. Coca
Cola is suspected to have an armed paramilitary in order to prevent their workers
from setting up trade unions, which has resulted in leaders of said attempted trade
unions being murdered.

International appeal

Coca-Cola is the best-selling soft drink in most countries. Nevertheless, there are some
places like Scotland, where the locally produced Irn-Bru is more popular; Peru, where
Inca Kola, the "national beverage" (independently produced until 1999, when Coca-Cola
acquired Corporación Inca Kola del Perú S.A., the Peruvian company that formerly
produced it) is more popular; and Quebec, Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador, and
Prince Edward Island in Canada, where Pepsi is the market leader. In Sweden, despite
Coca-Cola's strong holiday-oriented marketing efforts, Julmust outsells Coca-Cola
during the Christmas season.
It is often repeated as an urban legend that the Coca-Cola company mistranslated its
product's name into a string of characters meaning "Bite the wax tadpole" while
attempting to market the product in Chinese. In reality, some local Chinese
shopkeepers did create their own signs in an effort to approximate the sound of the
product's name, resulting in kǒ ukē-kǒ ulà (口蝌口蜡), which might more literally be
translated as "mouth tadpole, mouth wax". However, the Coca-Cola company itself
never adopted such a translation. After reviewing all of the possible soundalikes, the
company officially adopted kěkǒ u-kělè (可口可乐), meaning roughly "tasty and fun".
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The drink as a political and corporate symbol

The Coca-Cola drink has a high degree of identification with the United States itself,
being considered an "American brand" or to a small extent as representing America
(compare Mickey Mouse). The drink is also often a metonym for the Coca-Cola
Company. The identification with the spread of American culture has led to the pun
"Coca-Colonisation".
Coke is less popular in other places, such as India, due to suspicions regarding the
health standards of the drink, and in Arab countries, due to disapproval of U.S. foreign
policy in Israel and elsewhere. Mecca Cola has become a hit in the Middle East in the
past few years.
Colombian trade Union SINALTRAINAL called for an international boycott of Coca-Cola
products because of intimidation, kidnapping and murder of workers in Coca Cola
bottling plants by paramilitaries who were allegedly acting on behalf of the Coca Cola
Company in order to drive down wages in Colombia. With the help of the United
Steelworkers of America, SINALTRAINAL filed a lawsuit against the Coca Cola Company.
As part of their 2005 "Experience The Experience" tour, art group monochrom created a
'Brick Of Coke': they put several gallons of Coca-Cola into a pot and boiled it down until
the residue left behind could be molded into a brick. The performance and talk dealt
with the sugar industry and other multinational corporation policies and Coca-Cola as a
symbol of corporate power.

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