Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola is the trademarked name (registered 1893) for a popular soft drink sold in stores, restaurants and vending machines around the world. It is also popularly known as Coke, which the company also claims as a trademark. Coca-Cola also registered a trademark on the distinctive bottle shape in 1960. Coca-Cola was sold in bottles for the first time starting on March 12, 1894 and cans of Coke first appeared in 1955.
Coca-Cola's name derived from the coca leaves and kola fruits used as flavoring. The exact Coca-Cola Formula is a legendary trade secret. Reportedly a copy of the formula is held in a safe in Atlanta with only two corporate officers having access.
The distinctive "cola" flavor comes mostly from the mix of sugar, and of the essential oils of orange, lemon and vanilla. The other ingredients change the flavor only very slightly.
In the United States, however, Coca-Cola is now sweetened with corn syrup, causing the flavor to be blunted. Coca-Cola with sugar is still available in Canada, Mexico, Europe, and in certain American markets during Passover.
In the original formula, the natural cocaine content of the coca leaves, and caffeine from kola nuts, provided the drink's stimulant effect. Shortly after the turn of the century, cocaine was removed from the coca leaves by processing (leaving a physiologically insignificant trace), and the amount of caffeine was reduced. The company's web site states on this issue that "Coca-Cola does not contain cocaine or any other harmful substance, and cocaine has never been an added ingredient for Coca-Cola". It should be noted that such a statement is entirely consistent with the presence of cocaine in the coca leaves in the original formulation. [1] [1]
The coca-leaf processing is done at the only licensed coca-leaf processing plant in the U.S, in New York City. Importation of leaves to other facilities is a felony. It is rumoured that the only reason the relevant laws have a licensing provision is because of lobbying by Coca-Cola Corporation.
Coca-Cola Corporation is the world's largest customer of natural vanilla extract. When New Coke was introduced in 1985, the economy of Madagascar crashed, and only recovered after New Coke flopped. The reason is that New Coke uses vanillin, a less-expensive synthetic substitute, and purchases of vanilla more than halved during this period.
The company owned Columbia Pictures from 1982 to 1989.
Coca-Cola is the market leader for soft drinks in all countries of the world, except Scotland, where the locally produced Irn Bru is more popular, and Quebec, Canada, where Pepsi is the market leader.
Coca-Cola was formulated by John S. Pemberton, originally as a cocawine called Pemberton's French Wine Coca, and originally sold as a patent medicine for five centss a glass at soda fountains, which were popular in America due to a contemporary view that soda water was good for your health. The first sales were at Jacob's Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 8th, 1886, and for the first eight months, only thirteen drinks per day were sold. Pemberton then ran the first advertisement for the beverage on May 29 of the same year in the Atlanta Journal.
The drink and its advertising campaigns have had significant impact on American culture. The company is frequently credited for "inventing" the modern image of Santa Claus as an old man in red-white garments; however, while the company did in fact promote this image starting in the 1930s in its winter advertising campaigns, it was already common before that time [1]. In the 1970s, a song from a Coca-Cola commercial called "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" became a popular hit single.
Advertisment for New Coke
The commercial failure of New Coke was therefore a grievous surprise to the management of Coca-Cola Corporation. Quite possibly, if they had made the change either secretly, or gradually, no notice would have occurred and their brand loyalty would have been unchanged.
The new Coca-Cola formula caused a public backlash. Gay Mullins, from Seattle, WA, USA, founded the Old Coke Drinkers of America and attempted to sue the company, and make the formula of old coke public domain. This and other events caused the company to return to the old formula under the name Coca-Cola Classic on July 10, 1985. The company was later suspected of playing this move as an elaborate charade to both introduce a new product and revive interest in the original. The company president responded to the accusation with "We are not that stupid, or that smart."
Meanwhile, the market share for the new product dwindled to only 3% by 1986. The company renamed the product "Coke II" in 1990, but sales falloff caused a severe cutback in distribution. By 1998 it was only sold in a few places in the midwestern U.S.
During the 1990s, Pepsi-Cola began running television advertisements showing people doing blind taste tests in which they preferred their product over Coke. Coca-Cola ran ads to combat Pepsi's ads in an incident sometimes referred to as the cola wars.
Diet CokeOverview
History
The Coca-Cola Corporation also produces a number of other soft drinks including Fanta, Sprite, Pibb, Mello Yello, and the bottled waters Dasani and Bonaqa. Coca-Cola also owns the Minute Maid brand of fruit juices.
Coca-Cola's greatest rival is Pepsi-Cola. Mecca-Cola has been marketed as a pro-Palestinian alternative.
Coca-Cola is accused of having ordered crimes against of union leaders in Colombia, with the help of paramilitary groups. Coca-Cola admits that these crimes have occurred, but claims no part in the kidnappings, murders, and episodes of torture, and asserts a code of ethics which "vigorously condemn[s] all forms of violence and unwarranted use of force." However, critics allege an association between Coca-Cola bottling subsidiaries and the paramilitaries. Coca-Cola has, in fact, profited from these misfortunes: the violent breaking of unions has resulted in reduced labor costs.
Several colleges and universities in the United States and Ireland have ended contract associations with the company. The students initiating these motions have felt that Coca-Cola has not been proactive enough in stopping the Colombian atrocities. Carleton College's student government, which has control over the college's vending contracts, voted to deny Coca-Cola renewal on March 8, 2004. This move is expected to precipitate further revocations in the months ahead.
It has been said that Coca-Cola's success was partly due to their co-operation with Nazi Germany. Sometimes, as the Nazis conquered new territory, Coca-Cola opened bottling plants there. This included places such as Austria and Sudetenland.
Max Keith, the leading bottler for Coca-Cola under Nazi Germany, actually joined the Nazi Party. Ostensibly, this was in order to lobby against prohibitions on the syrup used in manufacture of Coca-Cola.
Throughout the Nazi Party's reign, from 1933 to 1945, Coca-Cola sold millions of bottles to Germany, having 43 bottling plants and 639 local distributors under the Third Reich by 1939. Coca-cola was not the only American company to co-operate with the Nazis, of course. Standard Oil for instance, had much more direct involvement with the Nazis.
Coca-Cola was banned from import in India in 1970 for having refused to release the list of its ingredients. In 1993, the ban was lifted, with Pepsi arriving on the market shortly afterwards. One study led by the Center for Science and the Environment (CSE), an independent laboratory in New Delhi, found that the sodas contained residues of dangerous pesticides, with one dose 36 times greater than the European standard for Pepsi, and 30 times greater for Coca-Cola. The presence of these products could provoke cancers, negatively affect the nervous and immune systems, and cause birth defects. No law bans the presence of pesticides in drinks in India.
In the state of Kerala, one agency reported that it found 201.8 milligrams of cadmium per kilogram in the mud coming from the factory, which is offered as fertilizer to farmers. This dose, four times greater than normal doses, could lead to cancer.
The non-governmental organization Greenpeace could also have found a rate greater than the standard criteria and asked for the closing of the production site.
In response to the news, numerous Indians burned bottles of these two brands of soda in the streets. The Indian government asked for a comparable study of soda bottles destined for markets in the United States.
On August 6, 2003, India asked for the withdrawal from circulation of Coca-Cola and Pepsi products.
Pendergrast, Mark: For God, Country, and Coca Cola: The Definitive History of the Great American Soft Drink and the Company That Makes It. New York: Basic Books, 2000 (second edition; ISBN 0465054684).
Colombia Controversy
Coke Under the Third Reich
Health-related and environmental accusations against Coca-Cola
Notable Employees of Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola slogans
The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as Ke-kou-ke-la. Unfortunately, the company did not discover until after thousands of signs had been printed that the phrase meant "bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax", depending on the dialect. It then researched 40,000 Chinese characters and found a close phonetic equivalent, ko-kou-ko-le, which can be loosely translated as "happiness in the mouth". [1]Bibliography
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