Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola (also known as Coke, Coke being a trademark of Coca Cola Company after it was discovered many people called it by that particular name) is a popular carbonated cola soft drink sold in stores, restaurants and vending machines in more than 140 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company, which is also occasionally referred to as Coca-Cola or Coke. It is one of the world's most recognizable and widely sold commercial brands. Coke's major rival is Pepsi.
Originally intended as a patent medicine when it was invented in the late 19th century, 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 urban legends of perverse side-effects on the health of consumers and accusations of monopolistic practices, Coca-Cola has remained a popular soft drink well into the first decade of the 21st century.
History
Early years
Coca-Cola was invented by John S. Pemberton, a former lieutenant colonel in the Confederate States Army, in 1886 in Columbus, Georgia, originally as a cocawine called Pemberton's French Wine Coca. He was inspired by the European formidable success of the Mariani's cocawine.
The beverage was named Coca-Cola because originally, the stimulant mixed in the beverage was cocaine, which came from coca leaves of South America. Also, the drink was flavored using kola (Cola) nuts. Today, the stimulant has been changed to caffeine instead, but the flavoring is still done with kola nuts and the coca leaf. The cocaine, however, has been extracted from the leaves and the drink contains no trace of the drug. It was initially sold as a patent medicine for five cents a glass at soda fountains, which were popular in America at the time thanks to a belief that carbonated water was good for the health. It was relaunched as a soft drink to accord with the principles of the Temperance movement. 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.
Asa Griggs Candler bought out Pemberton and his partners in 1887 and began aggressively marketing the product — the efficacy 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.
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.
When the United States entered World War II, Coke was provided free to American soldiers, as a patriotic drink. The popularity of the drink exploded as American soldiers returned home from the war with a taste for the drink.
For more corporate history, see The history of the Coca-Cola Company.
New Coke to the present
In 1985, Coca-Cola, amid much publicity, attempted to change the formula of the drink. Some authorities believe that New Coke, as the reformulated drink was called, 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. New Coke was reformulated in a way that emulated Pepsi. Followup 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, USA, founded the Old Coke 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. The company president responded to the accusation by declaring: "We are not that stupid, or that smart."
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. The company renamed the product "Coke II" in 1992 (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.
Coca-Cola formula
The exact Coca-Cola formula is a legendary 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 ([1]). An urban legend 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
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 [2]. 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. The 1996 Summer Olympics were hosted in Atlanta, and as a result, Coca-Cola effectively received free advertising. Coca-Cola was also the first-ever sponsor of the Olympic games, at the 1928 games in Amsterdam.
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 underperform, 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).
Controversies surrounding the Coca-Cola drink
Health issues
Urban legends about Coca-Cola
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, "Coke can dissolve a tooth in 24-48 hours"; "highway troopers use Coke to clean blood from highways after accidents"; or "somebody once died in a Coke-drinking competition". All of these stories are false, and 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. It contains less citric acid than an orange. [3] [4] [5]. However, one unusual use for coke that is not an urban legend 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.
The numerous urban legends about Coca-Cola have led the Urban Legends Reference Pages to devote a whole section of their site to "Cokelore".
Suspected 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" [6], 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 complementing, a balanced diet. 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. [7] [8]
The drink has also aroused criticism for its use of phosphoric acid [9] and caffeine [10], though many of these criticisms have been dismissed by the industry as urban myths. [11] [12]
For more, see phosphoric acid in food.
Other criticisms
As the largest seller of soft drinks in the world, the Coca-Cola Company has had its fair share of criticism for anything from monopolistic practices to low health standards, and racist employing practices. It has been accused of consorting with paramilitary groups and even of sponsoring assassinations in its frequent clashes with unions in South America. There are many controversies surrounding the company, its products and its trade practices. Coca-Cola has recently been denounced in the UK for weaning young children onto junk food. 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 in India
Coca-Cola was banned from import in India in 1970 as a result of the corporation's refusal to release the list of its ingredients. In 1993, the ban was lifted in pursuance of India's Liberalization policy. Soon after the relaunch, a study led by the Center for Science and the Environment (CSE) - an independent scientific laboratory in New Delhi - found that Coca-Cola, along with competitor Pepsi, contained residues of dangerous pesticides at levels some thirty times the prescribed Indian and European norms. There were instances of substandard bottling practices by the company: the notorious discovery of a dead lizard inside a sealed Coca-Cola bottle was widely publicized. Environmental degradation in the form of depletion of the local ground water table due to the utilization of natural water resources by the company posed a serious threat to many communities. Finally, there were suspicions surrounding the addictive nature of the drink. As the company refused to disclose the exact ingredients, this remains a matter of speculation. In response to these allegedly unethical practices, several non-governmental organizations launched anti-Coca-Cola campaigns in India.
In addition, the Coca-Cola production facility in Kerala has been blamed for a drastic decline in both quanitity and quality of water available to local farmers and villagers. The plant has the capacity to draw 1.5 million liters of water from the ground each day. As water is viewed as a public good in India, there is no regulatory agency to challenge this. Reacting to villager complaints that water supplies had rapidly dwindled and were murky (several tests suggest that the water was undrinkable), the High Court in Kerala ruled in 2003 that the plant could only use as much water as any other landowner with 34 acres (140,000 m²) in the region. The case has been appealed and a decision is pending.
On December 7 2004, India's Supreme Court ruled that both Coca-Cola and competitor Pepsi must label all cans and bottles of the respective soft drinks with a consumer warning after tests showed unacceptable levels of residual pesticides. Both companies continue to maintain that their products meet all international safety standards.
Coca-Cola bottlers and trade unions
Coca-Cola bottler Panamco has been criticized for its relationship with unions. In Colombia, it has been alleged that the bottling company hired paramilitary mercenaries to assassinate union leaders. In January 2004, the New York City Fact-Finding Delegation on Coca-Cola in Colombia [13] [14] confirmed the workers' allegations. They found
- To date, there have been a total of 179 major human rights violations of Coca-Cola's workers, including nine murders. Family members of union activists have been abducted and tortured. Union members have been fired for attending union meetings. The company has pressured workers to resign their union membership and contractual rights, and fired workers who refused to do so.
- Most troubling to the delegation were the persistent allegations that paramilitary violence against workers was done with the knowledge of and likely under the direction of company managers. The physical access that paramilitaries have had to Coca-Cola bottling plants is impossible without company knowledge and/or tacit approval. ...
Critics argue that, whatever their source, these assassinations seem to have been helpful to Coca-Cola in eliminating troublemakers from their bottling plants. The bottler and The Coca-Cola Company deny these allegations.
In the 1980s, Guatemala also suffered a spate of mysterious murders of union-affiliated Coca-Cola employees. At one point, paramilitary mercenaries violently occupied a factory. Eventually, after pressure from several organisations worldwide, the conflict was ended when the corporation appointed a new franchise operator who brokered a deal with the union.
There have been troubled (but slightly less publicized) relations between the company and unions in other parts of the world, notably the Philippines, Zimbabwe, and even the United States. In 2002, two Coca-Cola shareholders, the Christian Brothers, presented a resolution at the shareholders' meeting that called for Coca-Cola to adopt a code of conduct on bottling practices and employee relations. The shareholders rejected the resolution, despite the fact that it had received almost unanimous union support in the aforementioned countries.
In July 2004, the United Steelworkers of America and the International Labor Rights Fund filed suit in US court against Coca-Cola and some bottlers in Colombia on behalf of their workers. According to the plaintiffs, the companies "hired, contracted with or otherwise directed paramilitary security forces". The companies deny the charges.
Implications of doing business in Israel/Palestine
A common belief is that Coca-Cola supports Israel, or Palestine, depending on the proclivities of the urban mythologist. For example, a controversy arose in Egypt when a consumer mistook an Ethiopian inscription on a Coca-Cola bottle for Hebrew, sparking anger amongst Arab consumers of the drink. Coke's Egyptian manager reassured the press that the company would never open a bottling plant in Israel, thereby immediately escalating a local controversy almost to the status of an international incident.
In truth, Coca-Cola had attempted to open a plant in Israel in 1949, but the Israeli government refused the permit, and the company did not push the issue further. A boycott began in the United States, leading to Coke's announcement that they would open a plant in Tel Aviv. This caused fury amongst Arab consumers of Coca-Cola, who in turn — led by the Arab League (with the exception of Egypt, whose boycott only lasted till 1979) — boycotted Coke until 1991.
Pepsi also suffered from boycotts in America after intentionally avoiding Israel. This controversy eventually subsided when Pepsi entered the Israeli market in 1992. [15]
In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, rumors abounded that Coke supported Israel with donations. Although they turned out to be false, numerous calls were made for a boycott against Coca-Cola in the Middle East. However, as a substantial amount of Coca-Cola is produced in a plant in Ramallah, some believe that such boycotts would likely hinder rather than help the Palestinian cause. [16]
Along with McDonald's, Coca-Cola has become an international symbol of American culture, and especially of American consumerism. While the company still enjoys widespread popularity, some backlash has occurred, mostly in the form of boycotts in the Middle East. A French Tunisian, Tawfiq Mathlouthi, launched a new brand of Cola, dubbed Mecca-Cola, to protest American foreign policy in the Middle East. The company donates 10% of its profits to Palestinian charities.
Popularity
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, and Quebec and Prince Edward Island, Canada, where Pepsi is the market leader. Coke is less popular in other places, including some Middle Eastern and Asian countries such as the Palestinian territories and India — in the latter, due to suspicions regarding the health standards of the drink, and in the former, due to anti-American sentiment or the perception that Coca-Cola supports Israel. Mecca Cola, an "Islamically correct" brand, has become a hit in the Middle East in the past few years.
References
- 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).
- Zyman, Sergio: The End of Marketing as We Know It. New York: HarperBusiness (1st edition (June 1, 1999) ISBN 0887309860).
See also
Criticism
- www.cokewatch.org
- www.killercoke.org - Campaign to stop the murder and torture of union leaders working at Coca-Cola plants in Colombia
- Coca-Cola Goes to War