Coca-Cola@135: A mega brand and its iconic campaigns
By Kasim Bakare
Though beverage giant, Coca Cola may not have celebrated its 135th anniversary just like it did a decade ago when it launched a global TV commercial and several other activities to mark its 125th anniversary, the rich history of the iconic brand’s marketing campaigns in its 135 year existence would always evoke nostalgic memories across different generations.
For a brand like Coca-cola that has stayed in the public consciousness for 135 years, penetrating every remote corner of the plane, attributing its global success to its sheer power would amount to downplaying several marketing and brand building efforts that has propelled the brand to its mega brand status. In fact, several brands have often failed on the same trajectory because a brand can be recreated and duplicated by competitive companies.
In its unassailable brand journey, the company even launched a variety of successful (and not so successful) brand extensions. However, the core Coca-Cola brand has changed little in the 135 years since it debuted in 1886. Coke has stayed on top with the help of unique marketing techniques and constant innovation despite its humble beginning.
The brand has managed to analyze consumers’ needs while moving with the ever changing market cycles in order to meet and exceed consumers’ expectations. Even from its brand identity trajectory, its several re-branding efforts have yielded phenomenal success with the brand listed as the fifth most popular brand in the world.
Consider its Logo. Coca-Cola demonstrated that timeless brands do exist, and tangible elements of a brand identity can be timeless, too.. Thinking that ‘the two Cs would look well in advertising,’ Dr. John Pemberton’s [the inventor of Coca-Cola] partner and bookkeeper, Frank M. Robinson, suggested the name and penned the now famous trademark “Coca-Cola” in his unique script.
With several minor tweaks to the first logo, the brand has consistently been effective in ensuring it appeals to generation after generation of consumers than large-scale rebranding efforts would do.
Even the Coca-Cola bottle, dubbed the “contour bottle” by the company, has remained extremely similar to the version developed in 1900. The materials changed, and the shape has been tweaked, but the basic, iconic design is still the same. Today, it is still the most recognized bottle in the world. Even the brand’s content formula, which remains one of the best kept trade secret in the world, has created a humongous mystery and enigma from the world number 1 carbonated soft drink.
Coca-Cola has treated the world to a rendezvous of sort through its litany of marketing campaigns. The brand has evolved with several slogans and advertising campaigns across different generations using stories that resonated with time. The behemoth of the Coca Cola brand, an aggregation of timeless marketing campaigns and consistent brand building efforts have helped to increase and sustain its brand equity despite stiff competition from other brands.
During the early years
At the start of the twentieth century when prohibition had grabbed the American public by the neck, Coca-Cola advertised itself as an alternative to alcohol. During the same time the brand’s visual print ads had images of pretty and classy female celebrities starting with Hilda Clark. This targeted their marketing towards the elite classes branding the drink as something to be associated with wealth and good lifestyle.
Due to the lack of a regulatory board for advertising at that time, Coca-Cola passed itself as a refreshing health drink making many people believe it to be a cure for cough.
Coca-Cola’s advertising campaign from the 1930’s to the 1960’s shaped modern culture of The Christmas Icon every kid cares about. Haddon Sundblom illustrated the figure of the fat and festively jolly, old man in the red and white attire in order to brand the red and white logo of Coca-Cola that is used even today. Saint Nicholas, a children’s delight, who is more commonly called Santa Claus, was given his current public image due to this sweetened soda maker’s advertising campaign. There were many varied visualizations of Santa before Coke’s Ad campaign.
During that era, this company brought out an experimental product packaging concept in the form of the six-pack box that held six glass bottles of Coca-Cola. This was later popularized by breweries selling six-packs both in bottles and in tin-cans.
From the 30’s
In the 30’s the company targeted their advertising to the working class men as a refreshment to be taken during breaks. This made the product an every-man’s drink. Later in the 60’s the soda fountain was disappearing from commercial areas and bottled drinks were gaining popularity by the masses. This helped Coca-Cola as they were one of the earliest branded sodas to be bottled. They were experimenting with bottle designs and structures to find a unique shape that people would associate with Coke. This led to many designs over the years.
The concept of a float drink was pioneered by Coca-Cola in an attempt to get consumers to get back to drinking sodas through glasses instead of just bottles. An Ad poster showed scoops of ice-cream floating on pints of Coke. This changed the fast food culture.
The tag-line Things go better with Coke was used to connect the drink with almost any event, sport, show, act and part of life. It’s the real thing. Coke. – This was another tag-line which appeared around the same time, branding on the uniqueness of the bottle making Coke stand apart from new entrants to the cola market like Pepsi.
From the ‘70s
Then during the 70’s Coke included coloured folks of oppressed races in their advertisements in order to diversify their consumer base. With the fame of Bacardi rum in the 80’s, there were posters jointly promoting how Coke can be mixed well with Bacardi rum. This led to the culture of Coke blending well with booze.
Before the 80’s there was a radical spread of Coke into world markets like India, Macau, Turkey, Paraguay and the Philippines. When Coke became available in every corner of the world, it was now a global brand. The widespread business expansion led to the company experimenting with different flavors of soda like Fanta and Sprite. The soda empire had conquered the planet by the late 80’s and had heavily influential TV advertisements that emotionally moved the local audiences. This was a result of good market research that understood the varied cultures and interests of the consumers of Coke in every region.
The late 80’s marked a huge blunder for the brand as they blindly changed their flagship product into New Coke, to compete with Pepsi. This change was received with heavy backlashes as the world had grown a connection with the original flavor. Soon the Diet Coke was introduced with its low calorie marketing strategy. This supposedly healthy product is still a highly popular commodity.
Start of the ’90s and further on
Their 90’s Ad campaign involved a family of polar bears watching the Northern lights on the Arctic icecaps. This is the company’s most popular Ad campaign after introducing the mainstream image of Santa Claus.
In recent times, Coke has rampantly used guerilla marketing techniques like their Happiness Machine and the Happiness Truck, which involved many people across the world, engaging them with the Coke brand.
The Open Happiness campaign by Coke which started in India involved many popular actors and sportsmen to endorse the soda brand to the South Asian consumers. Coke now offers over 500 brands and products over the world and manages to sell over two billion servings every single day.
On May 8, 2021, Coca-Cola Company celebrated its 135th anniversary. With a history that spans more than a century, it is no surprise that the brand has seen many changes since it first began. From selling nine drinks a day at Jacobs’ Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia to selling about 19,400 beverages every second around the world, the Coca-Cola Company has changed over the years and the evolution has affected its business.
About Coca Cola
Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by The Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton and was bought out by businessman Asa Griggs Candler, whose marketing tactics led Coca-Cola to its dominance of the world soft-drink market throughout the 20th century.
The drink’s name refers to two of its original ingredients: coca leaves, and kola nuts (a source of caffeine). The current formula of Coca-Cola remains a trade secret; however, a variety of reported recipes and experimental recreations have been published. The drink has inspired imitators and created a whole classification of soft drink: colas.
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