Coca Cola Truck

Coca Cola Truck

Copyright Creative Commons

It was Atlanta which gave birth to the soft drinks industry’s masterpiece. John Styth Pemberton was a fifty-five-year-old druggist who dispensed his own preparations. He loathed alcohol and strove hard to produce the perfect soft drink. He produced first ‘the French Wine of Coca,’ an extract from the coca leaf, and then experimented with juice from the cola nut, knowledge of which had been brought to the south by slaves from Africa. It took him a long time to eliminate the bitterness, but he eventually managed a combination of the two drinks which was sweet, but not too sweet, and (as he thought) both soothing and stimulating. Then came the name, and ‘thinking that the two Cs would look well in advertising,’ he hit on Coca-Cola.
By 1905 Coke was advertised throughout America as ‘The Great National Temperance Drink.’

Pemberton sold out to Asa Griggs Candler in 1887, the year after he invented it. Candler was genius determined to make his mark on the nation’s health. In 1919, he sold the company to a consortium of Atlanta banks.

Coke had a religious approach. Its divisions into regions and districts were reminiscent of the classis system of 16th-century Calvinism and there were many aspects of Calvinism in its approach. A recruit to coke, went the message in the 1920s, better still a convert to Coke, was ‘born again.’ Coke was the best single example of the way the American religious spirit was transmuted into a secular force while still keeping its religious overtones. Harrison Jones, director of sales, said to a convention of bottlers: ‘Thank God for a Board of Directors and heads of business that came 100 percent clean and they give us more than we have ever had for sales and advertising. And they could have kept it for profits – but they didn’t do it, they gave it to us, and believe me, with your help and God’s help we are going to get them in 1923’ – a perfect illustration of Dr. Johnson’s dictum: ‘Sir, a man is seldom so innocently employed as in making money.’ Rather like a Christian sect, Coke never changed its product. Coke learned to treat itself, and its costumers – that is the entire nation – as a church, and above all a Congregational church, run by the pew-folk. The point was made by Robert Goizueta, Coke’s chief executive in the 1980s, when the calamitous descent into heresy over the formula occurred: ‘It was then that we learned that, if the shareholders think they owned this company, they are kidding themselves. The reality is that the American consumer owns Coca-Cola.’

Pepsi, a rival church, was also invented by a Southern druggist. Caleb D. Bradham, born in North Carolina, created ‘Brad’s Drink’ in the 1890s but change its name to Pepsi-Cola because he thought it could cure dyspepsia and bring relief to those suffering from peptic ulcers. Its ‘cola wars’ with Coke were essentially battles between rival churches. Roger E. Enrico, chief executive of Pepsi, said: ‘At Pepsi we like Cola Wars. We know they’re good for business – for all soft drinks brands. When the public gets interest in the Pepsi-Cola competition, often Pepsi doesn’t win at Coke’s expense and Coke doesn’t win at Pepsi’s. Everybody in the business wins. Consumer interest swells the market. The more fun we provide, the more people buy our products – all our products. The ‘wars’ were, he said, ‘a continuing battle without blood,’ fought on the pages of magazines and on the airwaves, where the messages were religious too. The Bible Belt uplift approach to selling soft drinks was especially marked in World War Two when the head of Coke made ‘a solemn pledge’ that properly iced Coke would be made available to all members of the US armed forces, wherever they were stationed. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, commanding the invasion of Europe, saw to it that ten separate bottling plants, which followed the front, were stretched across his entire command, to provide the maximum possible defense against alcohol. From first to last Coke and Pepsi were commercial rivals – separated churches – but the real enemy was hard liquor.

What a Wonderful World
Louis Armstrong