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Coca Cola is a carbonated drink created in the US in the 19^th century as a medicine by John Pemberton.

It was then called Pemberton’s French Wine Cola and it was said that it could cure almost everything from impotence to a simple headache.

Later on Pemberton’s company was bought by Asa Griggs Candler and he made Coca Cola’s dominance on the world market in the beginning of the 20^th century.

The beverage was called Cola because of the coca leaves mixed in the beverage which were imported from South America.

The drink was flavored with kola nuts, source of caffeine. Coca Cola was first sold in bottles in 1894 and the cans came in use in 1955. The formula was first created by Pemberton as he was the creator of the drink. It was five ounces of cola leaf per gallon of syrup. That was quite enough to put a person permanently out of order if he would drink too much of it. Candler changed the formula so it would contain only a tenth of the original one. In 1904 the Coca Cola company stopped using fresh cola leaves because of the overwhelming addiction and started to use spent leaves. Spent leaves were the leftovers from cocaine extraction process. From then till now Coca Cola has used only non-narcotic leaves which were specially prepared. The only authorized manufacturing plant for importing and processing cola is the Stepan Company which is located in Maywood New Jersey in the United States.

The famous logo of Coca Cola was created in 1885 by John Pemberton’s bookkeeper Frank Mason Robinson.

Robinson suggested the name and the distinctive curved script.

The world famous bottle design of Coca Cola was created in 1915 by Earl Dean who was a designer at the company at that time.

By 1920 Deans bottle was the standard bottle used by the company. It was called contour bottle or hobble skirt.

The War With Pepsi

Pepsi and Cola have always been competitors and they have always used their dirty tricks.

Nowadays Pepsi is considered second to Coke but it is not entirely true. Pepsi outsells Cola in some localities.

From the Second World War till recently Coca Cola has been considered the highest selling beverage in the entire world. But how could Coca Cola be everywhere? Well its quite simple really. The Coca Cola company produces and distributes Cola following a franchised model. The company only gives exclusive rights to one company in each country and supplies them with a secret syrup concentrate.

After that the company has to mix the syrup with filtrated water, put sugar or sweetener and carbonate it before putting the concentrate into the bottles or cans.

The bottling company, after that, sells the drink to various stores, restaurants, malls etc.

Coca Cola Advertising

Coca Cola is considered to have great impact on American culture, beliefs etc.

It was Coca Cola who made Santa Claus into a red-panted, long white-bearded old man who typically says Ho Ho Ho wherever he goes.

Cola, before using Santa for its selling campaigns, used smartly dressed young women for advertising.

In 1895 appeared the first advertisement of that kind which featured the young Bostonian actress Hilda Clark.

However the Coca Cola company has always avoided using children under the age of 12 in advertising but that didn’t stop them from targeting young people as their main consumers.

The decision of not using children was a result of the many lawsuits which stated that Cola’s impact on children can lead to total addiction and physical damages.

The Cola Wars is a war which started in the 40s and 50s of the 20^th century and continues till now.

During the 1980s Pepsi made an experiment with Cola consumers. The results were surprising 50% of all chose Cola and 50% chose Pepsi as their preferred beverage. Those results eminently showed that there is little difference to consumers if they drink Pepsi or Cola.

Sponsorship And Olympic Games

Coca Cola is famously known for its sponsorship at Olympic games, football, ski competitions and other sport events.

Coca Cola was the first Olympic games sponsor at the 1928 Olympic games which were held at Amsterdam. Coca Cola has also sponsored FIFA World Cup, the Cricket World Cup in 1996 , the Premier League in England etc. They also have a long history with marketing relationships with various companies, Leagues and associations.

Criticisms About How Healthy Cola Is

A large number of lawsuits have started to shake the common peoples trust of Cola’s non dangerous effect on people. Recently it has been stated by some victims of coke that it is toxic because of the baseless acidity levels. Also that it is very addictive because of the high caffeine levels and physical dependence is inevitable. Cola is said to cause the human organism to intake less calcium, magnesium , vitamin A, which could lead to a large number of sicknesses, from a permanent peptic ulcer in the duodenum to osteoporosis. Despite all this consumers of Cola have in fact grown in number. Cola will forever be a key figure in the beverage industry and although its many critics it will stay in history as the drink that changed the world.

Bibliography

• www.cokeworld.it/coke2.htm
• www.tmcrew.org/killamulti/cocacola/COCACOLA_scheda.pdf
• www.tesionline.it/ricerca/parola-chiave.jsp?keyword=coca%20cola

Iconography

• www.ippocampoalcirceo.it/index.asp?a=1f
• alyniel.spaces.live.com/
• profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user

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