History of Coca-Cola

In the 1950s, newer sizes and models of the traditional Coca-Cola bottle were introduced. Customers could now choose between the 6.5 Contour Bottle, or larger ones including 10, 12 and 26 ounce versions. Also introduced in the 50s was a canned version of Coca-Cola, intended for American military bases located ouside the U.S. With the onset of television, the Coca-Cola Company began to advertise on T.V. in addition to their radio advertisements. In the 1960s, new brands emerged such as Sprite, Fanta, Fresca, and TAB. In 1960, Candler introduced the twelve ounce Coke, which had originally only been used outside the U.S., to local customers.

As technology in the 1970s and 80s led to a global economy, retail customers of the Coca-Cola Company merged and evolved into international mega-chains. Many small and medium-size bottler companies banded together in order to better serve giant international customers. In the early 1970’s, the Coca-Cola Company created a theme song called “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke”. By the mid 1970s, more than half of all Coca-Cola sold was sold outside the U.S. In 1978, the Coca-Cola Company introduced the two liter bottle, as well as the plastic bottle. In 1979, the Coca-Cola Company and its fifteen hundred employees moved to the new corporate headquarters in Atlanta.

In the 1980s, the Coca-Cola Company began testing people to see if they liked Coca-Cola or Pepsi better when blindfolded. They noticed that a lot more people liked the sweeter tasting Pepsi, so on April 23, 1985, the Coca-Cola company announced that they would change Coca-Cola to make it taste sweeter. Within six weeks of the announcement, the Coca-Cola Company’s 800 number was jammed with six thousand calls a day. They also received forty thousand letters, which were all answered with a coupon for the new Coke. After their market share fell from 15% to 1.5%, the Coca-Cola Company decided to revive the old Coke. So, eighty-seven days after the new Coke was introduced, the old Coke, titled Coca-Cola Classic, was brought back in addition to the new one. The 1980s also saw the addition of Diet Coke, which was hailed as the most successful product launch of the decade, despite its trouble during the 1985 change.

Political and economic changes in the 90s opened markets that had be undeveloped for decades. After the Berlin Wall fell, the Coca-Cola Company began to invest heavily in building plants in Easter Europe. 1.5 billion dollars were committed to building bottling facilities in Africa. In 1992, the “New Coke” was renamed “Coke II”, but its market shared continued to dwindle. By 1998, the sweeter Coke was sold only in a few places in the Midwestern U.S. In 1991, India changed its laws regarding trademarks, and Coca-Cola was allowed to be sold. In 1995, Coca-Cola sales exceeded $15 billion.

Today, in the 21st century, the Coca-Cola Company continues to expand and develop new products. In 2005, the Coca-Cola Company launched a Diet Coke product that is sweetened with the artificial sweetener sucralose “Slenda”, the same sweetener used in Pepsi One. It also made another diet product called Coca-Cola Zero. More recently, the Company has begun to sell a “healthy soda” called Diet Coke Plus with Vitamins B6, B12, Magnesium, Niacin, and Zinc. In 2007, in Canada, the Coca-Cola Company changed the “Coca-Cola Classic” back to “Coca-Cola” because the New Coke is no longer in production. The older, familiar formula remains unchanged to this day.