Coke and The Coca Cola Company

The story of The Coca-Cola Company is fundamentally a story of marketing. The image presented by the World of Coca-Cola – the brand’s Atlanta-based corporate museum – reinforces a long-standing company tradition. The Coca-Cola saga has been reverentially preserved and nurtured over the years. As Coca-Cola was rocketing to fame, rumours of its cocaine content were stirring. A concerned citizen complained that ‘the ingredient which makes Coca-Cola so popular is cocaine … it is insidiously but surely getting thousands of people into the cocaine habit’. Coca-Cola’s growing need for lawyers was another sign of the company’s coming-of-age. Candler had complained of ‘bogus substitutes’ in his 1894 annual report. The success of Coca-Cola’s marketing and promotional activities spurred management to pay closer attention to the question of how to increase sales. The realisation that there was more future in Coca-Cola refreshment than medicine was a key insight.