The Cultural Iconicness of Coca-Cola

COCA-COLA'S RECOGNIZED BRAND IMAGE AND UNRECOGIZED HISTORIC FAULTS Written by Gabrielle Gronewold, Editor in Chief Photographed by Seth DeGier, Assistant Photography Director Modeled by Sophia Carel Makeup by Riley August, Makeup Director

My brother Myles has a deep admiration of Coca-Cola. So much so that he has a CocaCola memorabilia collection and gets a Coca-Cola ornament each

Christmas. I, on the other hand, get a shoe ornament each year. Myles has accumulated so many of these ornaments that each year my mom decorates an entire Christmas tree in red and white, sporting his collection.

Like my brother, Coca-Cola as its own entity is iconic, and routinely decorating a Christmas tree inspired by the brand isn’t that culturally odd. In fact,

Coca-Cola has become nearly synonymous with Christmas from a branding standpoint across the globe.

For decades, Coca-Cola has used the

Holiday season and specific Christmas traditions as a branding strategy. Every year around November, we begin to see polar bears, Santa Claus and the

Coca-Cola Christmas truck all in Coke’s advertising. The advertising nerd in me pinpoints this as a genius platform and execution that has created a legacy for the brand image, while the history nerd in me pinpoints this as a cultural force.

By no means did Coca-Cola invent

Santa Claus, but it did create the image of Santa Claus we recognize today. In 1931, Coca-Cola commissioned

Haddon Sundblom to paint Santa for its Christmas advertisements. Taking inspiration from the story of “‘Twas the

Night Before Christmas,” Sundblom featured a big white beard and belly, rosy cheeks, twinkling eyes and a joyful grin. The features depicted in this painting eventually garnered a connotation of the cultural image of Santa— and soon the most recognized version of this jolly old fellow became one with a cheeky grin and rosy cheeks.1

Long before Sundblom’s Santa depictions, however, came the origination of

Coca-Cola, which is a bit, well, loopier.

On May 8, 1886, Atlantic pharmacist

John S. Pemberton created the first

Coca-Cola drink, duped the “The Temperance Drink.” The alcohol-free beverage was intended to be a tonic for common ailments, using caffeine-rich extracts of the kola nut and coca leaf, otherwise used in cocaine—the cocaine was later eliminated from the formula in 1903.2 And that is now your new party fun fact!

Between selling his syrup to local soda fountains and advertising, Pemberton

¹ Coca Cola, “Five Things You Never Knew About Santa Claus and Coca-Cola,” Coca Cola. ² The Editors of Britannica. “The Coca-Cola History,” Britannica. found wild success. In 1891, Asa Griggs Chandler became owner of the company and trademarked the brand in 1893. Under Chandler, sales rose from 9,000 gallons of syrup in 1890 to 370,877 in 1900.3 Symbolizing the force of Coca-Cola as a business, brand and later conglomerate. Today, it stands as one of America’s biggest brands and has a global recognition that is unmatched. On average, there are 1.9 billion servings of Coca-Cola bought each day.4 This can be accredited to their advertising legacy. The company has employed a plethora of successful campaigns that each generation can claim and recall: From the 1971 “Hilltop” campaign featuring a group of free-loving folks singing The New Seeker’s “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing” on a hill;5 to the 2010 “Happiness Machine,” showing a single Coke vending machine which offers an abundance of gifts and drinks to passersby inspiring cheer;6 to the 2012 “Polar Bowl” ad

³ Ibid. ⁴ Coca-Cola, “Coca-Cola System,” Coca-Cola. ⁵ Coca-Cola, “Hilltop, I’d like the world to buy a Coke,” 1971, YouTube. ⁶ Coca-Cola, “Coca-Cola Happiness Machine,” which played during the Super Bowl, showing the famous Cola-Cola Polar Bears relieving game time viewership stress through a game of Coca-Cola catch.7 Through the evolution and ethical progress within the advertising industry, Coca-Cola has remained a powerful force in producing notable and recognizable ads—all of which fall under a brand platform of spreading happiness and togetherness through the beverage. Part of this platform can be seen through the efforts of the Coca-Cola Foundation. Originating in 1984, the foundation has awarded over $1.2 billion to various community initiatives, including recycling, women’s empowerment and youth development globally.8 The red thread that strings the brand together all comes back to a communal central theme of good feelings. One campaign where these good feelings really come to shine is the “Share a Coke” campaign. First starting down

January 12, 2010, YouTube. ⁷ Coca-Cola, “Catch,” February 3, 2012, YouTube. ⁸ Coca-Cola, “The Coca-Cola Foundation.” NOVEMBER 2021

under in 2011, the “Share a Coke” campaign was intended to create a more personal relationship with consumers and create shared experiences of happiness. The campaign took off and slowly spread across the world, allowing everyone to share a Coke with the ones they love.9 During that time, more than 125,000 social media posts referenced the “Share a Coke” Campaign between June and July of 2014 and 12% of all online conversations around the brand were centered around it. Over 353,000 virtual bottles of coke have been shared via the campaign’s website.10 The “Share a Coke” campaign is one of the most successful brand campaigns in history—a crowning jewel other brands chase to mimic.

This ultimately begs the question: Who is sharing a Coke? When first created, Coca-Cola was considered an “intellectual beverage among well-off whites” because they were the only ones who were allowed in segregated soda fountains. When the drink became bottled, accessibility went up and anyone with a nickel could purchase a Coke. Soon, due to the cocaine in the beverage, middle-class white folks rallied against the ingredients and newspapers started to report on “negro cocaine fiends,”11 as if the ones suddenly turning against the drink hadn’t popularized it in the first place. The true story behind the Coca-Cola formula change isn’t too far from modern conversations around the war on drugs and drug privilege. In fact, the elimination of cocaine from the drink came 11 years before the U.S. made cocaine illegal, arguably pointing to the fact that the racism behind Coke’s ingredient of “coke” foreshadowed what was to come over the next century. Next time you share a Coke, enjoy a Coke or even see the Coca-Cola bear this Holiday season, I urge you to really think about the brand for all it is worth. Well-recognized, historic brands do have histories that are often not separate from social issues. To be ethical consumers, we must acknowledge and learn from this while also looking into what these modern brands have changed for today. ■

⁹ Coca-Cola, “What was the ‘Share a Coke’ Campaign,” Coca-Cola Australia. 10 Nathalie Tadena, “Coke’s Personalized Marketing Campaign Gains Online Buzz,” July 15, 2014, WSJ. 11 Grace Hale, “When Jim Crwo Drank Coke,” Januaray 28th, 2013, New York Times.