Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola (also known as Coke) is a popular carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants and
vending machines in over one hundred and forty countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola
Company, which is also occasionally referred to as Coca-Cola or Coke. It is one of the world's most
recognizable and widely sold commercial brands. Coke's major rival is Pepsi. Although Coke has
been the target of urban legends about its safety and the ethics of the company that produces it, it
is widely accepted as the most dominant soft drink in the world today.

Originally intended as a patent medicine when it was invented in the late 19th century, Coca-Cola
was bought out by shrewed businessman Asa Griggs Candler, whose aggressive marketing tactics
led Coke to its dominance of the world soft drink market throughout the 20th century. Although
faced with accusations of perverse side-effects on the health of consumers and monopolistic
practices by its producing company, Coca-Cola has remained a popular soft drink well into the first
decade of the 21st century.

History

Early years
Coca-Cola was invented by John S. Pemberton in 1886 in Columbus, Georgia, originally as a
cocawine called Pemberton's French Wine Coca. It was initially sold as a patent medicine for five
cents a glass at soda fountains, which were popular in America at the time thanks to a belief that
carbonated water was good for the health. It was relaunched as a soft drink to counter Prohibition.
The first sales were made at Jacob's Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia on May 8, 1886, and for the first
eight months only thirteen drinks were sold each day. Pemberton then ran the first advertisement
for the beverage on May 29 of the same year in the Atlanta Journal.

Asa Griggs Candler bought out Pemberton and his partners in 1887 and began aggressively
marketing the product — the efficacy of this concerted advertising campaign would not be realized
until much later. By the time of its 50th anniversary, the drink had reached the status of a national
symbol.

Coca-Cola was sold in bottles for the first time on March 12, 1894 and cans of Coke first appeared
in 1955. The first bottling of Coca-Cola occured in Vicksburg, Mississippi at the Biedenharn Candy
Company in 1891. Its proprietor was Joseph A. Biedenharn. The original bottles were Biedenharn
bottles, very different from the much later hobble-skirt design that is now so familiar. Asa Candler
was tentative about bottling the drink, but the two entrepreneurs who proposed the idea were so
persuasive that Candler signed a contract giving them control of the procedure. However, the
loosely-termed contract proved to be problematic for the company for decades to come. Legal
matters were not helped by the decision of the bottlers to subcontract to other companies — in
effect, becoming parent bottlers.

When the United States entered World War II, Coke was provided free to American soldiers, as a
patriotic drink. The popularity of the drink exploded in the wake of World War II as American
soldiers returned home, more grateful than ever to partake of a beverage that had become
synonymous with the American way of life.

New Coke to the present

In 1985, Coca-Cola, amid much publicity, attempted to change the formula of the drink. Some
authorities believe that New Coke, as the reformulated drink was called, was invented specifically
to respond to its commercial competitor, Pepsi. Double-blind taste tests indicated that most
consumers preferred the taste of Pepsi (which has more lemon oil, less orange oil, and uses vanillin
rather than vanilla) to Coke. New Coke was reformulated in a way that emulated Pepsi. Followup
taste tests revealed that most consumers preferred the taste of New Coke to both Coke and Pepsi.
The reformulation was led by the then-CEO of the company, Roberto Goizueta, and the President
Don Keough.

It is unclear what part long-time company president Robert W. Woodruff played in the
reformulation. Goizueta claims that Woodruff endorsed it a few months before his death in 1985;
others have pointed out that, as the two men were alone when the matter was discussed, Goizueta
might have misinterpreted the wishes of the dying Woodruff, who could speak only in
monosyllables. It has also been alleged that Woodruff might not have been able to understand what
Goizueta was telling him.

The commercial failure of New Coke therefore came as a grievous blow to the management of the
Coca-Cola Corporation. It is possible that customers would not have noticed the change if it had
been made secretly or gradually, and thus brand loyalty could have been maintained. Coca-Cola
management was unprepared, however, for the nostalgic sentiments the drink aroused in the
American public; some compared changing the Coke formula to rewriting the American
Constitution.
The new Coca-Cola formula subsequently caused a public backlash. Gay Mullins, from Seattle,
Washington, USA, founded the Old Coke Drinkers of America organisation, which attempted to sue
the company, and lobbied for the formula of Old Coke to be released into the public domain. This
and other protests caused the company to return to the old formula under the name Coca-Cola
Classic on July 10, 1985. The company was later accused of performing this volte-face as an
elaborate ruse to introduce a new product while reviving interest in the original. The company
president responded to the accusation by declaring: "We are not that stupid, or that smart."

The Coca-Cola Company is the world's largest consumer of natural vanilla extract. When New Coke
was introduced in 1985, the economy of Madagascar crashed — vanilla being a prime export — and
recovered only after New Coke flopped, since New Coke used vanillin, a less-expensive synthetic
substitute. Purchases of vanilla more than halved during this period.

Meanwhile, the market share for New Coke had dwindled to only 3% by 1986. The company
renamed the product "Coke II" in 1992 (not to be confused with "Coke C2", a reduced-sugar cola
launched by Coca-Cola in 2004). However, sales falloff caused a severe cutback in distribution. By
1998, it was sold in only a few places in the midwestern U.S.

Coca-Cola's advertising
Coca-Cola's advertising has had a significant impact on American culture, and is frequently credited
with the "invention" of the modern image of Santa Claus as an old man in red-and-white garments;
however, while the company did in fact start promoting this image in the 1930s in its winter
advertising campaigns, it was already common before that. In the 1970s, a song from a Coca-Cola
commercial called "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing", produced by Billy Davis, became a popular
hit single, but there is no evidence that it did anything to increase sales of the soft drink.

The company has a policy of avoiding using children younger than the age of 12 in any of its
advertising as a result of a lawsuit from the beginning of the 20th century that alleged that Coke's
caffeine content was dangerous to children. However, in recent times, this has not stopped the
company from targeting young consumers. In addition, it has not been disclosed in exact terms
how safe Coke is for consumption by young children (or pregnant mothers).

Coke's advertising has been rather pervasive, as one of Woodruff's stated goals was to ensure that
everyone on Earth drank Coca-Cola as their preferred beverage. Advertising for Coke is now almost
ubiquitous, especially in southern areas of North America, such as Atlanta, where Coke was born.
The 1996 Summer Olympics were hosted in Atlanta, and as a result, Coca-Cola effectively received
free advertising. Coca-Cola was also the first-ever sponsor of the Olympic games, at the 1928
games in Amsterdam.

During the 1980s, Pepsi-Cola ran a series of television advertisements showing people participating
in taste tests in which they expressed a preference for Pepsi over Coke. Coca-Cola ran ads to
combat Pepsi's ads in an incident sometimes referred to as the cola wars; one of Coke's ads
compared the so-called Pepsi challenge to two chimpanzees deciding which tennis ball was furrier.
Thereafter, Coca-Cola regained its leadership in the market.

In an attempt to broaden its portfolio, Coca-Cola purchased Columbia Pictures in 1982. Columbia
provided subtle publicity through Coke product placements in many of its films while under Coke's
ownership. However, after a few early successes, Columbia began to underperform, and was
dropped by the company in 1989.

Coca-Cola has gone through a number of different advertising slogans in its long history, including
"The pause that refreshes", "I'd like to buy the world a Coke", and "Coke is it".

Controversies surrounding the Coca-Cola drink

Urban legends about Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola has been the target of urban legends decrying the drink for its supposedly copious
amounts of acid, or the "life-threatening" effects of its carbonated water. These urban legends
usually take the form of "fun facts" — for example, "Coke can dissolve a tooth in 24-48 hours";
"highway troopers use Coke to clean blood from highways after accidents"; or "somebody once died
in a Coke-drinking competition". All of these stories are false, and evidence has been presented in
numerous cases against Coca-Cola since the 1920s that decisively proves that the drink is not more
harmful than comparable soft drinks. It contains less citric acid than an orange. However, one
unusual use for coke that is not an urban legend is as a rust-control substance - the phosphoric acid
in coke converts iron oxide to iron phosphate, and as such can be used as an initial treatment for
corroded iron and steel objects being renovated, etc.

Suspected adverse long-term health effects

While many nutritionists recognize that "soft drinks and other calorie-rich, nutrient-poor foods can
fit into a good diet", it is widely believed that Coca-Cola and other soft drinks can be harmful if
consumed to excess, particularly to young children whose soda consumption competes with, rather
than augmenting, a balanced diet. Studies have shown that regular soft drink users have a lower
intake of calcium (which can contribute to osteoporosis), magnesium, ascorbic acid, riboflavin, and
vitamin A.

The drink has also aroused criticism for its use of phosphoric acid and caffeine, though many of
these criticisms have been dismissed by the industry as urban myths.

Varieties of Coca-Cola soft drink

There are many varieties of Coca-Cola produced by the company such as Diet Coke (introduced in
1982), which uses aspartame (NutraSweet brand), a synthetic phenylalanine-based sweetener, to
eliminate the sugar content of the drink; Caffeine-free Coke; Kosher for Passover Coke (corn-
sweetner is replaced with cane sugar); Cherry Coke (1985); Diet Cherry Coke (1986); Coke with
Lemon (2001); Diet Coke with Lemon (2001); Vanilla Coke (2002); Diet Vanilla Coke (2002); and
Diet Coke with Lime (2004).

In 2004, perhaps in response to the burgeoning popularity of low-carbohydrate diets such as the
Atkins Diet, Coca-Cola announced its intention to develop and sell a low-carbohydrate alternative to
Coke Classic, dubbed Coca-Cola C2. C2 contains a mix of high fructose corn syrup, aspartame,
sucralose, and acesulfame potassium. C2 is designed to more closely emulate the taste of Coca-
Cola Classic than Diet Coke does. Even with less than half of the calories and carbohydrates of
standard soft drinks, C2 is not a replacement for zero-calorie soft drinks such as Diet Coke. C2 went
on sale in the US on June 11, 2004, and in Canada in August 2004.

Coca-Cola is the best-selling soft drink in most countries. Nevertheless, there are some places like
Scotland, where the locally produced Irn Bru is more popular, and Quebec and Prince Edward
Island, Canada, where Pepsi is the market leader. Coke is less popular in other places, including
some Middle Eastern and Asian countries such as the Palestinian territories and India — in the
latter, due to suspicions regarding the health standards of the drink, and in the former, due to anti-
American sentiment or the perception that Coca-Cola supports Israel. Mecca Cola, an "Islamically
correct" brand, has become a hit in the Middle East in the past few years.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.

It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Coca-Cola"

Glossary:

carbonated - gazowany
soft drink - napój bezalkoholowy
vending machine - automat do sprzedaży
dominant - dominujący, przeważający
patent medicine - specyfik, środek na wszystko
shrewed - przebiegły
side-effect - efekt uboczny
to relaunch - lansować jeszcze raz, wprowadzać na nowo
to counter - sprzeciwiać się, przeciwdziałać
beverage - napój
efficacy - skuteczność
hobble-skirt - długa spódnica wąska poniżej kolan noszona między 1910 i 1914 rokiem
tentative - niepewny
entrepreneur - przedsiębiorca
persuasive - przekonujący
amid - wśród, między
double blind test - próba podwójnie ślepa, przedmiot badań i osoba nadzorująca badania nie wiedzą o
podstawowych aspektach eksperymentu
to emulate - naśladować
to endorse - popierać, aprobować
to allege - domniemywać
grievous - poważny, dotkliwy
to arouse - budzić, rozbudzać
subsequently - później
backlash - sprzeciw
to sue - skarżyć, zaskarżać, pozywać
to lobby - wywierać nacisk, wywierać wpływ
to release - wypuszczać, uwalniać
public domain - własność publiczna
volte-face - całkowita zmiana opinii, całkowity zwrot
elaborate - wymyślny, opracowany szczegółowo
ruse - podstęp, pułapka
to revive - ożywiać, wskrzeszać
to flop - okazać się kompletną klapą
to halve - obniżyć się o połowę, podzielić na pół
to dwindle - zmniejszać się, kurczyć się
falloff - spadek
severe - poważny
cutback - redukcja
impact - wpływ
to credit - przypisywać
garment - ubranie, strój
lawsuit - proces, sprawa sądowa
ubiquitous - wszechobecny
ad - skrót od advertisment - reklama, ogłoszenie
combat - walczyć
challenge - prowokacja
furrier - bardziej futrzasty
to decry - potępiać
copious - obfity
to dissolve - rozpuszczać
trooper - policjant(AE)
decisively - stanowczo
rust-control - zapobiegający rdzy, rdzewieniu
to convert - przekształcać, zmieniać
iron oxide - tlenek żelaza
iron phosphate - fosforan żelaza
corroded - skorodowany, pokryty rdzą
adverse - niekorzystny, szkodliwy
to excess - do przesady
to augment - wspierać, zwiększać
ascorbic acid - kwas askorbinowy, witamina C
riboflavin - ryboflawina, witamina B2
to arouse - wzbudzać, powodować
phosphoric acid - kwas fosforowy
to dismiss - odrzucić, odsuwać
aspartame - asparigin, sztuczny słodzik robiony z kwasu aspariginowego
phenylalanine - fenyloalanina
cane sugar - cukier trzcinowy, sukroza
response - odpowiedź, odzew
burgeoning - rosnący
dubbed - nazywany
sucralose - sukroza, cukier trzcinowy
acesulfame potassium -
nevertheless - jednak, pomimo to
the former - pierwszy z wymienionych
the latter - drugi z dwóch
due to - z powodu
perception - postrzeganie