History Of Coca-Cola Company

The Coca-Cola company started 130 years ago as a small, insignificant one man
business, it is an American historical multinational beverage corporation which has
her headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia and now one of the largest companies in the
world. Her primary functions are manufacturing, retailing and the marketing of
nonalcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups.
The company is best known for its flagship product Coca-Cola and was invented in
1886 by a pharmacist, Dr. John Stith Pemberton in Columbus, Georgia who also was
the first chairman of the company. He concocted the formula in a three legged brass
kettle in his backyard on May 8, 1886 by mixing lime, cinnamon, coca leaves, and
the seeds of a Brazilian shrub, he was actually trying to concoct a headache remedy,
but once he mixed his special syrup with carbonated water, and a few customers
tasted the result, he realized that he had the makings of a popular soda fountain
beverage. Coca-Cola, as the beverage was later called made its debut in Atlanta's
largest pharmacy, Jacob's Pharmacy, as a five cent non- carbonated drink. Later on,
the carbonated water was added to the syrup to make the beverage that we know
today. Coca-Cola was originally used as a nerve and brain tonic and a medical elixir
and was named by Frank Robinson, one of Pemberton's close friends who also
penned the famous Coca-Cola logo in unique script.
Dr. John Pemberton sold a portion of the Coca-Cola company (formula and brand) to
Asa Griggs Candler (December 30, 1851 March 12, 1929) in 1889. Asa Candler
incorporated the Coca-Cola Company in 1892. John Pemberton was forced to sell
because he was in a state of poor health and was in debt. He had paid $76.96 for
advertising, but he only made $50.00 in profits. In time, Candler acquired the whole
company for $2,300. Candler achieved a lot during his time as owner of the
company, he patented the famous Coca-Cola formula on January 31, 1893 and also
opened the first syrup manufacturing plant in 1884. In 1891, Candler steadily
decreased even the tiny amount of the drug in the recipe due to the anti-cocaine
crusade. There is some evidence that the only reason Candler kept putting even
minute amounts of coca extract in the drink was the belief that to omit it entirely
might cause Coca Cola, by then besieged by imitators, to lose its trademark, but
Coca-Cola was completely cocaine free by 1929. Candler's great achievement was
large scale bottling of Coca-Cola in 1899 and aggressive advertisement of Coca-Cola
in newspapers and on billboards. In the newspapers, he would give away coupons for
a free Coke at any fountain. In 1915, the Root Glass Company made the contour
bottle for the Coca-Cola company.
Coca-Cola was sold after the Prohibition Era to Ernest Woodruff for 25 million dollars.
He gave Coca-Cola to his son, Robert Woodruff, who would be president for six

decades. Robert Woodruff was an influential man in Atlanta because of his

contributions to area colleges, universities, businesses and organizations. When he
made a contribution, he would never leave his name and became known as "Mr.
Anonymous". Woodruff introduced the six bottle carton in 1923 and also made CocaCola available through vending machine in 1929. That same year, the Coca- Cola bell
glass was made available. He started advertising on the radio in the 1930s and on
television in 1950. Currently Coca-Cola is advertised on over five hundred TV
channels around the world. In 1931, he introduced the Coke Santa as a Christmas
promotion and it caught the attention of consumers, the twelve ounce Coke can was
also introduced by Woodruff in 1960. The Coca-Cola contour bottle was patented in
1977 while the two liter bottle was introduced in 1978, the same year that the
company introduced plastic bottles.
Robert Woodruff did have one dubious distinction, he raised the syrup prices for
distributors, but he improved efficiency at every step of the manufacturing process.
He also increased productivity by improving the sales department, emphasizing
quality control, and beginning large-scale advertising and promotional campaigns.
Woodruff made Coke available in every state of the Union through the soda fountain.
For all of these achievements he earned the name, "The Boss"
In 1985, the Coca-Cola Company made what has been known as one of the biggest
marketing blunders, the company developed a new formula in efforts to produce a
diet Coke where they invested 4 million dollars into research to come up with a new
formula. The decision to change their formula and pull the old Coke off the market
came about because taste tests showed a distinct preference for the new formula.
The new formula was a sweeter variation with less tang, it was also slightly
smoother. Robert Woodruff's death was a large contributor to the change because
during his lifetime he had insisted on keeping the same formula. After he died,
Coke's market shares fell 2.5 percent within the next four years. Each percentage
point lost or gained meant 200 million dollars. According to financial analyst at that
time, Coca-colas market share was said to have fallen from 24.3 percent in 1980 to
21.8 percent in 1984. Thus in the hope of boosting their revenue, the company
decided to introduce the new flavor and this marked the first change since the
conception of the Coca- Cola company. The change was announced April 23, 1985 at
the Vivian Beaumont Theater at the Lincoln Center. About two hundred TV and
newspaper reporters attended the ceremony which included a question and answer
session, the history of Coca-Cola and many other events.
The change to the world's best selling soft drink was heard by 81 percent
of the United States population within twenty-four hours of the announcement.
Within a week of the change, one thousand calls a day were flooding the company's
eight hundred number (1-800-GET-COKE). Most of the callers were shocked and/or

outraged, and many said that they were considering switching to Pepsi. Within six
weeks, the eight hundred number was being jammed by six thousand calls a day.
The company also received over forty thousand letters, which were all answered and
each person got a coupon for the new Coke. A retired Air Force officer, explained in a
letter to the Coca-Cola company that he wanted to be cremated and interned in a
Coke can, but now that this change had come about he was reconsidering. When
Pepsi heard that the Coca-Cola company was changing its secret formula they said
that Pepsi tastes better and decided to take advantage of the situation. Roger Enrico,
the president and CEO of Pepsi-Cola wrote a letter to every employee within the
company as well as to every major newspaper in the U.S. to declare the victory. the
letter was suggested Pepsi tasted better than Coke.
Coca-Cola management had to decide whether to act or go along with the change, of
which they decided to develop the new formula. Roberto Goizueta, the president of
the Coca-Cola Company stated that the old Coke formula, with its secret flavoring
ingredient, called Merchandise 7X, will stay locked in the bank vault of the Trust
Company of Georgia in Atlanta, never to be used again. Due to the complaint of
consumers there was a change back to the old Coke which was known as the Second
Coming. Roberto Goizueta and Donald Keough took full blame for this failed product
launch and the response by Don Keough was "The truth is, we are not dumb and we
are not that smart". This was said to be a classic marketing retreat with Coca-Cola
executives admitting that they had made a mistake by taking the old Coke off the
market. The Coca- Cola company's eight hundred number received eighteen
thousand calls of gratitude, one caller said they felt as if a lost friend had returned
home. The comeback of old Coke drove stock prices to the highest level in twelve
years and was said to be the only way to regain the lead on the cola wars.
In 1979, fifteen hundred employees moved to the new corporate headquarters in
Atlanta located on North Avenue. The new corporate headquarters came to be known
as "The Tower." During the time when the research for the new formula was taking
place, it was known as "The Bunker". The known ingredients in present day CocaCola are water, caffeine, phosphoric acid, vanilla, various oils and essences and
extracts of the coca leaf and the kola nut. The best known trademark in the world is
sold in about one hundred and forty countries to 5.8 billion people in eighty different
languages. This is why Coca-Cola is the largest soft drink company in the world.
Coca-Cola is worth more than 58 billion dollars on the stock market and for more
than 65 years, Coca-Cola has been a sponsor of the Olympics.
Another large accomplishment of Coca-Cola is being the first company to make and
use recycled plastic bottles. The numerous achievements of the Coca-cola company
is displayed at the World of Coke in Atlanta, It houses a collection of memorabilia,
samples of the products, exhibits, and many other exciting items.

History of Coca-Cola in Nigeria.

The Nigerian Bottling Company Plc (NBC) was incorporated in November 1951, as a
subsidiary of the A.G. Leventis Group with the franchise to bottle and sell Coca-Cola
products in Nigeria. The company is solely responsible for the manufacturing and
sale of over 33 different Coca-Cola brands. Other popular brands of beverage
produced by the company are Eva Water, Five Alive fruit juice and the newly
introduced Burn energy drink.
The first plant was established in Lagos and went into operation in March 1953.
Coca-cola was the first soft drink to have its own designed shaped bottles, which was
different from the common trade bottles. In 1972, the company went public by the
issue of 372,580 ordinary shares of 50 kobo each. This was in compliance with the
Nigerian Enterprise Promotion Decree of 1972.
The company is part of the Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling company (CCHBC), one of
Coca-Cola Companys largest anchor bottlers worldwide and presently has 13
bottling facilities and over 80 distribution warehouses located across Nigeria. Since
production started, NBC Plc has remained the largest bottler of nonalcoholic
beverages in the country in terms of sales volume, with about 1.8 billion bottles sold
per year, making it the second largest market in Africa.
The company is governed by a stable nine member board of directors comprising of
very prominent individual who have excelled in different fields of endeavor within
and outside Nigeria. The Board is headed by Ambassador Olusegun Apata while the
management team is led by Mr. Ronald Ebelt, an expatriate professional.
History of Limca
Limca is a lemon and lime flavored carbonated soft drink made primarily in India and
certain parts of the U.S. It contains 60 calories per can. 1 can of Limca is 150ml. No
fruit added. Contains permitted artificial flavors.
In 1992, when the Indian government allowed Coca-Cola to return for operations, at
the same time as it admitted Pepsi for the first time, Coca-Cola bought local softdrink (soda) brands from Parle Agro owner Ramesh Chauhan including Limca, Thums
Up(a cola-like drink), Maaza (a mango-juice based drink), Citra (a clear lemon-lime
drink), and Gold Spot (Orange flavour).
History of Limca in Nigeria

References
[2]

[3]

(Things Go Better With Coke 14).

(Coca-Cola Multiple Pages)
(Facts, Figures, and Features Multiple pages)

(Coca-Cola Multiple Pages).

(Oliver 131).
(Say It Ain't So, Coke 24).
the United States
"The Coke Machine -- The Dirty Truth Behind the World's Favorite Soft Drink
(Demott 54).
(Pendergrast Multiple Pages).

" (Demott et. al 55).

(Classic Comeback Of An Old Champ 12).
(Oliver 53).
(Coca-Cola, The Coca-Cola Company 232).

y do u fink people av bin movin against facebuk or google in buyin or takin ova 'whatsapp'. Once a
competitor acquires anoda competitor its jst a matter of tym 'disapear mtchuahm'. They wil extract d
uniquenes add it to their nd kil d acquired competitor,kipin it alive nd rolin endagers d patronization of
d cocacola product itself.
Those drinks are still in existence, but in limited capacity. You can find it mainly in Abia & Anambra,
they have factories in both states. The LIMCA company was acquired by Coca-Cola, then they were
made redundant so as to promote the main coca-cola brands.
Do guys remember CRUSH(orange drink like Fanta - around 1999), this was acquired by coca-cola as
well, then made redundant.
There are several reasons for acquisitions and one of them is to acquire the technology or critical
components of the company or even strip the assets and do away with the company. There is also the
critical destruction theory that says every product or company undergoes a full life cycle and after
which it goes into extinction.
coca cola take over and the supply drop drastically. Though,that must have been due to the demand.
I was suprised wen i saw limca in kaduna last week. In a bigger bottle at the cost of #70.
Prior to their acquisition, these brands had HIGH preference for sales than consumer
satisfaction(forgetting that we had already entered the era of consumerism and consumer sovereignty
in the early 1990's). They opted to measure shoulder-to-shoulder with competitors as at against

brand positioning.
I equally fink their promotional strategy was poor, hence their extinction from the market place.
Parle India sold the ingredient to Coca Cola Intl and the Nigerian Companies bottling the drink lost
their rights. Coca Cola decided to kill Goldspot and Parle Soda so that it does not compete with Fanta
and Tonic water/Soda water.
It is a shark eat shark world.