Apollinaris spring water

In 1852, Georg Kreuzberg, a vintner from Ahrweiler in Germany, bought a vineyard at an auction for 15 thaler but found the vines would not grow there.

On investigation, he found the soil had an exceptionally high concentration of carbonate. Literally wanting to get to the bottom of things, he dug down fifty feet and discovered an underground spring of naturally carbonated mineral water. In 1853, he started selling spring water in earthenware bottles.

The water from the Apollinaris Spring (named after St. Apollinaris by Kreuzberg) was shortly thereafter termed the “Queen of Table Waters’, when a London ship owner arranged exclusive exports rights from Kreuzberg.

In 1873 the Apollinaris Company Ltd was set up in Westminster London, and the brand became internationally well known.

The Apollinaris water sold largely not only in England, but in America, Europe, India and in the British colonies.

By 1900, over 27 million bottles of Apollinaris were sold, of which over 25 million were exported.

In 1991, Apollinaris and drinks firm Schweppes of Germany merged but then in 2002 the whole company was bought out by the British company Cadbury Schweppes. In 2006 Coca-Cola bought Apollinaris spring water from Cadbury-Schweppes.
Apollinaris spring water

Charles G. Guth and Pepsi Cola Company

In 1902 Caleb Bradham incorporated the Pepsi-Cola Company and started a manufacturing operation.

The company was certified bankrupt on 1923. It wasn't until a successful candy manufacturer, Charles G. Guth, appeared on the scene that the future of Pepsi-Cola was assured.

Guth was president of Loft Incorporated, a large chain of candy stores and soda fountains along the eastern seaboard. At the time Charles Guth became Loft’ president, Guth and his family owned Grace Company, which made syrups for soft drinks in a plant in Baltimore, Maryland. Coca-Cola Company supplied Loft with cola syrup.

Loft operated over 130 soda fountains in the greater New York area. Guth believed that with that kind of volume, Loft deserved better pricing. Coca-Cola believed that Guth had no choice but to buy their syrup, and refused to offer any discount.

He saw Pepsi-Cola as an opportunity to discontinue an unsatisfactory business relationship with the Coca-Cola Company, and at the same time to add an attractive drawing card to Loft's soda fountains.

Guth entered into an agreement with Roy Megargel to acquire the trademark of Pepsi and its formula and form Pepsi-Cola Corporation.

With just handful of bottles in 1934, the number grew to 315 Pepsi-Cola bottlers in 1939.

He later was sued by his partner and claimed that Guth had misused corporate assets and that his Pepsi stock should be handed over to Loft.

Loft filed a suit in a Delaware state court against Guth, Grace and Pepsi, seeking their Pepsi stock and accounting. After nearly three years of legal procedures, the court ruled that Guth, Pepsi-Cola holding belonged to Loft. Loft became a Loft subsidiary and Walter Mack was chosen to be Pepsi’s new President and Guth continuing as general manager.

After five owners and 15 unprofitable years, Pepsi-Cola was once again a thriving national brand.
Charles G. Guth and Pepsi Cola Company

Early Coca-Cola advertising

Coca-cola invested heavily in advertising and promotion since its beginning. The great strengths, apart from allying the brand very early on with religion and patriotism, was a strong commitment to advertising in a society restless to progress and try new products.

Pemberton marketed his concoction as a patent medicine, a supposed cure-all for a variety of ailments.

Asa Candler own early ads he proclaimed that he was a great sufferer of headaches. He claimed to be a great benefactor by offering to the world the cure that relived his suffering.

However, the product only really took off when the company stopped marketing Coke as a drug and rebranded the sweet formula as a tasty beverage.

In 1895, Coca-Cola launched a new advertising campaign encouraging consumers to ‘Drink Coca-Cola, Delicious and Refreshing.’

Six hundred thousand miles of highways were built in the 1920s. and the first of the ‘Ritz boy’ billboards appeared in 1925: a smiling bellhop holding a tray with a bottle of the soft drink and a glass on it.

The bottle in the Ritz boy ad was telling: Coca-Cola had been built on soda fountain sales.

In the 1970s, a song from Coca-Cola commercial called ‘I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing’ became a popular hit single, but there is no evidence that it did anything to increase sales of the soft drink.

The Coca-Cola Company has historically targeted children and youth in its advertising and promotional activities.

Coca-Cola is one of the brands that are frequently used as examples of longtime successful global advertising.
Early Coca-Cola advertising

Coca-Cola bought Glaceau

In May 2007, Coca-Cola Co. agreed to buy the maker of Glaceau Vitaminwater for $4.1 billion to narrow the gap with PepsiCo Inc. in the fast-growing market for flavored water.

Glaceau was an attractive acquisition for Coke because it successfully positioned itself in the enhanced water and energy drink categories, two categories that are credited with making up a significant portion of the beverage industry’s growth in North America.

Coca-cola Company will pay cash for closely held Energy Brands Inc., which controls about 30 percent of the U.S. market for waters spiked with vitamins and minerals. The purchase is the biggest in Coca-Cola's 115-year history.

Coca-Cola accounts for 5 percent of the U.S. market for water drinks, while PepsiCo has 45 percent with its SoBe, Aquafina and Propel brands.

The flavored water market grew 57 percent in 2005. Vitaminwater grew 200 percent.

This is the position Coke's in, having to pay up because there are so few assets out there that can move the needle for them.

Coca-cola bought Glaceau in May 2007 for $4.1 billion in cash.

Glaceau’s Vitaminwater, like Powerade, contains B vitamins – but has more sugar.

The 11-year-old company, based in the New York borough of Queens, had sales of $350 million last year, according to Morgan Stanley.

Coca-Cola, based in Atlanta, had $24.1 billion in sales in 2006. The company said Glaceau will add to earnings in the first year after the purchase is completed in mid-June2007.

Coca-cola, interested in making up for reduced sales of its carbonated beverages, also required Glaceau’s Fruitwater, Smartwater and vitaminenergy beverages.
Coca-Cola bought Glaceau

Asa Candler of Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola survived as a brand whereas thousands others did not because of the dedication of Asa Candler.

Born in December 30, 1851, Asa Chandler spent his childhood and youth in the waning days of the Old South. During Georgia’s gold rush of the 1830s and 1840s, his parents, Samuel and Martha, settled on Carroll County about thirty miles west of Atlanta.

In 1873 Candler went to Atlanta in 1873, securing a position with George J. Howard, a druggist. Four years later with Marcellus B. Hallman, he established the drug form of Hallman and Candler.

At the same time he also old a patent medicine concocted by John Styth Pemberton, another Atlanta pharmacist, which was touted as a curreall for headache, sluggishness, indigestion, and throbbing resulting from over indulgence.

In 1886, the ailing Pemberton sold Candler a part interest in the nostrum, called Coca-Cola, and year later took full control of the company on April 1891.

The total cost of these transactions, giving chandler ownership of Coca-Cola, amounted to $2,300.

In 1892 the Coca-Cola Company, Incorporated was organized, with Candler as president and major stockholder.

Because of him, Coca-Cola become an icon of American culture, both in United States and abroad.

Asa Candler, insistence on heavy advertising and quality control in the beverage’s earliest days resulted in millions of loyal customer.
Asa Candler of Coca-Cola

Discovery of Coca-Cola Formula

Coca-Cola formula is the company’s top secret recipe for Coca-Cola. The contents of the secret formula have been subject to much scrutiny and debate and there have been many attempts to force Coca-Cola to reveal its trade secret publicly.

During the early 1880s, Atlanta druggist John Stith Pemberton experimented with various beverages to be used for medicinal purpose.

Vin Mariani, a coca wine developed in Europe, had introduced in the United States, by the 1880s, it was of the most popular patent medicines in Europe and the United States.

Vin Mariani was made by steeping coca leaves in Bureaus wine, result in 150 to 300 mg of cocaine per liter. The creator was Angelo Mariani.

Pemberton tried to clone it. In 1884 he released Pemberton’s French Wine Coca but he discontinued making it the following year when Atlanta passed temperance legislation preventing the manufacturing or sale of alcohol in the city.

Pemberton went back to the drawing board and in 1886 he came up with a new medicine consisting of coca leaves and kola nut extract sugar and other ingredients.

The result was a syrup that he called Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola was given it’s name in 1885, and was marketed as a tonic for most common ailments, based on the two medicinal main ingredients which consisted of extracts of Coca leaves and Kola nuts.

The original formula did include coca derivatives such as cocaine, which at the time were neither illegal unusual for patent medicines.

The exact amount of cocaine that was used in the original recipe is not certain, but only after a few years the amount was dropped considerably.

Pemberton considered it a cure for headaches and for morphine addiction, and he sold it as a medicine in drugstores.

The label for Coca-Cola syrup claimed that it was an exhilarating fountain drink as well as a cure for nervous disorders, including sick headaches, neuralgia, hysteria and melancholy.

Pemberton’s health failed in 1887 and he sold his business to Willis Venable, who mixed the Coca-Cola with soda water and served it as a “brain tonic and intellectual soda fountain beverage.”

In the same year, Asa Chandler purchased an interest in Coca-Cola and ultimately acquired 100% interest for a total investment of $2,300. Candler then patented the Coca-Cola formula, which has remained a closely guarded secret.
Discovery of Coca-Cola Formula