Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink with a cola flavor manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. In 2013, Coke products were sold in over 200 countries worldwide, with consumers drinking more than 1.8 billion company beverage servings each day. Coca-Cola ranked No. 87 in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. Based on Interbrand's "best global brand" study of 2020, Coca-Cola was the world's sixth most valuable brand.
John Stith Pemberton was an American pharmacist and Confederate States Army veteran who is best known as the inventor of Coca-Cola. On 8 May 1886, he developed an early version of a beverage that would later become Coca-Cola, but sold its rights to the drink shortly before his death in 1888.
Pemberton's French Wine Coca was a coca wine created by the druggist John Pemberton, the inventor of Coca-Cola. It was an alcoholic beverage, mixed with coca, kola nut, and damiana. The original recipe contained the ingredient cocaethylene, which was removed, just like the alcohol had before it, in 1899 because of a social stigma surrounding the rampant use of cocaine at the time.
The Coca-Cola Company's formula for Coca-Cola syrup, which bottlers combine with carbonated water to create the company's flagship cola soft drink, is a closely guarded trade secret. Company founder Asa Candler initiated the veil of secrecy that surrounds the formula in 1891 as a publicity, marketing, and intellectual property protection strategy. While several recipes, each purporting to be the authentic formula, have been published, the company maintains that the actual formula remains a secret, known only to a very few select employees.
Cocacolonization refers to the globalization of American culture pushed through popular American products such as the soft-drink brand Coca-Cola. The term is a portmanteau of the name of the multinational soft-drink maker and "colonization".
The Cola wars are the long-time rivalry between soft drink producers The Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo, who have engaged in mutually-targeted marketing campaigns for the direct competition between each company's product lines, especially their flagship colas, Coca-Cola and Pepsi. Beginning in the late 1970s and into the 1980s, the competition escalated until it became known as the cola wars.
Asa Griggs Candler Sr. was an American business tycoon and politician who in 1888 purchased the Coca-Cola recipe for $238.98 from chemist John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta, Georgia. Candler founded The Coca-Cola Company in 1892 and developed it as a major company.
Alfred Nu Steele was an American soft drink businessman most known for being the president and later chairman of the board of Pepsi-Cola Company from 1950 until his sudden death in 1959.
The Coca-Cola Company is an American multinational corporation founded in 1892. It produces Coca-Cola. The drink industry company also manufactures, sells, and markets other non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups, and alcoholic beverages. The company's stock is listed on the NYSE and is part of the DJIA and the S&P 500 and S&P 100 indexes.
Robert Winship Woodruff was an American businessman who served as the president of The Coca-Cola Company from 1923 until 1985. With a large net worth, he was also a major philanthropist, and many educational and cultural landmarks in the U.S. city of Atlanta, Georgia, bear his name. Included among these are the Woodruff Arts Center, Woodruff Park, and the Robert W. Woodruff Library.
Coca Cola Corporation was an Atlanta, Georgia company, the first large-scale manufacturer and marketer of beverages based on the Coca-Cola formula, and closely related to The Coca-Cola Company, the corporation that took on that role by 1900 and became a worldwide business.
Harold D. Hirsch was a student at the University of Georgia from 1898 to 1901 who also played football for his alma mater. After graduation from the University of Georgia, he studied law at Columbia University and later became general counsel for The Coca-Cola Company, serving in that capacity for more than thirty years.
Frank Mason Robinson was an important early marketer and advertiser of what became known as Coca-Cola.
American comedian and actor Bill Cosby was a popular spokesperson for advertising from the 1960s – before his first starring television role – until the early 2000s. He started with White Owl cigars, and later endorsed the Jell-O frosty ice pop treats Pudding Pop, gelatin, Del Monte, Ford Motor Company, Coca-Cola, American Red Cross, Texas Instruments, E. F. Hutton & Co., Kodak, and the 1990 United States Census. As of 2002, Cosby held the record for being the longest-serving celebrity spokesperson for a product, through his work with Jell-O. In 2011, he won the President's Award for Contributions to Advertising from the Advertising Hall of Fame.
Lucy Beall Candler Owens Heinz Leide was an American heiress. She was the only daughter of Asa Griggs Candler, the co-founder of The Coca-Cola Company.
White Coke was a clear variant of Coca-Cola produced in the 1940s at the request of Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov. Like other clear colas, it had the same flavor as the original, virtually unchanged by the absence of caramel coloring.
George Presbury Rowell was an American advertising executive and publisher. He founded Printers' Ink, the first advertising trade magazine, in 1888.
Charles Howard Candler Sr. was an American businessman and author. He was one of the few people that his father, Asa Candler, first trusted with the secret formula used to make Coca-Cola, which then included coca leaves.
Irene Lilienheim Angelico is a Canadian film director, producer and writer.
The John Stith Pemberton statue is a public statue in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Located in Pemberton Place, near the World of Coca-Cola, the statue is of John Stith Pemberton, the inventor of Coca-Cola.
