Azi se împlinesc 125 de ani de când există pe piaţă Coca Cola. Şi 125 de ani de când ne încântă cu uimitoarele si fabuloasele reclame în stilul inconfundabil marca Coca Cola. Aşa că am ales câteva pasaje din atestatul meu de la engleză pentru a sărbători aceşti ani ai advertisingului.
The Coca-Cola Company is the world’s biggest drinks company, controlling more than half the global market in carbonated soft drinks as well as a substantial chunk of the non-carbonated segment. It owns four of the world’s five best-selling soft drinks. Its principal brand is of course Coca-Cola itself, the world’s best-known and most valuable brand.
But the product has seen sales growth stall since the close of the 1990s, as worldwide consumers develop a taste for other beverages. Coke initiated a painful restructuring, and then launched its biggest-ever marketing campaign in 2001, with a new emphasis on local markets instead of global conformity. “Think Local, Act Local” was the new strategy; but that too was slow to deliver results. Since then the group has struggled to find new ways of lifting sales of its core product. One way has been with the steady introduction of new variants. The most successful of these in recent years has been Coke Zero, a low-calorie version of the core brand designed to be more appealing to male drinkers.
Coca-Cola’s advertising has significantly affected American culture, and it is frequently credited with inventing the modern image of Santa Claus as an old man in a red-and-white suit. Although the company did start using the red-and-white Santa image in the 1930s, with its winter advertising campaigns illustrated by Haddon Sundblom, the motif was already common.
Before Santa Claus, Coca-Cola relied on images of smartly dressed young women to sell its beverages. Coca-Cola’s first such advertisement appeared in 1895, featuring the young Bostonian actress Hilda Clark as its spokeswoman.
In 1941 saw the first use of the nickname „Coke” as an official trademark for the product, with a series of advertisements informing consumers that „Coke means Coca-Cola”. In 1971 a song from a Coca-Cola commercial called „I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing”, produced by Billy Davis, became a hit single
Some of the memorable Coca-Cola television commercials between 1960 through 1986 were written and produced by former Atlanta radio veteran Don Naylor during his career as a producer for the McCann Erickson advertising agency. Many of these early television commercials for Coca-Cola featured movie stars, sports heroes and popular singers.
During the 1980s, Pepsi-Cola ran a series of television advertisements showing people participating in taste tests demonstrating that, according to the commercials, „fifty percent of the participants who said they preferred Coke actually chose the Pepsi.” Statisticians were quick to point out the problematic nature of a 50/50 result: most likely, all the taste tests really showed was that in blind tests, most people simply cannot tell the difference between Pepsi and 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.
The Coca-Cola Company purchased Columbia Pictures in 1982, and began inserting Coke-product images in many of its films. After a few early successes during Coca-Cola’s ownership, Columbia began to under-perform, and the studio was sold to Sony 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”.
In 2006, Coca-Cola introduced My Coke Rewards, a customer loyalty campaign where consumers earn points by entering codes from specially marked packages of Coca-Cola products into a website. These points can be redeemed for various prizes or sweepstakes entries.
The „Holidays are coming!” advertisement features a train of red delivery trucks, emblazoned with the Coca-Cola name and decorated with electric lights, driving through a snowy landscape and causing everything that they pass to light up and people to watch as they pass through.
Coca-Cola was the first commercial sponsor of the Olympic games, at the 1928 games in Amsterdam, and has been an Olympics sponsor ever since.
Since 1978, Coca-Cola has sponsored each FIFA World Cup, and other competitions organised by FIFA. In fact, one FIFA tournament trophy, the FIFA World Youth Championship from Tunisia in 1977 to Malaysia in 1997, was called „FIFA — Coca Cola Cup”.
Slogans:
1900 – “Deliciously refreshing”
1904 – “Coca-Cola is a delightful, palatable,healthful beverage”
1982 – “The antidote for civilization” – Coke slogans for the past 100+ years
1986 – “Like a Rock” (Inspired by the Bob Seger song „Like a Rock”)
1993 – “Taste it all.”
1998 – “Thirsty for life? Drink Coca-Cola!”
2000 – “Coca-Cola Enjoy”
2001 – “Life tastes good”
2009 – “Open Happiness”
2010 – “Twist The Cap To Refreshment”
2011 – “Life Begins Here”