Get a Grip
If you’ve picked up a 20-ounce plastic bottle of Coke lately, you may have noticed that the bottle looks different -- with grooves along the bottom half.
This is our new contour bottle, introduced last fall. In fact, in September last year two members of my team actually traveled to New Orleans to go into stores and help launch the new bottle. They put up what we call point-of-sale items, or POS (the signs you see inside stores) in stores throughout the region. They also got to see first-hand what it’s like to work daily with the people who sell Coke. (I think they had a few beignets in the French Quarter as well!)
Coke’s Annual Review came out earlier this month, and it mentions that the bottle is now in 15 countries. Best yet, it uses 5% less PET (the plastic)!
This bottle is the latest innovation of our famous contour bottle shape. The original contour bottle was developed in 1915 and introduced to the public in 1916, more than 90 years ago. The 6 ½-ounce glass contour bottle was actually the only package we had until 1955, when we came out with king-sized bottles. (Cans were introduced in 1960, if you’re keeping track.) Different sizes of bottles were brought out through the years, and in 1993 our 20-ounce plastic contour bottle hit the markets. That bottle and our new grip bottle are great ways to make Coke stand out from the others on store shelves -- in a very contemporary way.
Ted Ryan is the Director of the Archives and oversees the collections and exhibits. He loves social media and in addition to the blog, Ted runs the Archives Twitter and Facebook feeds.
Jamal Booker is the processing archivist, responsible for cataloging and digitization. A huge music fan, he also films and edits all of the videos on the site.
Justine Fletcher recently received her MA in Archives Management, and supports the Archives team in a variety of roles.
Ashley Callahan manages digital communications and social media at 
Archivist Emeritus.