What Shakespeare said about Coke

Along with being the 25th Anniversary of New Coke, last Friday was also the observed birthday of William Shakespeare some 446 years ago. And in this month some 82 years ago, we ran a series of ads called "What Shakespeare said about Coca-Cola." In April of 1928, we ran this deliberately different series around the literary great specifically in Life magazine, even as we had other advertising running in other national publications. The letter that was sent out from our Advertising Department regarding these ads read as follows: "In Life we are running a series of unusual advertisements, each under the caption, "What Shakespeare said about Coca-Cola." There are ten advertisements in the series. These same advertisements are also appearing in college papers all over the country. These have a snap and humor particularly appealing to young people of college age." Check out the below ads from Julius Caesar and Hamlet.