Mark of the Potter

Ted Ryan, who is one of our staff members in the Archives Department, was traveling in North Georgia this weekend and discovered a great pottery studio with a Coca-Cola presence.  A vintage Coca-Cola cooler was on the front porch of the Mark of the Potter on Ga. Highway 197 in Clarkesville, Georgia near Lake Burton. 

Despite a touch of rust on the outside, the cooler was still working and was filled with ice cold Coca-Cola.  The cold Coke, beautiful pottery and standing beside the tree lined Soque River feeding the trout made this the perfect stopping place.  They even had a few commemorative Coca-Cola bottles on the shelf.  If you are ever in the area, stop at the Mark of the Potter for a Coke and some great pottery.

 

Coke footage at the 1962 FIFA World Cup in Chile

I mentioned in a post yesterday that Coca-Cola began stadium advertising at the FIFA World Cup in Brazil in 1950. We have a film in our collection that captures some of the ways Coke was a part of the 1962 FIFA World Cup in Santiago, Chile. In the video clip, you can see a Spanish language Coke billboard advertisement on a busy street that says "Welcome to the World of Futbol 1962" and features a soccer player. In addition to this, you also get a glimpse of how busy the Coke bar was as people crowd around for refreshment during halftime of one of the games. The concession stand workers' hands move very quickly in fulfilling orders. Just as our US office sponsored highlight films of the World Series, The Masters and NASCAR each year, this film was sponsored by our German division for their bottlers. While I could not understand the speaker, the images of Coke neon signs and the celebration that occurs after Brazil's 3-1 championship victory over Czechoslovakia speak for themselves.

 

 

 

Mario Lanza Radio Show Premiers - 1951

The Coca-Cola Company has a long heritage of sponsoring programs on the Radio.  Our first radio program was Vivian, The Voice of the Coca-Cola Girl which went on air on May 10th, 1927.  For the next few decades, radio programming was one of the most popular medium for advertising our product. 

One of the more popular radio programs sponsored by Coca-Cola was the Mario Lanza show.  This show premiered on air June 10th, 1951 and featured opera singer Mario Lanza who had stared in the movie, The Great Caruso. It is interesting to note that while the show originally aired in the US, copies were distributed to our offices around the world leading to the advertising shown from the Philippines above or the ad from Brazil to the left.

Coke and FIFA Go For The Goal Training Kits

I'm sure you are geared up to watch the FIFA World Cup in South Africa which begins tomorrow. I wanted to highlight a little piece of Coke FIFA history in our Archives that I came across a few weeks ago. Although Coca-Cola began stadium advertising at the FIFA World Cup in Brazil in 1950, 1978 was the year we became an official worldwide sponsor of the FIFA World Cup. In that same year, we along with FIFA launched the "Go For Goal" training kit to aid coaches in their teaching of young players. The kits included films, slides, wall charts and coaching cards that were made available through bottlers of Coca-Cola. Karl-Heinz Heddergott, who was considered the world's foremost expert on teaching soccer to youth, led the series and the instructional films. Here is one of the set of 64 coaching cards in Thai that was found in our Thailand collection. On the front side coaches are given a diagram of the technique with an explanation of the drill on the back.

"I'd Like To Buy The World A Coke"

I had to do some research today on one of our most famous commercials.  One of our advertising colleagues needed some information on the "Hilltop" ad which featured the famous "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke" jingle.  It is still considered one of the best Coca-Cola ads of all time and the song is considered an anthem of a generation.  If you are curious how the song was born out of a London fog, check out this detailed history of the song and ad we wrote for the Library of Congress advertising website. 

We also posted a pretty good version of the ad to our YouTube channel.  Enjoy!

Fernandina Beach Wall Sign

People frequently send us photographs when they find interesting Coca-Cola memorabilia, but I recently received the photograph to the left from Audrey Kupferberg and Rob Edelman.  Audrey has consulted with us about our film and video collection and Rob has done extensive research on Coke and Baseball.  The photograph was taken as they visited Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island.  I love the way the script still has the old fashioned feel on this sign.

Photo Courtesy of Rob Edelman and Audrey Kupferberg

Horse Racing and Coca-Cola

Tomorrow is the final leg of the Triple Crown - the Belmont Stakes in New York. In 1947, Coke printed a poster series, called "All Time Favorites" and Man O' War was the All Time Racing Favorite, having won the Belmont Stakes in 1920. Only two animals were featured in the poster series, Man O' War and the hunting dog, Colonial Lady M. 

In the World of Coca-Cola, Sports and Entertainment gallery, other posters from the series are on display. Don Budge - tennis, Bobby Jones - golfing, Helene Madison - swimming, Ty Cobb - baseball, and Red Grange - football.

Today, this Man O' War poster would be worth $200 and the complete set of 10 posters in the original envelope would be worth $4,000.

National Donut Day and Coke!

Today is National Donut Day. Celebrated on the first Friday of June, the day was created in 1938 by Salvation Army volunteers who first served coffee and donuts to soldiers on the front lines of World War I.  Here is a 1954 advertising dangler from our collection that features a Coke and donuts. 

Happy Birthday Fanta!

One of the toughest task we face is to accurately date events in our history.  We are often asked to determine when a flavor or slogan or brand was introduced.  Today is one of those days.

We mark June 1st as the date that Fanta was introduced to the US market and even blogged about it a few years ago.  It is a little tougher than that.  The product Fanta Orange was test marketed in several cities (Baltimore, Boston, Chicago) during the fall of 1958 and was later tested in Spokane.  Based on those successful test, the brand was introduced by Coca-Cola owned bottlers during 1959.

The reason we choose June 1, 1960 as the official date is that on that day, Fred Dixon, President of the newly formed Fanta Beverage Company sent a notice to all Bottlers of Coca-Cola announcing the "immediate availability of a line of soft drinks under the trademark, Fanta."  A week later the first contract was signed with the Savannah Coca-Cola Bottling Company and the brand was set.

Happy 50th Birthday Fanta!