A Coke and a Wedding

A few weeks ago, I was delighted to greet two collectors from China to our Atlanta Headquarters. Without question, these collectors were among the most enthusiastic fans of the brand that I have ever encountered. Their passion was to collect packaging for Coca-Cola from all over the world, particularly bottles and cans that were associated with unique events like the Olympics, the World Cup and the Shanghai Expo.

One of the collectors, a man named Cheng Zhang, made his brand love part of his wedding celebration this past Fall. Guests who attended his wedding reception received special commemorative cans of Coca-Cola. A photo of the happy couple had been produced as a decal and attached to the can. The result was a truly special, unique package that will serve as a wonderful souvenir of their special day.

Mr. Zhang presented me with one of these special cans that I have added to our packaging collection. Our team wishes Mr. and Mrs. Zhang many bountiful years together. Sharing a Coke with their friends and family certainly got them off to a good start.

This is Albie Louw - Part Two

This is part two of the story of Albie Louw, who made an album on the “His Master’s Voice” record label in 1969 which featured a Coke ad on the cover. Click here to read part one.

The Story of the Coca-Cola Album Cover

Mr. Louw did not know that the Coke advert was going to be featured as the cover art for “Wonderful One” when he submitted the music to the label. He recounted to me that when he received the record by post mail from the record company in Johannesburg and opened it, he was "shocked!” He had no idea what the cover image was going to be, and was surprised to see the Coke ad. He eventually dealt with it and got over it! Luckily, Mr. Louw had been a Coke fan as long as he could remember, and I asked him if he could re-live his memories of Coca-Cola growing up for our blog readers.

Albie’s Coke Stories

A few quotes sum up the memories Mr. Louw ran through about his fondest times with Coca-Cola. They include, “When we were in school, that was our favorite drink. We used to go mad for Coca-Cola. Some kids used to make an ice cream drink with it, and we thought it was quite delicious.” About later times, he said, “During the [World War II] years, it was so popular that everybody drank Coca-Cola.”

Albie’s Favorites

One of the highlights of my conversation with Mr. Louw was his taking a minute to play me a tune on his piano. He put me on speakerphone, and began to play – I could immediately hear the influence of one of his favorite artists, piano great Art Tatum, in his playing. In addition to Art Tatum (who I also enjoy), Mr. Louw notes Carmen Cavallaro, Count Basie and Peter Nero among his favorites.

Thanks so much, Mr. Louw for sharing your Coke story with our readers! Also, a special shout out to Coke Conversations blog reader Jacob Clarence, who connected us with Mr. Louw! Cheers!

This is Albie Louw - Part One

About a month ago, when we found a 1959 record album with Coca-Cola artwork on the cover, we asked the question, “Who is Albie Louw (the recording artist)?” I wasn’t sure we’d get an answer. Lo and behold not only did we find out who he was, but a blog reader actually put us in touch with him! Mr. Louw is now 85 years old, living in South Africa and still playing piano gigs weekly! We’ll share the complete story of Mr. Louw, the Coca-Cola album cover, and even his memories of Coke growing up in two parts. Here’s part one:

The Beginnings

Mr. Louw started playing the piano as early as age 6, and began taking lessons at age 9. He became a very popular player while in college and he was unofficially dubbed “Cape Town’s Keyboard King.” Eventually, Mr. Louw landed a record deal to make somewhere in the neighborhood of ten albums for his recording label. His first album was entitled, “In Tune with South Africa”, and he continued each year with a new volume of the “In Tune” series.

The album with the Coca-Cola cover – “Wonderful One”

 “Wonderful One” was Volume 9 of the “In Tune” series, distributed internationally on the EMI label “His Master’s Voice” beginning in 1959. We have letters in our files from the Coke offices in both Argentina and South Africa about the record’s release in each respective country. The letter dated December 30, 1959 was sent to the international marketing department and it reads, “Enclosed herewith, I am sending you a jacket of a phonograph record recently released by Columbia Records in Argentina. You will notice that the illustration on the front of the jacket is a reproduction of a color photograph from our 1958 Pattern Campaign.”

Another letter written from our Johannesburg office on April 7, 1960 reads, “I thought you might be interested in seeing how we capitalized in conjunction with a local recording company, on the wonderful New York produced calendar material.” [The original Coke ad featured on the cover was produced by our office in New York and featured in calendars]. These letters in our Archives and a photocopy of the album were the only evidence we had that this record even existed. From there, we scoured the web to see if we could find it, and finally tracked it down from an obscure record collector’s website out of South Africa.

Mr. Louw went on to tell me that the songs on the album were all played in two sittings, roughly 20 minutes per side with a small pause in between each selection. They were recorded in this manner without any breaks for sound quality and consistency.

Stay tuned for part two which includes Mr. Louw’s story of seeing the Coca-Cola album cover art for the first time, as well as his memories of Coke from his childhood.

Who is Albie Louw?

While processing our International Collection a few months back, we came across a photocopy of a record album cover that featured a classic Coca-Cola ad that we have in our collection. The album is entitled "Wonderful One", by Albie Louw "The Keyboard King". Does anyone have any information on Albie Louw? We are really interested in hearing the story of why he selected this Coca-Cola image for the cover of his album - maybe he was a Coke fan?? If you have any insights, please share it with us! In the meantime, you can see below the original ad from our collection. This version of the ad is a 1960 poster from The Netherlands. Verfrist U Het Best translates to "Refreshes You The Best" in English.

A 115 Minute Pause That Refreshes

Do you remember the 1960s Billy Wilder movie entitled "One, Two, Three" about a Coca-Cola manager in Germany? Critics at the time of release called it a "115 minute pause that refreshes"! Of course, I originally had to "google" the movie because I hadn't heard of it, but enjoyed the special "One, Two, Three" employee screening of at the World of Coke. Just recently, I also learned that we produced advertising posters, window streamers and six pack carton stick-ins to promote Coca-Cola as a tie in with the movie. Below is an image of one of the truck posters. The space on the right was left open so that the name of the local movie theater could be printed on directly.

 

125th Exhibit Cases For Turkey

We just finished building a new set of exhibit cases highlighting our Company heritage.  The exhibit has five cases and is very similar in design and content to the show that we opened in Singapore in early June.  The new exhibit cases will be shipped to Istanbul, Turkey tomorrow and are scheduled to go on display on September 9th.  While the quality of this cell phone photograph is not great, the case on the left highlights significant events in our history and the case on the right focuses on FIFA and the Olympic Games.  Each case has a video monitor to show additional items and the descriptions are shown on iPads mounted to the front of the case.  If your travels take you to Turkey this fall, look for the exhibit.

From Calendars to Cardboards

One Coke image would often take on various forms of advertising in different shapes and sizes by the time it was all said and done. We came across a 1950s letter in our collection noting that overseas Coca-Cola offices in various countries wanted to use some of the 1956 Calendar images on lithographed cardboard pieces. Because of the demand, rough design sketch layouts of how the cardboard signs would look with the tag lines included were developed and distributed to the offices. The specific dye transfers and colors to be used for captions and frames (such as the "Red Caption" and "Green Frame" notes on the above Couple on Steamer piece) were all specified by the Coke Advertising Department. The below lithograph sketch was an adaptation of the image from the January-February page of the 1956 calendar. The version of the calendar shown below is actually from Trinidad & Tobago. We found these sketches in our Export Collection which details our business internationally.

  
 

How do you say "Happiness" in 57 languages?

A while back, we shared the international logos of Coca-Cola with you. I just came across a video from the 75th Anniversary of Coca-Cola yesterday that has cartoon characters taking you on a tour of the world and reminding you that Coca-Cola is enjoyed at work, at play, and at home, the world over. This clip from the 1961 film descibes the tag line in a small number of the 57 different languages it was sold in at the time. Enjoy!

The film, entitled "Community of The World", shows clips of Coca-Cola in Germany, Italy, Egypt, India, Singapore, The Philippines, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, The Netherlands, Peru, Uraguay, Colombia, Austria, Lenanon, New Zealand, Denmark, Chile and others.

 

It's a boat... It's a plane... No, It's a Coke!

The beaches of Dubai have seen vision of large, ice-cold refreshment floating by over the last month. The scene is a monstrosity of Coke happiness that makes you thirsty just looking at it. The 14 meter iceberg is part of summer promotions in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. I wonder if Coke Collectors would have room to store this in their garages?

 

 
 

Singapore Exhibit Prep

I have written a few post recently about the celebrations for our 125th anniversary.  This week I traveled to Singapore to attend an series of events to mark the celebrations.  I had worked with the local team to create a traveling exhibit for the ceremonies, so I was excited to see how they looked.  We had expanded our exhibit construction this year and had included iPads and video monitors to show more artifacts for each subject that was covered in the case.

We visited the venue today as the preperations were still under way.  It was amazing to see the exhibit cases being assembled by the team in Singapore.  The cases look good, but the exhibit hall was amazing with all the other Coke decorations.  I can't wait to share some photos of the event tomorrow.