The miracle drug suddenly became the leading beverage brand, let’s listen to the story of Coca-Cola

From headache medicine to top brands

Asa Griggs Candler is often known as the first owner of Coca-Cola. But in fact, this man is not the inventor of this drink. The “father” of Coca-Cola is pharmacist John Styth Pemberton, owner of a laboratory and private pharmacy.

With the aim of inventing a popular medicine that could cure headaches and fatigue, Pemberton experimented and concocted a brown syrup like coffee in 1688. This syrup when mixed with cold water will There is a drink that helps the patient feel refreshed.

Accordingly, this drink is extracted from the fruit and leaves of Kola – a plant only found in the rainforests of South America. After that, the name Coca-Cola was given by Frank M.Robinson, Pemberton’s chief accountant, according to its biological origin, but replaced the letter “K” with the letter “C” to make it easier to see and familiar.

When he invented this drink, pharmacist Pemberton was very interested. He carried marketing everywhere, even in bars. However, customers at that time did not accept this drink because they were brown like a medicine.

In one incident, an employee at “Jacos Pharmacy” mistakenly mixed Coca-Cola syrup with soda water instead of regular cold water according to Pemberton’s recipe. Since then, Coca-Cola has really been the favorite beverage of many people.

The price of a glass of Coca-Cola at that time was only 5 cents, much cheaper than soft drinks at that time, which were 7-8 cents. This drink has attracted the attention of a few local businesses and a number of entrepreneurs come to do business, including Asa Griggs Candler.

As a businessman, Candler saw the magical power of this potential drink. Between 1888-1891, he sold off his property to buy back Coca-Cola. Since May 1, 1889, Asa Griggs Candler has taken full ownership of the factory, formula and brand.

In 1892, Candler founded the Coca-Cola Company in Georgia with a capital of about $100,000. In the early days of the business, instead of advertising drugs as in the past, Candler turned to focus on introducing Coca-Cola as the favorite soft drink.

By 1895, Coca-Cola soft drink was available in all states of the United States. Candler ran an unprecedented large product launch campaign at the time. Everywhere, Coca-Cola had marketing teams selling promotions for 5 cents – pretty cheap for a bottle of soft drink at the time.

At the same time on the mass media and billboards, Coca-Cola appeared with unprecedented frequency. Starting from zero, owner Asa Candler has turned Coca-Cola into a proud beverage of Americans. If in the first year, Candler only sold over 30,000 liters of Coca-Cola, less than 30 years later the whole group had sold over 70 million liters.

The ‘top secret’ recipe becomes a way to attract diners

Many stories are circulated about how Coca-Cola kept and protected its famous drink recipe. Even the brand’s “top secret” formula has been at the heart of many of its product promotion campaigns and built a museum to hide it.

Accordingly, the original recipe was written down in 1919. It was then carefully guarded at a bank in Atlanta, until Coca-Cola decided to promote the “Top Secret” in its marketing campaign. . 86 years later, this recipe is on display at a museum.

In fact, the recipe for Coca-Cola has appeared many times, often as old sheets of paper or ancient writing. However, the company denies all of the above formulas, asserting that all are fake, and there is only one true formula.

The company believes that only two executives in the company know about the formula, although no one knows their names or positions within the corporation. Even in a marketing campaign, Coca-Cola mentioned these two people never flew on the same flight.

The place to keep the recipe is a vault protected by a fingerprint scanner, encrypted codes and a super-thick steel door. Behind that door, there will be a safe box with many more layers of protection. And inside this box, is an iron box called “the world’s most protected trade secret”. And a piece of Coca-Cola recipe paper was left in it.

Mark Pendergrast, author of “For God, Country and Coca-Cola”, here’s a way to increase sales through the unknown. “The secret creates natural curiosity in the product itself, and Coca-Cola drinkers always want to know the recipe.”

With Coca-Cola, they are not afraid if other companies know the recipe. A spokesman for the company once said: “Why do people have to go out to buy Yum-Yum, a drink that looks like Coca-Cola but is more expensive, when they can buy the real thing anywhere in the world. ?”

Source: CafeF

Source: Vietnam Insider