Secret Formula

The Inside Story of How Coca-Cola Became the Best-Known Brand in the World

Frederick Allen

• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781504019835
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Food Industry
• Index: Business

A "highly entertaining history [of] global hustling, cola wars and the marketing savvy that carved a niche for Coke in the American social psyche" ( Publishers Weekly ). Secret Formula follows the colorful characters who turned a relic from the patent medicine era into a company worth $80 billion. Award-winning reporter Frederick Allen's engaging account begins with Asa Candler, a nineteenth-century pharmacist in Atlanta who secured the rights to the original Coca-Cola formula and then struggled to get the cocaine out of the recipe. After many tweaks, he finally succeeded in turning a backroom belly-wash into a thriving enterprise. In 1919, an aggressive banker named Ernest Woodruff leveraged a high-risk buyout of the Candlers and installed his son at the helm of the company. Robert Woodruff spent the next six decades guiding Coca-Cola with a single-minded determination that turned the soft drink into a part of the landscape and social fabric of America. Written with unprecedented access to Coca-Cola's archives, as well as the inner circle and private papers of Woodruff, Allen's captivating business biography stands as the definitive account of what it took to build America's most iconic company and one of the world's greatest business success stories.

INDEX

Abram, Morris, 311

Acklin, Arthur, 152, 212–13, 228, 232, 245

Acmaro Securities, 152

Adams, Charles, 348

Adams, Samuel Hopkins, 46

advertising, Coca-Cola

American life in, 190

billboard, 124, 161, 189

to blacks, 263, 296

children and, 190, 191

D’Arcy Advertising Company and, 71–73, 84, 146, 153, 191, 215, 251, 272, 281

D’Arcy and, 71–73, 84, 103, 111, 112, 123, 153, 191, 215, 251

Dobbs and, 66, 69–75, 84, 111, 113, 153, 155

early, 28, 35, 36, 66–67, 69–70, 391, 392

Goizuetta, Roberto, and, 386

Keough and, 386

Lee and, 13, 153–56, 176–77, 189, 190, 191, 215–16, 221, 230, 272, 281

McCann-Erickson and, 281, 282, 293, 294, 326, 356, 360, 371, 379–80

Nazi Germany ad, 403

New Coke, 380, 381

in 1930s, 189–92

in 1990s, 386

radio, 221, 230, 272, 327

“Ritz boy” ad, 156

Santa Clause illustrations, 190, 217, 400

snob appeal, 221–22, 281

sponsored radio programs, 161–62, 190, 221, 228, 272, 294

sponsored television programs, 272, 294, 295

Sundblom illustrations, 9, 155, 190, 217, 400

Talley, Lee, and, 293

television, 327, 366, 373–74, 386, 421

Venice, 407

Woodruff, Robert, and, 9, 152–53, 188, 189, 221, 251, 272, 281, 282

World War II, 404

See also promotion, Coca-Cola; slogans, Coca-Cola

Advertising Age, 271, 330, 337

Afri-Cola, 226, 242

Agricultural Adjustment Administration, 210

alcohol, 26

as Coca-Cola ingredient, 40, 46, 47, 49, 50

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