For God, Country, and Coca-Cola

by Mark Pendergrast

  Life at The Coca-Cola Company didn’t become that vicious or harried, but the eighties brought unwanted change there as well. Coca-Cola men had always worked like hell, but in the corporate, computerized, buttoned-down world of the North Avenue Tower, there was less room for creative flair. Coca-Cola USA men chafed under increased bureaucratization, paperwork, and a top-down system of orders. The new, impersonal world at headquarters disheartened Company veterans. “At one time,” Charlie Bottoms recalled, “I could have walked through the building and I would have been glad to give you a million dollars for anybody we passed that didn’t know who I was and I couldn’t at least call their first name. I can’t call their names anymore.” Bottoms complained of a “different breed” of employee who had never known the passionate loyalty to the Boss or the Company and regarded his or her job merely as a rung on a career ladder. “Some of them don’t even drink our products. That’s a sin. They work for money. They don’t work for Coca-Cola.” One day in 1988, Bottoms discovered one of his coworkers cleaning his desk in preparation for early retirement. “Why?” Bottoms asked him. “You’ve still got so much left in you.” The man sighed. “Charlie,” he answered, “I always promised myself that when it wasn’t fun anymore, I would go. Well, it isn’t fun anymore.” Bottoms, who chose early retirement himself a few years later, could not find a rebuttal.

  WITHIN WRIST’S LENGTH OF DESIRE

  The same sort of centralization also destroyed the fun in the Fountain Division, Woodruff’s old “Marine Corps,” though Coke continued to dominate Pepsi in the post-mix wars. Income from fountain constituted a third of the Company’s domestic profits. The most important accounts by far were fast-food outlets—all 122,000 of them. Dual-income families, too hassled to cook, grabbed more and more quick meals at the franchises, along with recently divorced singles. McDonald’s, of course, topped the list. Although the Golden Arches had always served only Coca-Cola beverages, there was no written contract, and nervous Coke men knew that McDonald’s could walk away without notice, taking the firm’s largest single account with them. By the late eighties, McDonald’s sold three billion drinks annually. To keep the big fountain accounts happy, Coke had to be satisfied with nearly invisible profit margins and offer superb, quick service.

  In 1986, PepsiCo acquired Kentucky Fried Chicken, making the soft drink concern the world’s second-largest restaurateur and providing one more exclusive outlet for Pepsi-Cola. Clever Coke salesmen exploited the KFC purchase to woo Wendy’s, however, noting that Pepsi now competed for the fast-food dollar at Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Wendy’s switched to Coke. “Pepsi was subsidizing its expansion with our soft drink dollars,” a Wendy’s spokesman complained. “We were supporting a competitor.” Similar thinking caused Domino’s Pizza to dump Pepsi soon afterward. To Coca-Cola’s delight, Pepsi was metamorphosing into a fast-food conglomerate more than a beverage company, and Coke men fervently hoped that Pepsi’s attention would be diverted from the cola wars.

  Determined to fill every niche of American society, in 1988 the Coca-Cola fountain men introduced the BreakMate, a miniature dispenser that could fit on a countertop in any office.* “Now we’re targeting one of the last remaining dry channels in the United States—the workplace,” a Coke executive exulted, though industry observer Jesse Meyers opined that the unit was really the prototype for a home soft-drink dispenser. Whatever the ultimate goal of the newest dispensing gadget, Coke was attempting to place its soft drinks not just within arm’s length of desire, but within wrist’s length, as Meyers put it. People could even buy a Coke on some intercity buses. “Perhaps coming years will see a time,” Goizueta mused dreamily, “when consumers will have Coca-Cola taps in their homes.”

  BEATING THE FEELING TO DEATH

  By the beginning of 1987, it was clear that the “Red, White & You” campaign was more black and blue than effective and that New Coke had fizzled, despite Max Head-room’s popularity. Consequently, McCann-Erickson compromised on a “megabrand umbrella” approach intended to advertise all products with the Coca-Cola name. “When Coca-Cola is a part of your life,” the new song promised, “you can’t beat the feeling.” This rather vague concept was supposed to claim consumers with a “special relationship” to Coke. At the end of each spot, a tagline for Classic, New Coke, Diet Coke, and Cherry Coke materialized, but the ads emphasized the “flagship brand,” Classic. Roberto Goizueta stubbornly refused to abandon New Coke, however, and during 1987 the Company spent over $21 million on commercials for the controversial cola while allocating only $36 million to Classic—slightly more than half of Pepsi’s main-thrust budget.

  In the meantime, Pepsi was lavishing big money on celebrity campaigns, once again turning to Michael Jackson, whose Bad album reaffirmed his hold on young consumers. Michael J. Fox performed in funny, innovative Diet Pepsi ads created by Roger Mosconi (director of the Mean Joe Greene spot), who had quarreled with John Bergin and shifted from McCann-Erickson to BBDO. Phil Dusenberry continued to mastermind Pepsi attack spots, such as one in which an archeologist of the future could not identify a Coke bottle. Finally, Pepsi resuscitated a modified Challenge, once again airing taste tests touting Pepsi as “America’s Choice” over Classic by a wide margin.

  No one cared anymore. American consumers were sick of taste tests, and they kept drinking more Classic despite “evidence” of their ignorance. Throughout 1987 and 1988, Pepsi regained a slight edge in the take-home market, however, while most analysts agreed that Pepsi ads were more effective than Coke’s diffuse efforts. As head of Coca-Cola USA, Ed Mellett had antagonized almost everyone, and when he fired two hundred people because of the reorganized bottling system, morale bottomed. At the end of 1988, Ike Herbert replaced Mellett, promising to revitalize the ad campaigns and restore good feeling to the American division.

  Herbert’s first change was, as Jesse Meyers noted, an “elegant marketing maneuver.” Since third-place Diet Coke gained market share faster than any other soft drink, Herbert decided to position Diet Coke against sugar Pepsi-Cola, asserting that the aspartame-sweetened drink would eventually surpass the Imitator to become number two—a doubtful claim in the short term, since Diet Coke claimed 8.5 percent of the soft drink market compared to Pepsi’s 17.7 percent. Still, the Diet Coke attack ads, featuring singer Whitney Houston, hunk actor Pierce Brosnan, and sexy actress Demi Moore, helped to reposition the rivalry in Coke’s favor. Don Johnson of Miami Vice, a previous shill for Pepsi, now confessed the error of his ways in Diet Coke spots. The surprise assault was called Project Manhattan—an obvious reference to the development of the atomic bomb. Making the military analogy explicit, Herbert explained that he had carefully defined a battlefield of his own choosing.

  Simultaneously, Herbert virtually abandoned New Coke advertising. Within a year, McCann men improved “Can’t Beat the Feeling” by a simple inversion of the lyrics. Research indicated that no one remembered or cared about the ethereal “feeling.” As a Pepsi man queried, “What is the feeling? Why can’t you beat it? It just doesn’t express anything.” Now, instead of mentioning the “real thing” in the penultimate position, the song crooned: “Can’t Beat the Feeling, Can’t Beat the Real Thing.” With the minor change, warmth and effectiveness flowed back into the commercials, and the recall rate jumped.

  Meanwhile, Pepsi embroiled itself in an unwanted controversy precisely because of its chosen image—hip, wild, creative, and slightly risqué. The pop superstar Madonna agreed to shoot a Pepsi spot in the spring of 1989, a video to her new song, “Like a Prayer.” Roger Mosconi loved working with Madonna, who was professional, savvy, and took direction beautifully. The $5 million ad campaign, in which the singer touchingly encountered her eight-year-old self, debuted in the U.S. and forty other countries. Without telling Mosconi, however, Madonna had filmed a rock video of the same song to premier simultaneously on MTV. In the sacrilegious video, Madonna cavorted in front of burning crosses, displayed Christ’s stigmata on her hands, and
made love with a black saint on a church pew, instantly provoking a public furor. Pepsi had to pull its ads.

  THE POWER OF PRESENCE

  Despite an improved campaign, by the late eighties Coke men appreciated that traditional television, radio, and print ads were not the only effective forms of advertising. Coke’s sheer presence in public venues, or “prestige” locations, provided enormous exposure. Don Keough emphasized “the power of presence” in a 1987 internal memo. “It is at the play, at the game, at the sorority and at the drugstore,” Keough wrote. “The name, Coca-Cola, is in front of every pair of eyes, every day, everywhere.” That, he pointed out, was what separated Coke from Pepsi. Through its exclusive presence at the Houston Astrodome, the San Diego Zoo, Madison Square Garden, Yankee Stadium, Disney World, and four hundred other prestige U.S. locations, Coca-Cola encountered over 280 million patrons a year. “We reach into the soul of America through these accounts,” a Coke man observed.

  The Disney account was by far the most important avenue into America’s soul, and not just because of presence at the entertainment parks in California, Florida, and Japan. Coke’s association with the beloved animated characters dated back to the fifties and sponsorship of The Mickey Mouse Club. In 1985, Coke signed an exclusive global marketing agreement. As a Company publication observed, “even a fairy godmother or sorcerer would be hard-pressed to match the wizardry of Mickey Mouse and Coca-Cola,” since they were both “family-oriented” and “stand for good things.” In 1987, to help celebrate Disney World’s fifteenth birthday, Coke sponsored a tie-in contest with the April Disney Sunday Movie. “We’ve always wanted to lock up Easter as a major sales period,” a Coke executive glowed. Forget celebrating the resurrection—a “Watch & Win” sweepstakes with free vacations to Disney World provided infinitely better advertising.

  By the late eighties, advancing beyond mere product placement in movies, Coke paid for advertisements on rental videos. In addition, at thousands of theaters around the country, Coke ads introduced the main feature. Theater managers were delighted, since the ads boosted Coke sales at the concession stand, with its standard 80 percent markup. And more than ever Coke relied on the films themselves for product placement and co-promotions. To offset Ishtar’s dismal performance earlier in the year, Coca-Cola turned to Bill Cosby, hoping for a blockbuster comedy for the 1987 Christmas season with his Leonard Part 6, a spy spoof that Cosby himself had written. Coke men could hardly contain their joy over the co-promotional opportunities. “The synergies between soft drinks and entertainment are endless and growing,” a Coke marketer crowed. “We want to capitalize on these opportunities to the fullest.”

  He wasn’t kidding. Coca-Cola soft drink divisions were prepared to spend over $12 million for Leonard, including tiny promotional spy cameras, supermarket displays with Cosby’s smug smile presiding over stacked six-packs, Porsches as sweepstake prizes, and a deluge of cups, posters, pullover shirts, and buttons featuring Cosby and Coke. The movie seemed a surefire winner, with the comedian’s TV show at the top of the charts and his book on parenting the world’s fastest-selling hardback thus far. Cosby himself assured everyone that his film was “flat-out comedy, with punch lines that people will be able to laugh at over and over. I’ve been in this business for a long time, and I know this is really funny stuff.” Unfortunately, he was wrong. “The audience hated it,” the film’s editor noted. “Jesus Christ, a rainbow trout got a bigger laugh than the great God Cosby!” The film failed utterly, pulling in only $5 million at the box office and incurring a net loss of $33 million.

  Undeterred, Coca-Cola cut a deal for the ultimate product-placement film the following year. MAC and Me, an unabashed E.T. rip-off, made Coca-Cola the alien’s only source of sustenance. “This must be like what they drink on their own planet,” young Eric informed his brother as MAC slurped his Coke. Near the movie’s end, sips of magical Coke revived the alien’s nearly dead family members. In the final scene, the visitors from another planet drove into the sunset in a Chevy convertible, chewing bubble gum and drinking Coke. Though the movie was predictable, with a pedestrian script and poor acting, it undoubtedly helped to sell a lot of Coke and grossed over $34 million at the box office in just over a month.

  WE’LL BUILD A BETTER WORLD FOR YOU

  While Coke was engaged in a bitter struggle for supremacy in the United States—often looking somewhat silly in the process—the real action had shifted overseas, where Coke totally dominated Pepsi. Embarrassed by the New Coke debacle, Coca-Cola ordered Marcio Moreira to make a new commercial to restore worldwide Company pride. Once more, freelancer Ginny Redington devised a winner in which over a thousand eager, fresh-faced youngsters of every ethnic and geographical origin intoned an uplifting message reminiscent of the “Hilltop” commercial.

  “I am the future of the world,” sang a fifteen-year-old blonde girl with sweet sincerity, sitting alone at a table. “I am the hope of my nation. / I am tomorrow’s people, I am the new inspiration,” she continued, rising as hordes of other teenagers streamed into the imposing assembly hall and joined the song. “Please let there be for you and for me a tomorrow,” they begged, each clutching a bottle of Coke. “If we all can agree, there’ll be sweet harmony tomorrow.” A girl laid her head on her boyfriend’s shoulder. “Promise us tomorrow, and we’ll build a better world for you.” After panning the throng, the camera once more focused on the original soloist, while across the bottom scrolled, “A message of hope from the people who make Coca-Cola.”

  The song was beautiful, touching, stirring, and, as always with Coke’s best efforts, not terribly specific. The emotional rush sufficed, particularly if all these young people kept drinking Coca-Cola. McCann men filmed “General Assembly,” the perfect pattern commercial, in St. George’s Hall in Liverpool, a harbor town where they could easily gather kids from around the world. The creative team shot the mob scene for the first two days, then filmed various soloists in nineteen different languages for as many versions of the commercial.

  First released early in 1987, “General Assembly” effectively reasserted Coca-Cola’s global image of peace, brotherhood, and all-encompassing goodwill. Over the next few years, it was broadcast again for appropriate events such as a Gorbachev-Reagan summit and the 1992 Olympics. In the Philippines, it served as the entire campaign for two years, with new versions filmed locally. In Peru, an entirely new Spanish cast assembled at Machu Picchu for a dramatic restaging. Where the Inca had once grown terraced fields of coca atop the world, singers now claimed the future for Coca-Cola. The wheel had come full circle.

  Outside the United States, the Company maintained “Coke Is It” well beyond the introduction of “Can’t Beat the Feeling” domestically—a normal procedure to see how well the American campaign was progressing and to allow time for testing it in foreign venues. Finally approved for overseas ads late in 1988, it didn’t translate well in several markets, where “beating a feeling” meant something nonsensical or obscene. In Chile, the new slogan was transmogrified into “The Feeling of Life,” in Italy “Unique Sensation,” and in Japan, with its fractured English, “I Feel Coke.”

  Marcio Moreira, constantly frustrated by Coca-Cola’s prudish standards, traveled the world in the early eighties policing women’s nipples, which were taped over for swimsuit ads. “Sexiness and sensuality are a more acceptable part of many foreign lifestyles,” the Brazilian ad man knew. By late in the decade, Moreira’s international ads, extremely racy by American standards, featured lingering shots of swaying behinds, suggestive kissing and embracing, and commercials such as “First Time,” which implicitly associated the excitement of an initial sexual encounter with drinking Coke. Rerecorded without reference to Coke, the song dominated the top rock spot in England for several weeks.

  Under Moreira’s direction, Coke’s pattern advertising became more “universal,” as he put it. In previous years, international commercials featured a careful blend of blacks, Asians, and whites. Now, research revealed
that actors with dark Latin looks—a kind of middle ground—played well everywhere except Japan and a few other countries. “Anything that is too topical or local or ethnic won’t work,” Moreira explained. Likewise, wardrobe, locations, and props were carefully screened to avoid “contravening any major cultural streams.”

  ROCKIN’ AND SOCKIN’ WITH COKE

  Around the world, ads and promotions strengthened Coke’s ties with two universals—music and sports. Any singers used for international ads—such as George Michael, Cyndi Lauper, Whitney Houston, or Sting—had to appeal worldwide, particularly to teens. While America was graying, the world population as a whole grew younger, and satellites and cable TV rendered rock videos universal fare. In Brazil (average age: seventeen), Coke sponsored “Rock in Rio,” a gigantic nine-day concert attended by over a million people. Lulu Santos, a Brazilian pop star, indicated his appreciation for Company support by mentioning Coke frequently in his song lyrics. In the Philippines, Coca-Cola actually recruited and groomed local rock groups, carefully fostering their popularity through concerts, tours, and TV commercials. Thailand’s fans started wearing Coca-Cola clothes to Carabao concerts because of the singers’ close identification with the soft drink, while in France, the Company sponsored a daily radio/TV show, the Coca-Cola Top 50.