The Ledger
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Studies reveal Coca-Cola is the world's number one ocean plastic polluter
“I was looking up studies recently, and the Coca-Cola company is the number one polluter globally of Crap in the ocean. Pepsi's very close behind all the big drink companies.”
Warren Buffett's legendary Coca-Cola investment has actually underperformed the S&P 500
“He would have been better off buying the S&P Over that same time period. Including dividends over that same time period. The S and P 500 is up about 11% annually. So the famous Berkshire Hathaway Coca-Cola investment today is actually underperforming the marke…”
Rosenthal: Coca-Cola's Robert Woodruff backed segregationist politicians in the 1940s
“In fact, Robert Woodruff was openly supporting segregationist politicians during this time.”
Rosenthal: Coke's Santa campaign is the greatest lifestyle advertising success ever
“Because in 1931, Lee and Woodruff and the Coca-Cola crew create what I think is unquestionably the greatest lifestyle advertising success in human history, where they manage to associate Santa Claus with Coca-Cola.”
Gilbert: Coca-Cola would be worse off today without New Coke
“I think Coca-Cola would be worse off today if they didn't go through the new Coke moment, which is crazy to say, but I guess we don't have the counterfactual, but if you just look at the data on the resurgence in Coke afterwards, you couldn't have come up with…”
Rosenthal: Coca-Cola's secret formula holds absolutely no value today
“I think there is today absolutely no value to the formula.”
Late 1950s McCann taste tests showed consumers preferred Pepsi over Coke
“Consumers, when presented with the two drinks, Coke and Pepsi, in a blind taste test, a statistically significant number of people prefer Pepsi. The taste of Pepsi.”
CAA ran the Coca-Cola advertising account with six people versus McCann's 300
“So we had McCann Erickson had 300 human beings working on the Coke account. We had six.”
Coca-Cola approved all 35 commercials CAA presented in their agency shootout
“We got awarded the account And of the 35 commercials we presented, they approved every single one.”
Rosenthal: Coca-Cola wouldn't have scaled without its franchised bottling network
“If they had taken the Amex approach and Candler had decided, ah, you know, we're gonna enter the bottling business ourselves and
We're going to go market by market and invest the capital in the production lines and the bottles.
Absolutely no way would they hav…”
The Coca-Cola formula was first written down in 1919 as loan collateral
“This is actually the first time the secret formula for Coca-Cola gets written down. It had been sort of this cool secret before, but as collateral for the loan that Woodruff took out to complete this transaction, they wrote down the formula and placed it in a …”
Pepsi tried to sell itself to Coca-Cola on three separate occasions
“Pepsi tried to sell itself to Coca-Cola, like sell its operations to Coca-Cola three separate times over the years.”
Early Coca-Cola contained roughly one line of cocaine per five glasses
“As best as I was able to read from a few different sources, I think roughly once Coca-Cola starts being produced in that first decade, call it four or five glasses of Coca-Cola would be about the equivalent of a line of cocaine today.”
Rosenthal: Pepsi surpassed Coca-Cola in US bottled market share in 1977
“In 1977, Pepsi outspends Coke in advertising for the first time in history. And Pepsi actually passes Coke in market share in the bottled market.”
Coca-Cola's pure syrup-and-marketing model earns far higher ROIC than bottling
“The Coca-Cola company has higher gross margins, much better returns on invested capital, requires less invested capital. They get to focus on just making syrup and marketing. They don't have to do any of the undifferentiated stuff. You'd much rather be Coca-Co…”
Coca-Cola forbids its sales teams from selling syrup below McDonald's rate
“Coke sales teams are prohibited from selling syrup to restaurants for less than McDonald's pays, even if it means they're going to lose the business to Pepsi.”
Coca-Cola's board rejected a $16B Quaker Oats acquisition after the CEO announced it
“In 2000, the CEO of Coke announces publicly a sixteen billion dollar deal to acquire Quaker Oats and Gatorade... So he announced it without board approval. The board rejected it after the public announcement. The deal falls through and the next year Pepsi ends…”
Gilbert: Coca-Cola's core moat is aligning ecosystem partner incentives
“If you really boil it down, the Coca-Cola company in a nutshell, it is figuring out how to incentivize partners to sell your product. And everyone is incentivized. The bottlers are massively incentivized. The retailers, there's great margin there for you. The …”
Coca-Cola passed on buying Monster at an $11 billion valuation in 2012
“So in 2012, Monster reached out to potential buyers, including Coca-Cola and Pepsi, but Coke decided against pursuing it because the price was high. Monster's market cap was eleven billion dollars at the time.”
Rosenthal: Bill Gates revealed Buffett said Coke could be run by a ham sandwich
“Later on at Sun Valley, Bill Gates lets it slip on a panel with Warren and Roberto and Don Keogh that Warren has always told Bill that Coca-Cola could be run by a ham sandwich.”
Rosenthal: Coca-Cola directly addressing Pepsi in ads was its worst mistake
“Coca-Cola is a singular N of one product. Coca-Cola does not exist in a universe with other competitors. And here's Bill Cosby directly talking about Pepsi and the challenge. It's the worst thing that Coca-Cola could possibly do.”
Asa Candler acquired total ownership of Coca-Cola for just $2,300 in 1891
“In that next year, 1891, when Asa Candler buys the last piece to fully own Coca-Cola, he got an incredible deal. Even with all that growth having already happened, he only paid 2300 dollars to buy it all.”
Pepsi's 12-ounce bottle was textbook counter-positioning that Coca-Cola could not match
“This is textbook counter positioning. Coca-Cola cannot respond because they and their bottlers have just invested all of this capital and all of this IP into the six and a half ounce contour bottle. They can't react.”
A Coca-Cola facility in Peru once sold 42 pounds of byproduct cocaine
“Around 1930, when they were really freaked out about whether or not they'd have the ability to import the coca leaves to the United States to do the refining here, they actually leased a secret cocaine refining facility in Peru. They spun the factory up. It wa…”
Early gas station owners made more profit selling Coca-Cola than selling gasoline
“There's so much margin to go around being the retailer. Of soft drinks, especially at this time, that they were making more money on coke than gas.”
Coca-Cola's supplier is the sole commercial entity legally permitted to import coca leaves
“In 19 oh three, They contract with a company called the Schaefer Alkaloid Works of Maywood, New Jersey, that has developed a process to decocanize coca leaves. And this company, which still exists to today and is still the sole supplier of decocanized coca lea…”
Gilbert: Tab was the top-selling US diet soda until Diet Coke
“Tab quickly becomes the best-selling diet soda in America, I think in the world, and stays that way all the way up until they release Diet Coke, which we'll talk about in a little bit.”
Partner Frank Robinson both named Coca-Cola and designed its script logo
“Frank Robinson, the business partner who also named the drink. He also introduces the script logo. Like he writes out the Coca-Cola script logo that we still use to this day.”
Coca-Cola created the first manufacturer's coupon ever redeemable at retail
“And this is the very first manufacturer's coupon redeemable at a retailer.”
Rosenthal: Ovitz Pitched Coke 40 Ads for the Cost of McCann's Seven
“So he pitches Coke that CAA can make 40 ads a year for them. For the same cost that McCann Erickson is making seven and they can all stay unified under the new Coke slogan of always Coca-Cola.”
Gilbert: Scale allowed Coca-Cola to profit at prices competitors couldn't match
“Coke can be profitable at way lower end consumer prices than the other subscale companies.”
Gilbert: Coca-Cola is the longest running Olympic sponsor, starting in 1928
“Coca-Cola was a sponsor of the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam, which makes them the longest running Olympic sponsor.”
Gilbert: Coca-Cola serves 2.2 billion beverage servings globally every day
“Coca-Cola serves 2.2 billion servings of their beverages to the world every day.”
Gilbert: Only 79 days passed between New Coke launch and Classic's return
“There was 79 days between when they released new Coke and when Coca-Cola classic made its return.”
Rosenthal: CAA Won Coke's Ad Business and Created the Polar Bears Campaign
“CAA wins the business. Dethrones McCann Erickson. And among the many ads that they create for Coke is a new Christmas Coca-Cola motif, not featuring Santa Claus, but instead the polar bears.”
Rosenthal: Don Keough converted Warren Buffett to Coke using Cherry Coke
“Keo converts him to Coke by telling him about this new product that they're going to launch, Cherry Coke, because Buffett loved cherry syrup in his Pepsi, and so he converts Warren to a Coke guy before Warren ever invests a dollar in the Coca-Cola company.”
Rosenthal: D'Arcy agency established strict brand commandments for Coca-Cola
“And so he and the Darcy agency come up with a list of commandments for the Coca-Cola account. Some of them are never split the trademark Coca-Cola on two lines. Coca-Cola must always be together on one line. The circular sign should always carry the phrase del…”
The famous Coca-Cola contour bottle was mistakenly modeled after a cocoa pod
“Something got lost in translation, and the bottle was designed to look like the cocoa plant. The cocoa pod that you smash open to get out cocoa beans. This is a whole different thing called the coca plant, not the cocoa plant. C O C A versus C O C O A.”
Coca-Cola captures $47B of its $175B system revenue with 10% of employees
“Revenue, forty seven billion dollars at Coca-Cola company out of one hundred and seventy five billion dollars in total revenue by the system. And this is as reported by Coca-Cola in their proxy statement. There are 70,000 employees of Coca-Cola. But again, if …”
Gilbert: Coca-Cola's $2B+ stake in Monster grew to nearly $12B
“Coke puts in over two billion dollars. At least they're getting on the train. So Coke is the largest shareholder now in Monster Energy. And you know, that deal looks pretty good. That two-ish billion that they put in is worth almost twelve billion dollars toda…”
Gilbert: 1980 federal antitrust amendment allowed soft drink bottler territorial monopolies
“In 1980, the government passed an amendment to federal antitrust law that exempted the soft drink industry. So Coke and Pepsi could actually grant exclusive territories to their bottlers”
A 1920 Supreme Court ruling legally defined Coca-Cola as a single-source brand
“And the Supreme Court says we are ruling in favor of Coca-Cola. It is a phrase that has transcended being a descriptive name, and it is now just a brand. And the official ruling, which is the stuff of legend, contains this phrase. Coca-Cola means a single thin…”
Local Coca-Cola bottlers typically became the wealthiest families in their American towns
“More than some money, the local Coca-Cola bottlers usually become the wealthiest family in any given town across America.”
Coca-Cola sued and successfully shut down over 7,000 copycat brands by 1925
“So over the next, like, 1520 years, by the mid-twenties, it's estimated that Coca-Cola sues and shuts down over 7000 Copycat cola brands in a very, very busy legal department.”
Coca-Cola kept patent protection on its bottle design from 1915 to 1951
“They would then, this is some classic Coca-Cola lawyering, get additional patents for iterations on the design that effectively renewed the patent all the way from 1915 until the final one expired in 1951.”