We look back on the war between Coke and Pepsi. Advertising experts analyze the cola wars between Coca-Cola and Pepsi. The rivalry goes back more than a century ago, but for the last 50 years the two companies have been feuding through television commercials. Watch and see how the rivalry has changed over the years.
**** VIDEO #2
Vanity Fair, August 27, 2018
Advertising experts analyze the cola wars between Coca-Cola
and Pepsi. The rivalry goes back more than a century ago, but for the last 50
years the two companies have been feuding through television commercials. Watch
and see how the rivalry has changed over the years.
Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post showcases two YouTube videos about the Coca Cola Pepsi Cola marketing war (the cola wars).
This post also includes an excerpt of a 2013 The Atlantic article entitled "A Brief History Of Racist Soft Drinks" by Adam Clark Estes.
The content of this post is presented for historical and socio-cultural purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to Adam Clark Estes for writing the article that is excerpted in this post and thanks to The Atlantic magazine for publishing that article. Thanks also to all those who were associated with the showcases videos and thanks to the publishers of these videos on YouTube.
-snip-
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****
ARTICLE EXCERPT: A BRIEF HISTORY OF RACIST SOFT DRINKS
by Adam Clark Estes, January 28, 2013
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/01/brief-history-racist-soft-drinks/318929/
A Brief History of Racist Soft Drinks by Adam Clark Estes, January 28, 2013
"Lots of people know about how Coca-Cola used to contain
cocaine or how Pepsi was the hip drink in the 1960s. Few realize that Coke
marketed assiduously to whites, while Pepsi hired a "negro markets"
department. Put more bluntly, Coke was made for white people. Pepsi was made
for black people. Over the course of the decades and the seemingly limitless
growth of the soft drink industry, the companies have expanded their marketing
departments and launched myriad campaigns to discourage the idea that either
appealed to a specific race. And now, in 2012 as Mayor Bloomberg plays tough
against continued opposition to his ban on soft drinks, the complicated racial
dynamics of the industry are exposed once again, as the NAACP works to reverse
the ban, thanks, in part, to donations from Coca-Cola.
The fascinating century-and-a-half-long history of soft drinks and race relations in the United States is spelled out in a just published New York Times column from Grace Elizabeth Hale. [https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/opinion/when-jim-crow-drank-coke.html When Jim Crow Drank Coke, Jan. 28, 2013]
The part about the interwar period in America is particularly interesting. Coke marketed mainly to the white middle class:
“Coke's recipe wasn't the only thing influenced by white supremacy: through the 1920s and ’30s, it studiously ignored the African-American market. Promotional material appeared in segregated locations that served both races, but rarely in those that catered to African-Americans alone.”
Whereas Pepsi and its "negro markets" department
went an entirely different direction:
"By the late 1940s, black sales representatives worked the Southern Black Belt and Northern black urban areas, black fashion models appeared in Pepsi ads in black publications, and special point-of-purchase displays appeared in stores patronized by African-Americans. The company hired Duke Ellington as a spokesman. Some employees even circulated racist public statements by Robert W. Woodruff, Coke's president." [blockquote]
[Asa G] Candler began marketing the drink as “refreshing”
rather than medicinal, and managed to survive the controversy. But concerns
exploded again after the company pioneered its distinctive glass bottles in
1899, which moved Coke out of the segregated spaces of the soda fountain.
Anyone with a nickel, black or white, could now drink the cocaine-infused
beverage. Middle-class whites worried that soft drinks were contributing to
what they saw as exploding cocaine use among African-Americans. Southern
newspapers reported that “negro cocaine fiends” were raping white women, the
police powerless to stop them. By 1903, Candler had bowed to white fears (and a
wave of anti-narcotics legislation), removing the cocaine and adding more sugar
and caffeine.
Coke’s recipe wasn’t the only thing influenced by white
supremacy: through the 1920s and ’30s, it studiously ignored the
African-American market. Promotional material appeared in segregated locations
that served both races, but rarely in those that catered to African-Americans
alone.
[…]
Meanwhile Pepsi, the country’s second largest soft drink
company, had tried to fight Coke by selling its sweeter product in a larger
bottle for the same price. Still behind in 1940, Pepsi’s liberal chief
executive, Walter S. Mack, tried a new approach: he hired a team of 12
African-American men to create a “negro markets” department.
By the late 1940s, black sales representatives worked the
Southern Black Belt and Northern black urban areas, black fashion models appeared
in Pepsi ads in black publications, and special point-of-purchase displays
appeared in stores patronized by African-Americans. The company hired Duke
Ellington as a spokesman. Some employees even circulated racist public
statements by Robert W. Woodruff, Coke’s president.
The campaign was so successful that many Americans began
using a racial epithet to describe Pepsi. By 1950, fearing a backlash by white
consumers, Pepsi had killed the program, but the image of Coke and Pepsi as
“white” and “black” drinks lingered.
Not long after, perhaps seeing the business error of its ways, Coke quietly began to market to African-Americans. Eventually, part of Coke’s strategy was to support African-American organizations, forming the basis of its relationship with the N.A.A.C.P.
The historical weight of that relationship came to the surface after a 1999 discrimination case brought by black Coke employees, which created bad press for the company around the world. In 2000, Coke agreed to a settlement for $156 million and made a $50 million donation to the Coca-Cola Foundation to support community programs.
It took time, but the new tack worked: today the racial line
between the soda companies, even in the South, is a dim memory, and the
soft-drink industry is on good terms with one of its largest demographic
markets: African-Americans.”….
-snip-
The link for this article still works on March 27, 2021 but the article is much shorter than the portions that I am quoting in this pancocojams post. And I only retrieved part of that article some years ago. Also, I can't find any comments for this article on March 27, 2021.
Here are the only comments that I retrieved some years ago from that article's disccussion thread. I think there were more comments.
1. Victor Goring New York January 29, 2013
"Growing up in the south,in the fifties i remember that coke
was considered a white drink and that only the coloreds drank pepsi.Thanks for
reminding me Professor Hale,i had completely forgotten the racial connatations
of those two soft drinks.Time moves on but it seems that some things never
change."
**
2. MasterG Harlem January 29, 2013
"There was a third player in the southern cola market: Royal
Crown Cola"
**
3. pa is a trusted commenter ny January 29, 2013
"Why no mention of the fact that Martin Luther King once told
his audience to stop eating Wonder Bread and drinking Coca-Cola? "
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