The World’s most popular fizzy drink. One of the most global brands in the world. There’s only one drink in your mind right now, and it’s Coca-Cola. Despite being originally invented as a patent medicine, the carbonated soft drink have used many clever branding tactics to become one of the largest brands in the world - worth over eighty-four billion, yes, BILLION dollars in 2020.

Meeting The Maker

The drink was invented in the late 19th century by John Pemberton, and was subsequently bought out by businessman Asa Candler - who’s immense marketing skills led to Coca-Cola’s domination of the industry.

The Main Strategies

These marketing strategies can be broken down into two key features, the physical marketing of the brand (Sponsoring events) and the appearance of the brand on a fundamental level (The Logo). Today we’ll be discussing both of these features, but the appearance of the brand and its logo in more detail.

Coca-Cola didn’t initially burst onto the scene and become the most famous drink in the world in the 19th century, their first step was to make a captivating product - they did this by essentially mixing cola with alcohol and cocaine, yes, cocaine, the drug. And you wonder why the product is so addictive. Fortunately in 1905, laws forced beverage makers to quit putting alcohol into soft drinks. The official recipe is actually locked in a vault in Atlanta, but their addictive product is clearly one of the reasons as to why the brand is so popular

The Logo

Now, onto the main subject here, the Coca-Cola logo - It is predominantly made up of a timeless white font, contrasting with iconic red Coke backdrop. The main feature here obviously is the Font, which Pemberton’s bookkeeper decided to be Spencerian Script. This font was decided on so that it is differentiated from the rest of the market, indicating that Coca-Cola is above the rest. The font connotes a notion of speciality, it’s very cursive, a feature that evokes feelings of high class in a product, and generally looks very high end, particularly for a soft drink.

Spencerian Script is also used for car manufacturing company Ford, it was the most popular way to write formally in the 19th century in the United States. Unfortunately, following the invention of the Typewriter, Spencerian Script stopped being taught as frequently in schools and seemingly died out, but still lives on in two of the widest known logos in history.