ABSTRACT
When one thinks of readily identifiable brand names, the American soft drink giant, Coca-Cola, immediately comes to mind. The firm’s distinctive script logo and its pervasive circular red sign testify to the phenomenal marketing success that has made the company perhaps the world’s best recognized symbol of global US enterprise. Prior to the Second World War, however, Coca-Cola’s presence abroad was limited and the company’s profits largely derived from the huge domestic US market. One of the firm’s most popular advertising slogans, ‘The pause that refreshes’, had since the 1920s captured the essence of the company’s marketing strategy. As Richard Tedlow (1990) has argued in his study of mass marketing in the United States, the company’s genius in advertising and marketing lay as much in its ability to sell the ‘concept’ of Coca-Cola as well as a beverage:
Not only was Coke your friend; when you drank it, you became friends with other Coke drinkers. And they were the right kind of people - well-dressed, well-off, happy. There was also a luxurious aspect to Coca-Cola. It was a mystical, dark com pound of magical ingredients with indeterminate powers.
