The average American consumed the equivalent of 558 cans of carbonated soft drinks in 2004. That’s slightly over 1.5 12-ounce cans per person, per day — or a whopping 93 six-packs per year.
How on earth did we get so hooked on soda, particularly colas? Cola-flavored soft drinks were introduced in 1886 by Dr. John S. Pemberton of Atlanta, and marketed as an occasional pleasure, like ice cream or candy. Before long, however, the folks at the Coca-Cola Co. found the key to increased soft drink consumption: food.
“One of the underlying themes of our advertising and promotion has always been to associate Coke with food,” notes Phil Mooney, Coke’s director of archives. Coca-Cola’s insinuation into American mealtimes is a early example of effective point-of-purchase promotion.
According to a National Restaurant Association survey, 46.1% of today’s food dollar is spent away from home vs. just 25% in 1955. Until the 1950s, breakfast and dinner were primarily consumed in the home. Lunch was the meal most likely to be consumed away from home. Diners, fountains and luncheonettes sprang up all over the country to feed wandering Americans.
Such small restaurants were more or less marketing vacuums. They usually relied on menu boards, often provided by Coca-Cola, and simple printed menus. Coke then began offering its bottlers sign kits for their small restaurant accounts. These kits contained up to 10 paper “sandwich strips” that depicted popular menu items in 7″ × 22″ signage. Ham and cheese, hamburger, tuna, egg salad, grilled cheese: each was illustrated — along with Coke’s signature fountain glass, topped with crushed ice and beaded with condensation.
For consumers walking into an unfamiliar cafe, these signs made ordering easy. You could just point to what you wanted.
The big difference with these signs was that the price printed on each sign reflected the cost of the sandwich and a Coke. Yes, the kits included a set of price stickers if a restaurant manager wanted to change a price, but many restaurants used these signs just as they were. This was hardly surprising, since the universal 5-cent price for a fountain Coke during this period changed about as often as the American flag.
“The intent,” says Mooney, “was that if you can suggest to the consumer a meal package, you’re done.” Coke shipped thousands of these kits each year, promoting them via a catalog of marketing materials for bottlers, Mooney says.
The juicy photos added to the appeal. “In the ‘30s and ‘40s, there wasn’t that much photography used [in P-O-P]; much of the advertising back then featured illustration. You really saw the change around 1955, when [Coke] dropped longtime ad firm D’Arcy…for McCann-Erickson, who were much more photography-oriented,” Mooney says.
While McDonald’s may be considered best of class for such signage today, with its back-lit, trans-light signage hanging above every counter, featuring mouth-watering, high-definition digital photography of entrées combined with large fries and a large Coca-Cola, McD built upon a practice Coke began.
In the process, Coca-Cola begat the meal deals that are so ubiquitous in quick-serve restaurants today. Whether you’re buying meal deals at a burger chain, “twofer” deals at a pizza chain or bucket deals at the chicken outlet, typically there’s a carbonated soft drink thrown into the equation.
“Over the decades, Coke has done a terrific job all over the world with signage and point of purchase,” says John Sicher, editor and publisher of Beverage Digest. “I was in Africa, in a small village in Zimbabwe a few years ago and saw signage very reminiscent of Coke’s old diner point of purchase. It’s one of the things they’ve done best to build the brand.”
Rod Taylor is senior VP of promotion for CoActive Marketing, Cincinnati, OH. E-mail him at [email protected].
Editor’s note: A caption in the August Backward Glance hinted that the premium tins cited were more popular than the Red Man chewing tobacco inside. It’s likely that the only person who threw away the product to get the tin was the author. PROMO regrets the implication.
NEVER THROW IT AWAY!
My late mother, an inveterate collector, once admonished me: “Never throw anything away, babe. You never know what’s going to be valuable.” Having followed her advice religiously, our basement is filled with a wide assortment of promotional “junque” including most of the props you see in these stories.
Coca-Cola memorabilia is one of the biggest collectible categories in existence, boasting 16,300 listings that covered 326 pages on eBay recently. Some of the items receiving bids from these listings included:
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1940 16″ tin Coke store thermometer, depicting a girl in silhouette: $250
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1940 Coke change tray: $163
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1942 cardboard store sign, captioned “Entertain Your Thirst”: $300
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1943 set of 20 fighter plane cards depicting World War II aircraft: $300
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1949 cardboard poster called “The Tulip Girl”: $103
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1948 set of 10 sandwich signs depicting Coke with different sandwiches: $670
If you think anyone paying $670 for 10 old sandwich signs is a little crazy, I agree. I am, I did.
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