There is nothing quite like an icy-cold and refreshing Coca-Cola. For more than 115 years, there have been countless new bottle designs; however, the quality of the brand has never wavered!

Let’s take a look at the evolution of the packaging design of the Coca-Cola bottle, from its inception to today.

It all began in 1894 when a Mississippi shop owner by the name of Joseph A. Biedenharn began bottling Coca-Cola, after seeing how impressive its sales were! So, he capitalized on Coca-Cola’s success and began selling the drink to customers in a common glass bottle known as a “Hutchinson,” which was equipped with a wire loop and rubber stopper and was returnable after a person used the bottle.

Have you ever wondered where the term “soda pop” came from? This name came from the popping noise that the Hutchinson bottles would make when they were opened.

However, the first go-around of the bottle that we know today came to be in 1916. This bottle, known as the contour bottle, was created when bottlers worried that a straight-sided bottle like the Hutchinson didn’t offer a distinction from other brands and that Coca-Cola was being easily confused with “copycat” brands. So, glass manufacturers were tasked with creating a unique packaging design for the new bottle. The Root Glass Company of Terre Haute, Indiana, came up with a prototype design of the now famous contour-shaped bottle.

Earl R. Dean was the designer of the first bottle. A prototype was made for the bottle design and a patent was given in November 1915. However, the prototype never made it to production, because the middle diameter was larger than the base, which made it unstable on a conveyor belt.  Just like any other invention, Dean found a “better way” to make the bottle and solved the issue by decreasing the bottle’s middle diameter; and, the contour shape that we know today was born.

Where exactly did the packaging-design inspiration come from? The contour bottle was inspired by the grooves and curves of a cocoa bean.  So, if you didn’t know, well, now you do!

The contour bottle continued to receive minor updates throughout the years, but nothing too notable!

So, let’s fast forward to 1950 when the Coca-Cola bottle was the first commercial product to be featured on the cover of TIME magazine, which then established Coca-Cola as an international brand.

Five years later, for the first time ever, people could purchase different-sized bottles of Coca-Cola. Shops began selling, in addition to the traditional 6.5 ounce contour bottle, 10-, 12- and 26-ounce versions. The introduction of various bottle sizes marked the shift in packaging innovation for the brand.

Also, the late 1950s Coke used ACL or “Applied Color Labeling,” which included the white Coca-Cola script on both sides of the bottle.

After the 1950s, the contour bottle received a few changes here and there dealing with trademarks and script on the bottle.

But, in 2000, Coca-Cola hopped on the green initiatives and introduced the ultra-glass contour bottle that was created for improved impact resistance, due to its reduced weight and cost. The new packaging design of the bottles, which were 40 percent stronger and 20 percent lighter than the original bottle, saved about 52,000 metric tons of glass in 2006.

Their environmental initiatives continued into 2009 when Coca-Cola released their innovative PlantBottle in the United States; that was a completely recyclable PET container made of 30 percent plant materials, including sugar cane extracts.

From the first Coca-Cola bottle in a Hutchinson bottle to swapping out its iconic logo with Great Britain’s most popular names for the 2013 summer-long ‘Share a Coke’ campaign, the packaging-design of the Coca-Cola bottle has continued to evolve and will continue to evolve through the years!

Copyright Davison 2014

Sources:

http://www.coca-cola.co.uk/125/coca-cola-bottles-history.html

http://www.thedieline.com/blog/2009/11/17/the-evolution-of-the-coca-cola-contour-bottle.html

http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/ETclanSETH114/bottlehistory.html

Images:

http://www.sodamuseum.com/Coke/miniature.html

http://www.icollector.com/COCA-COLA-HUTCHINSON-BOTTLE_i5349024

http://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1704183_1704254_1704270,00.html

http://logixicf.com/ecobuildtrends/2012/06/

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John Stith Pemberton was born in Knoxville, Georgia on July 8, 1831.  Though not much is known about his early life, we do know that he studied chemistry and became a pharmacist in the Knoxville area.  When the civil war broke out, Pemberton enlisted and became a Colonel of the Confederate Army and was badly wounded in 1865 when he was slashed across his chest by an enemy sword. During his recovery he, like many wounded veterans of the war, became addicted to the morphine he used to ease the pain.

Being a pharmacist, he sought a cure to counteract this addiction and began experimenting with a drink called coca wine—wine mixed with cocaine extract—that was popular in France at the time.  He eventually created his own version of coca wine, but one that contained kola nuts and damiana, a chamomile-like shrub which was used by South America Indians for its relaxing effects. He called his concoction Pemberton’s French Wine Coca and advertised it as being:

“Particularly beneficial for ladies, and all those whose sedentary employment causes nervous prostration, irregularities of the stomach, bowels and kidneys, who require a nerve tonic and a pure, delightful diffusible stimulant”

It was a very successful potion and sold very well, but in 1886, the state of Georgia enacted temperance legislation which forced Pemberton to produce a non-alcoholic alternative to his French Wine Coca. He teamed up with an Atlanta druggist named Willis Venable to help him perfect the recipe for a new non-alcoholic beverage. They experimented with scores of formulas by trial and error to create the base syrup that they mixed in water, but the story goes that they created Coke by ‘accidentally’ mixing the base syrup with carbonated water. The fizzy drink tasted remarkably delicious and Pemberton decided then to sell it as a fountain drink rather than a medicine.

Though they sold it as a fountain drink, Pemberton still made many health claims for his product, touting it as a ‘valuable brain tonic’ that would cure headaches, relieve exhaustion and calm nerves, and marketed it as ‘delicious, refreshing, pure joy, exhilarating,’ and ‘invigorating.’ But he knew he wasn’t an advertiser so he hired advertising man Frank Robinson for help in this area. Robison created the name ‘Coca-Cola,’ which quite clearly incorporates the two main ingredients – coca and kola nut extract. Robison also registered Coca-Cola’s formula with the patent office, designed and trademarked the logo and distinct script.

In 1887, with his health failing, Pemberton sold portions of his business to various parties, with the majority of the interest sold to businessman Asa Candler, who owned a chain of drug stores in Atlanta. Unfortunately, John Pemberton died less than a year later, in 1888, and never got to see the global megabrand that Coke became over the next century. But on those hot summer days, when we grab for an ice cold Coke to quench our thirst, we’ll know who to thank for that refreshing drink: John Pemberton.

Images:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/98/John_Pemberton.jpg/150px-John_Pemberton.jpg

http://static.businessinsider.com/image/5136508869bedd445900000c/image.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_99U_pO3l2-Y/Sumzy67g1-I/AAAAAAAACZ4/1dTiyGzI3hM/s400/1940-Coca-Cola-siwmsuitad.jpg

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Pemberton#cite_note-4

http://markpendergrast.com/coca-cola

http://www.worldofcoca-cola.com/coca-colahistory.htm

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