The Early Days of Coca-Cola Advertising

Advertising for Coca-Cola has been present since the beginning of the company. The layouts and strategies used to advertise the brand have changed with time. The first print ads were black and white, handwritten ads by Pemberton himself. Then, Candler began to use a different approach when he took over the company. He put the brand logo on as many thing in his pharmacy as he could, thinking the repetition of the image would get customers thinking about the product and, ultimately, lead to them purchasing the product. In addition, early advertisements for Coca-Cola featured many classy-looking women enjoying a fresh Coke. Then, the universally used image of Santa was created in the 1930’s. All of the ads were print ads, and later the company began to use radio ads and television commercials. Here are a few images showing early advertisements for Coke:

1885

1905 Coca-Cola Oil Cloth Sign

1905- Early advertisements were wordy and less visually appealing.

1910

1920- Advertisements start to make Coca-Cola feel more "fun".

1934 Advertisement featuring Santa Claus

1937

1951- Coca-Cola Neon Sign

1952

1963- You can see slight differences in the newer looking Santa Claus

Sources: Bellis, M. (2011). Coca cola vintage advertising. Retrieved from http://inventors.about.com/od/cstartinventions/ss/coke_ads_2.htm

Vintage ad browser. Retrieved from http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/coke-ads

Silvia, G. (2008). Early history of coca cola. Retrieved from http://cokeads.blogspot.com/2008/02/early-history-of-coca-cola.html