The 48 Transformations of Coca-Cola's Era Slogans Over 130 Years | QDaily Business History

The adventures of the high priest of happiness

On January 19, Coca-Cola — seller of fizzy sugar water — finally decided to step down as the high priest of happiness. It put down the baggage of sentiment, retired "Open Happiness" after seven years, and picked up a new brand line: "Taste the Feeling."

Across Coca-Cola's 130 years, its ever-changing slogans have done the same work as its contour bottle: talk to the drinker and shape the brand. Every change of line lets you see where the company stood at that moment, and often what the wider society was doing. The newest one, "Taste the Feeling," was born of the health craze.

Next to the big companies that keep a single line forever, Coca-Cola actually swaps slogans often. Seven years of Open Happiness counts as one of its longest runs in recent decades.

So let's look at them, era by era.

1886: Drink Coca-Cola

Please drink Coca-Cola.

The first advertising line, born the same year as the Statue of Liberty, and the one the company would go on to use most.

As an early product ad it worked from function: it quenched thirst, it was cold, it tasted good — "Delicious and Refreshing" — and it even claimed medicinal value.

The 1900 line, for instance, was "For headache and exhaustion, drink Coca-Cola."

1906: The Great National Temperance Beverage

The great nation's drink without alcohol.

This answered the temperance movement of the day. It caught American society's turn away from alcohol, with Coca-Cola offering itself as "another good choice."

1917: Three Million a Day — 1925: Six Million a Day

Three million, then six million bottles sold every day.

After watching from the sidelines for three years, a neutral United States finally joined the World War. Daily sales went from three million bottles to six million, and the fast growth of the 1920s marked the start of Coca-Cola's sales boom and its standing as a global brand.

By 1997, Coca-Cola was selling more than 1 billion bottles a day worldwide.

1925 Cardboard Cutout

1927: Around the Corner from Everywhere

Coca-Cola, wherever you turn.

From 1927 to 1929 came Coca-Cola's first wave of global expansion. Central and South America and Europe were the focus, and "Everywhere" gave away the ambition.

1927 was also the year Coca-Cola first came to China, opening a bottling plant in Shanghai.

1936 Paper Poster

1942: The Only Thing Like Coca-Cola Is Coca-Cola Itself

Only Coca-Cola is Coca-Cola.

This was the fiercest stretch of the Second World War. Perhaps it was the knockoff cola that had turned up in Germany (Afri-Cola), perhaps it was the rise of Pepsi — either way, Coca-Cola began to insist on its own brand.

A cola's high calorie count was no bad thing then; more energy seemed to stand for victory. One Pepsi ad even measured its own calories against a lamb chop.

"America Will Win": One Bottle of Pepsi, 185 Calories

In 1949 the slogan was "Along the Highway to Anywhere." From the late 1940s through the 1950s the car was remaking daily life, and the highways carried Coke to every corner of the world. Sharing a bottle closed even the longest psychological distance without effort.

1950, Spain

1953, Italy

1953, Mexico

1957, Japan

1957: Sign of Good Taste

A mark of good taste.

The 1950s were America's postwar boom, and a new white-collar middle class gave rise to cola ads about "taste." Taiwan began producing Coca-Cola that same year.

1969: It's the Real Thing

This is the real thing.

The Apollo program landed on the moon, and Neil Armstrong delivered the wildest dream of the twentieth century. In Hong Kong that year the Coca-Cola line ran in Cantonese: now that's the real stuff.

Then came the famous jingle, "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke."

1985: American Real Choice

On April 23, 1985, Coca-Cola called a press conference at Lincoln Center in New York to announce a new formula. It would later be remembered as the marketing nightmare of the company's history. In under three months anger had spread across the country and the protesters kept multiplying. Coca-Cola had no choice but to put Coca-Cola classic back into production and sell it alongside new Coke®.

To tell the two apart, in 1986 it hung "Red, White & You" and "Catch the Wave" onto the end of American Real Choice, using them in ads for classic and new Coke respectively.

1987: Can't Beat the Feeling

The feeling you can't hold back.

That year's spokespeople in Taiwan were Harlem Yu and Sally Yeh. "The feeling you can't hold back" was the most popular advertising line in 1980s China, and Coca-Cola leaned hard on television, outdoor boards, and cold-drink equipment in the big cities to push its growth there.

1993: Always Coca-Cola

Drink your fill, always Coca-Cola.

Short and hard-hitting, and like Open Happiness it lasted seven years. By now Coca-Cola almost never made a functional claim in a slogan. Like McDonald's "i'm lovin' it," it talked instead about attachment, building loyalty to the brand.

2000: Coca-Cola. Enjoy

Coca-Cola, a pleasure in every moment.

The new century brought heavier competition. Headquarters had high hopes for China, and at the same time faced a Pepsi aimed squarely at the young — "The Choice of a New Generation" and "Ask for More" had pulled away a large share of young drinkers.

Enjoy was the answer to that market. The company clearly loved the word; it went and trademarked it.

2009: Open Happiness

Open up and enjoy.

From 2009 on, Coca-Cola raised itself to something like a philosophical plane, its ads turning over grand subjects — happiness, joy, friendship between people. The imagery grew more and more abstract. That did a good deal for the brand's value, but the market showed what happens when a company takes its own icon status too seriously: sales fell.

Health had something to do with it too. Coca-Cola still led the category, yet it had spent seven full years on the metaphysics of happiness, until people nearly forgot what the drink itself was good for and started eyeing its calories instead.

Which is why, in 2016, the company reached for Taste the Feeling.

Coca-Cola's Slogans Through the Years

1886 - Drink Coca-Cola

1904 - Delicious and Refreshing

1905 - Coca-Cola Revives and Sustains

1906 - The Great National Temperance Beverage

1917 - Three Million a Day

1922 - Thirst Knows No Season

1923 - Enjoy Thirst

1924 - Refresh Yourself

1925 - Six Million a Day

1926 - It Had to Be Good to Get Where It Is

1927 - Pure as Sunlight

1927 - Around the Corner from Everywhere

1929 - The Pause that Refreshes

1932 - Ice Cold Sunshine

1938 - The Best Friend Thirst Ever Had

1939 - Thirst Asks Nothing More

1939 - Whoever You Are, Whatever You Do, Wherever You May Be, When You Think of Refreshment Think of Ice Cold Coca-Cola

1942 - The Only Thing Like Coca-Cola is Coca-Cola Itself

1948 - Where There's Coke There's Hospitality

1949 - Along the Highway to Anywhere

1952 - What You Want is a Coke

1956 - Coca-Cola ... Makes Good Things Taste Better

1957 - Sign of Good Taste

1958 - The Cold, Crisp Taste of Coke

1959 - Be Really Refreshed

1963 - Things Go Better with Coke

1969 - It's the Real Thing

1971 - I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke (part of the "It's the Real Thing" campaign)

1975 - Look Up America

1976 - Coke Adds Life

1979 - Have a Coke and a Smile

1982 - Coke Is It!

1985 - We've Got a Taste for You (for both Coca-Cola & Coca-Cola classic)

1985 - America's Real Choice (for both Coca-Cola & Coca-Cola classic)

1986 - Red, White & You (for Coca-Cola classic)

1986 - Catch the Wave (for Coca-Cola)

1987 - When Coca-Cola is a Part of Your Life, You Can't Beat the Feeling

1988 - You Can't Beat the Feeling

1989 - Official Soft Drink of Summer

1990 - You Can't Beat the Real Thing

1993 - Always Coca-Cola

2000 - Coca-Cola. Enjoy

2001 - Life Tastes Good

2003 - Coca-Cola ... Real

2005 - Make It Real

2006 - The Coke Side of Life

2009 - Open Happiness

2016 - Taste the Feeling