Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola are forever linked in the minds of consumers and, indeed, professionals in virtually every industry, as the most famous competitors in America — if not the world. Coke and Pepsi have made their battle to be number one as famous as their incredibly successful beverages themselves.

      Why so competitive when, after all, it's only soda pop?

Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola is the world's best-selling soft drink. Its formula is a more closely guarded secret than most bank vault combinations. A reliable source offers that the beverage was invented by a 53-year-old Georgia druggist named John Pemberton in 1886. When a chap named Willis Venable accidentally substituted carbonated water for Mr. Pemberton's plain water, Coca-Cola was officially born as a soda fountain drink and by 1904 was being advertised in national magazines.

      Brand extension and promotions are not new to Coca-Cola. Records dating back to the 1920s have sales representatives fanning out across their assigned territories, loaded down with trunks of advertising materials, complimentary tickets, and circulars. While attempting to sell Coca-Cola fountain syrup, they would also offer for sale Coca-Cola chewing gum, cigars, and glasses bearing the Coca-Cola trademark.

      Not only did the product do a lot, so did its advertising. By 1913 the company claimed to have produced five million signs, as well as 200,000 cutouts for window displays; 50,000 metal signs for tacking under windows; two million trays for soda fountains; and numerous other items from calendars to baseball cards and pencils.

      Coca-Cola was everywhere — a household word in the United States and around the world. And a household word at restaurants and concession stands (fountain sales still being an enormous component of Coke sales). The phrase "... and a coke" after the words hot dog, hamburger, popcorn, or most anything else, was commonplace. While McDonald's fast-food restaurants' well-known sign notes how many billion burgers have been sold, Coca-Cola, from as far back as 1917, has been advertising how many million a day had enjoyed a Coke. By the 1950s even small children could repeat along with the television announcer:

      Fifty million times a day,

      At home, at work, or on the way,

      There's nothing like a Coca-Cola

      Nothing like a Coke.

Pepsi-Cola

      One reason Coke will be under greater pressure is that Pepsi will require it. Pepsi-Cola has proved to be Coca-Cola's only serious rival over the years and has even gone so far, on occasion, to claim victory.

      Like Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola is the creation of a southern druggist, Caleb Bradham of North Carolina. Mr. Bradham, sometime in the 1890s, developed a drink that people called Brad's drink in his honor. But by 1898 Mr. Bradham had named it Pepsi-Cola, in part because he believed the drink could also effectively settle an upset stomach and relieve the pain of peptic ulcers as well. The operation grew steadily and the Pepsi-Cola Company was formed in late 1902. With continued growth, a network of bottlers was formed, which by 1910 had burgeoned to 280 bottlers in 24 states.

      While the Pepsi-Cola Company at this time represented little more than a formula, it made a decision that would amount to a reversal of fortune for Pepsi: to price 12-ounce bottles of Pepsi to wholesalers in such a way that retailers could offer them at the same price as the standard six or seven ounce bottles. The benefit to the customer, obviously, was that same price bought twice as much Pepsi as it did Coke. After a sputtering start, the concept was refined and by 1934, was declared a success. Pepsi appeared on its way.

      With these early battles in the cola wars, nothing was happening that seriously threatened Coke's dominance. One area, however, where Coke still bristled was over package size. The Coca-Cola bottlers had an enormous investment in bottling equipment and materials, hence their reluctance to change from their standard 6.5-ounce bottles. Since 1929, they had to endure the jingle:

      Pepsi-Cola hits the spot

      Twelve full ounces, that's a lot

      Twice as much for a nickel, too

      Pepsi-Cola is the drink for you.

      Another, and an enormously powerful aspect of the Pepsi plan focused on age. Coke had been around awhile, and Pepsi tried to make it look "old."

      In his 1986 book The Other Guy Blinked: How Pepsi Won the Cola Wars, Pepsi's then CEO Roger Enrico writes "Pepsi enjoyed seventy-two straight months of market share growth. By 1974, the Pepsi-Cola brand had pulled even with Coke in food stores. In 1977, Pepsi pulled ahead — permanently."

      Well ... maybe not. Pepsi has done well — better than well — as a Coke competitor, but in terms of soft drink sales, some six years after Mr. Enrico made that statement, Pepsi still hasn't actually won.

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