Not merely a paternalistic executive treating new businesses as toys, Austin was a born-again ecologist, lecturing the Georgia Bankers Association in an apocalyptic 1970 address grandly titled “Environmental Renewal or Oblivion . . . Quo Vadis?” The Coca-Cola president passionately reviewed “the stark evidence of environmental homicide,” warning of “an oblivion comprised of undrinkable water and air that can’t be breathed.” The complacent Southern bankers must have been astonished to hear the head of Coca-Cola sounding like Ralph Nader on amphetamines. “We’re firing rockets at the moon—while standing knee deep in our own garbage,” he continued. “Unless all of us begin immediately to reverse the processes of impending self-destruction which we have set in motion—this green land of ours will become a graveyard!”
Not only that, but Austin was alarmed over the population explosion. “Within the lifetime of a child born this year, there will be some fifteen billion inhabitants on this incredibly delicate Earth.” Austin called these “vast hordes of humanity” a frightening prospect, but his fellow Coke men must have thought he had lost his mind. What had happened to the traditional value system which held that a human being’s primary function on earth was to serve as a conduit for Coca-Cola? On one level Paul Austin sincerely believed what he told the bankers; however, he never lost sight of his ultimate goal of selling more soft drinks. As one commentator observed a few years later, The Coca-Cola Company and its men “seem to function simultaneously on two levels: one lofty, even Platonic, the other unrelentingly practical.” After all of Austin’s fulminations, his concrete proposals for Coca-Cola were rather tame. As soon as some “efficient device” came along to eliminate hydrocarbon emissions, he promised to convert the enormous fleet of Coke trucks to it. In the meantime, they would continue to go their polluting rounds. He noted that 70 percent of Coke’s containers were still returnables, and he hoped to find a one-way plastic bottle that could be incinerated without releasing hydrocarbons.
THE FTC ATTACKS
Sincere or not, Austin’s speeches and Coke’s ecological efforts failed to avert renewed governmental attention. Any Coca-Cola man with a sense of history must have foreseen it, since the Federal Trade Commission had sued Asa Candler more than fifty years before. Now, led by crusading commissioner Robert Pitofsky and encouraged by the strong consumer movement, the FTC again attacked Coca-Cola.
The first brush concerned Big Name Bingo, an under-the-crown promotion. TaB and Coke consumers could win $100 by attaching appropriate bottle-cap liners, on which twenty famous people were portrayed, as answers to ten questions on the Bingo card. The FTC objected to the contest, since the rules didn’t clarify that the trick questions demanded multiple answers. Most entrants, for instance, correctly identified Admiral Byrd as having gone on an Arctic expedition. To win a prize, however, they also had to glue Horatio Nelson’s bottle-cap liner to that question. Similarly, both Woodrow Wilson and Guglielmo Marconi attended the Paris Peace Conference. Not surprisingly, there were only 831 winners out of 1.5 million entries. Shortly after the FTC lodged its complaint, two class-action suits, totaling $425 million, were lodged against Coca-Cola and the Glendinning Company, which actually administered the contest for the soft drink company.
While the Bingo farce garnered unfavorable headlines, it cost the Company little money. Undaunted, the FTC promptly opened a second front. In 1971, it brought suit against Coca-Cola for Hi-C advertisements in which a hapless father allowed his children to consume potato chips, cookies, and other junk food. “Some lunch!” the narrator said. “But Dad knows the only sensible thing about it is ice-cold Hi-C.” The drink was, he continued, “made with real fruit and it’s high in Vitamin C.” FTC prosecutors observed that there was little real fruit juice in Hi-C and that it contained less vitamin C than orange juice, while the ads implied otherwise. The commercials also conveyed the notion that it didn’t matter whether kids ate junk food or not, as long as they drank Hi-C. The FTC men were particularly upset by a joint promotion with Kellogg in which a little girl ate a Pop Tart and drank Hi-C for breakfast. The Company defended itself by declaring that the complaint was based on “personal and unscientific dietary notions.” Just because the commission preferred the consumption of natural fruit juices was no reason to penalize Hi-C and “discourage the American public from exercising its free choice of refreshment beverages.” In 1972, the commissioners agreed with Coke’s lawyers and dismissed the case.
The same year, however, the FTC struck at the heart of the soft drink industry, alleging that the exclusive franchise system violated the Sherman Antitrust Act, since a bottler’s monopoly over particular territory prevented fair competition. A mighty howl of protest rose over the United States, while Coke and Pepsi banded together to fight the common enemy. The FTC suit would drag on for years, casting a pall over the entire decade. The Coca-Cola Company and its bottlers pursued two strategies simultaneously, seeking vindication through the courts while lobbying hard for specific legislation to exempt soft drinks from prosecution. The legal twists and turns would profoundly affect the traditional relationship between the bottlers and the Company, but no one could have foreseen that in 1972.
TRICKY DICK WORKS HIS MAGIC
By the time of the third FTC suit, some frustrated Coca-Cola men smelled a rat, feeling that the many-pronged assaults could not be coincidental. President Nixon, deeply indebted to Pepsi’s Don Kendall, must have decided a few dirty tricks were in order. “It’s just my humble feeling,” wrote one longtime fountain man, “but I think someone was sure trying to please the boss.” Of course, the FTC case impacted Pepsi too, but the paranoid Coke men reasoned that the destruction of the exclusive franchise system would harm the leader far more. Concerned about the situation, Coke lobbyist Ovid Davis suggested the need for a high-level Washington retainer who would be “wired to the Nixon Administration.”
Whether Nixon gave the word to the FTC or not, he clearly facilitated Pepsi’s entry into the Soviet Union. Paul Austin had directed Export president John Talley to reopen negotiations with the USSR, and in September of 1972, Talley reported to Robert Woodruff that “it would seem that we have carried our ‘holier than thou’ attitude towards Russia far beyond the limits of good business judgment.” What Talley didn’t know was that Don Kendall had already cemented a deal with Soviet premier Kosygin nearly a year before, during Kendall’s Moscow visit as chair of an American delegation on U.S.-Soviet trade. Eager to buy U.S. wheat, Kosygin surmised that working a deal with Nixon’s friend from Pepsi would be politically expedient. It took ten more months to iron out the details, but in November of 1972, just after Talley wrote his memo, Pepsi announced a ten-year exclusive contract with the Soviet Union.
Infuriated, Austin berated himself for backing out of his opportunity in the late sixties. Determined to gain a Russian foothold, he assured Coca-Cola executives of his confidence that “Coca-Cola as the world’s most popular soft drink in due course will be available in the Soviet Union,” delegating the project to Bob Broadwater, who made over twenty trips to Russia during the next few years.
Nixon may have succeeded through back-door diplomacy with the Chinese and Russians, but he failed in many other presidential endeavors. As campus antiwar protests erupted, he sent National Guardsmen to Ohio to suppress dissent at Kent State University, where they opened fire, killing four students. The war had come home to roost. Incredible as it seemed, now Americans were killing their own children.
TEACHING THE WORLD TO SING
In the stunned aftermath, the antiwar movement lost its momentum, as many counterculture baby boomers abandoned the political struggle for a more personal peace. They clustered at love-ins, rock festivals, communes, and cults, seeking meaning in a society that seemed bent on destroying itself. Popular music reflected this yearning for serenity and security. In 1970, Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge over Troubled Waters” went platinum, while the Beatles’ “Let It Be” was a gold record. In the meantime, Coca-Cola’s “Real Thing”
campaign still clung to the theme song introduced in 1969, together with quick vignettes of American life. The ads showed their age, though, and the frenetic style—a picture every second—didn’t match the shattered country’s search for tranquility.
In response, Bill Backer modified the “Real Thing” song as a quiet folk ballad that spoke of “Friendly feelings, friendly feelings, / Hope they’re happenin’ to you.” The new lyric glided over visuals of happy, clean-cut young hippies—a boy and girl, guitar slung over her shoulder, dancing in a rural field, an outdoor wedding ceremony, a teen couple with white stars on their shirts, along with a suitable mixture of African Americans—all laughing and enjoying a Coke. As the song ended, a warm-toned announcer informed audiences that “a bottle of Coke has brought more people together than any other soft drink in the world.” In the final shot, one bottle of Coca-Cola leaned for comfort against another.
Backer’s timing was impeccable. A few months after “Friendly Feelings” aired in February of 1971, James Taylor’s version of “You’ve Got a Friend” debuted with similar sentiments. Meanwhile, Backer was working on another variant of the “Real Thing” that would extend this yearning for friendship and brotherhood beyond the borders of the United States, uniting the entire world in a fantasy of togetherness. Billy Davis, a black Motown producer and former member of the Four Tops, had joined the ad team, composing the music for one of the most popular commercials ever made.
On a hilltop in Italy, Coca-Cola assembled some 200 fresh-faced young adults from every corner of the world, clad appropriately in their national costumes. Standing in ordered ranks in an inverted pyramid and clutching bottles of Coke, they looked straight ahead as they earnestly sang, “I’d like to buy the world a home and furnish it with love, / Grow apple trees and honey bees and snow white turtle doves.” The vision of the idealistic youths crooning to a weary world soothed like a hymn in an outdoor church, and their firmly clasped bottles of Coca-Cola were hopeful peace talismans. Just as Coke was building homes for its migrant workers, it meant to house the world in some ambiguous way. As hippies were retreating to hill farms, Backer’s song spoke lyrically of growing apples and tending bees.*
“I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony,” the sweet voices continued. “I’d like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company. That’s the real thing. . . .” Released in July of 1971, the commercial created a sensation. It didn’t strike anyone as preposterous that a soft drink was somehow supposed to save the world, that the lyrics were oozing with stereotypical sentiment, or that the young people in the ad were only lip-synching to the voices of the New Seekers, a British pop group. The Company and bottlers were deluged with over a hundred thousand letters and requests for sheet music. Coke granted them, along with 45 rpm records of the song. When radio stations balked at giving a commercial free airtime, Backer rewrote the ballad to eliminate any reference to Coca-Cola, and the New Seekers recorded it. When their record hit the top of the charts, a hastily assembled group called the Hillside Singers issued a country-and-western version. By the beginning of 1972, the two recordings had sold a combined total of a million copies. It was, as Newsweek wryly observed, “a sure-fire form of subliminal advertising.” Although Coca-Cola wasn’t mentioned in the lyrics, everyone automatically thought of the soft drink every time they heard the song.
THE GOOD OLD DAYS AND TRAYS
As Americans struggled to fathom their troubled times, they not only sought the solace of a world singing in harmony but looked back fondly to a time that now appeared sweetly innocent, when Americans believed in a benevolent God, rebellious kids did nothing worse than wear ducktails, the economy boomed, and America and its products dominated the world. In 1972, with the advent of Grease on Broadway, nostalgia for the fifties swept the country. Along with it, somewhat to the Company’s surprise, a Coke memorabilia craze boomed.
In that same year, Cecil Munsey wrote the Illustrated Guide to the Collectibles of Coca-Cola, complete with early Hilda Clark and Lillian Nordica serving trays, twenties’ flappers, Norman Rockwell’s freckle-faced boys of the thirties, Haddon Sundblom’s Santas, World War II flyboys sipping their soft drinks, and wholesome fifties’ beauties announcing Coke time. Across the country, collectors discovered one another through antiques publications, chance meetings at flea markets, and word of mouth. By 1975, the Cola Clan had been born. Kentucky architect Thom Thompson, still an active collector decades later, was one of the charter members. “When Munsey’s book came out, we treated it like the Bible,” he recalled. The book was dedicated to Wilbur Kurtz Jr., the Company archivist, pictured among the trays and old bottles. At the club’s first convention in Atlanta, Kurtz escorted the Coke devotees to his sanctum at North Avenue. “Wilbur was like a god to us,” Thompson remembered. “We’d seen him in Munsey’s book, and here he was in person. He was a great storyteller, even though a lot of his lore was probably fiction.”
Suddenly, old calendars and trays swelled in value, selling for tens, then hundreds of dollars. Kurtz was at first startled by the flurry of interest, then delighted to find himself the center of attention, especially since various Company officials had tried to fire him in the past. “They thought I wasn’t making any real contribution to the Company,” Kurtz reminisced in an interview shortly before his death. “These were businessmen. They didn’t think in terms of history and preservation.” The nostalgia boom elevated the lowly archivist’s status within the Company, as Coke marketing men, eager to cash in on the memorabilia, came to Kurtz for old items. Reproducing them, they resurrected early models like Hilda Clark on trays sold as premiums and given as prizes through the bottler system.
As riots and smog clouded once-vital cities, Coke’s ad men mined America’s mythic rural past. In 1972, country singer Dottie West wrote and performed another classic Coke commercial. “I was raised on country sunshine,” she twanged, “I’m happy with the simple things: / A Saturday night dance, a bottle of Coke, and the joy that the bluebird brings.” Shifting away from the quick vignette, this commercial told a sentimental homecoming story. As the young woman’s taxi drove down the farm’s dirt road, her brother jumped from the hayloft, little sister left the tire swing, Grandma beamed joyfully, and Dad abandoned his tractor. The final scene showed the prodigal daughter rocking on the front porch swing with her handsome hometown boy, talking quietly and drinking Coke as the music concluded that this was the Real Thing. This and other carefully crafted sixty-second short-short stories were minor gems that consumed thousands of feet of film, multiple takes, and thousands of dollars for each second of finished product. The apparent bliss and spontaneity resulted from monumental labor. “You in the striped shirt,” yelled a McCann director in 1972, “hold the bottle lower down so we can see the label. Blonde girl in the back, lie on your stomach!” Every gesture in the commercials was scripted to achieve the maximum effect.
CHARLES DUNCAN’S MOMENT IN THE SUN
As McCann’s creative geniuses were filming inspired commercials, The Coca-Cola Company itself was slowly changing and evolving. In 1970, Robert Woodruff had recalled Charles Duncan from London, where he had gained valuable international experience as head of Coca-Cola Export’s European office. At the end of the following year, the Boss installed Duncan as president of the entire Company, leaving Paul Austin as chair of the board. While Austin’s elitist philosophy had steered Coca-Cola throughout the sixties, Duncan supplied much-needed hands-on management. Together, the two men composed a potentially complementary team, though Austin continued to call the shots.*
Duncan still pulled enough weight to change the way Coca-Cola Export was run. As the overseas business exploded during the fifties and sixties, Export men operated independently as rough-and-ready adventurers, ready to improvise and make split-second decisions, displaying a macho disdain for deskbound Atlanta executives. By the early seventies, however, labor unrest, socialist governments, and anti-corporate backlash around the world spelled trouble for the autonomous Expo
rt leaders. In Uruguay, when two Coke employees were arrested for their involvement in a liberation movement, their fellow workers revolted and took possession of the bottling plant. Salvador Allende’s Marxist government “bought” all the Chilean Coca-Cola operations, installing its own personnel. A series of Argentinian Coke officials were kidnapped and held for ransom. In Italy, when a Company-owned bottling plant declared bankruptcy rather than submit to a strong union, the workers occupied the facility. Back in Atlanta, just before Charles Duncan’s arrival as president, a Company spokesman shrugged off the Italian situation. “It may be serious; it may not,” he said. “These things have a tendency to lose something in the translation.”
That kind of attitude, coupled with worldwide unrest, persuaded Duncan to bring the Coca-Cola Export offices from New York City to Atlanta in 1972. Also, by that time foreign earnings far exceeded domestic income. “There was a real danger that the tail would start wagging the dog,” one Export man remembered. The move to the still-parochial heart of the South provoked tremendous resentment among the overseas Coke men. They opted for cross-town offices, as far away from North Avenue as possible. Nonetheless, Austin’s decentralized system had begun to pull back toward Atlanta.
Taking advantage of Duncan’s day-to-day attention to operations, Austin traveled more extensively, spending over half his time globe-hopping. To his dismay, he often encountered hostile attitudes toward his Company. As colonialism dwindled, nationalism grew, along with a tendency to vilify powerful multinational corporations. Coca-Cola, as the most ubiquitous product on earth, provided a tempting target. The authors of Global Reach, a book published in 1974, blamed Coke for “commerciogenic malnutrition,” claiming that Mexican families commonly sold their eggs and chickens to buy Coke for the father, “while the children waste away for lack of protein.” African health officials called a local form of malnutrition “the Fanta syndrome” because they thought it was related to overconsumption of sugary soft drinks. The following year, in Sugar Blues, William Dufty blamed most of man’s ills on overindulgence in white sugar, Coke’s primary ingredient. “The sugar pushers are our predators,” he wrote, “leading us into temptation, peddling a kind of sweet, sweet human pesticide.” Only the strongest would survive, the author claimed, “while the rest go down in another biblical flood—not water this time, but Coke.”
For God, Country, and Coca-Cola Page 47