Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division, Library of Congress

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Fifty Years of Coca-Cola Television Advertisements: Highlights from the Motion Picture Archives at the Library of Congress presents a variety of television advertisements, never-broadcast outtakes, and experimental footage reflecting the historical development of television advertising for a major commercial product. The online collection includes five excerpts from stop-motion advertising developed for Coca-Cola between 1954 and 1956 by the D'Arcy agency and makes public for the first time eighteen excerpts from the Experimental TV Color Project of 1964, which determined the best lighting for the cans, bottles, and performers in television advertisements. 

Featured advertisements include the 1971 "Hilltop" commercial with an international group of young people on an Italian hilltop singing "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke"; the "Mean Joe Greene" commercial from 1979; the first "Polar Bear" commercial from 1993; the "Snowflake" commercial from 1999; and "First Experience," an international commercial filmed in Morocco in 1999.

The mission of the Library of Congress is to make its resources available and useful to Congress and the American people and to sustain and preserve a universal collection of knowledge and creativity for future generations. The goal of the Library's National Digital Library Program is to offer broad public access to a wide range of historical and cultural documents as a contribution to education and lifelong learning.

Special Presentations:

American Memory | Search All Collections | Collection Finder | Learning Page

The Coca-Cola Company.
From Investor Relations to Coca-Cola Scholars, you can learn about the company behind the brands at The Coca-Cola Company site.
(URL: www.coca-cola.com)

"Pemberton's French Wine Coca"
In 1885 Pemberton launched his own competing brand, "Pemberton's French Wine Coca", a drink advertised as an "intellectual beverage" and "invigorator of the brain".

(URL: www.businessheroes.com/Pages/articles/1998/98070201.htm)
Biography of Dr. John S. Pemberton
Article by Jack Hayes. Nation's Restaurant News. Part of Library of Congress Coca-Cola advertising history collection.
(URL: memory.loc.gov/ammem/ccmphtml/colainvnt.html)

• History of Coca Cola and its Evolution - A long and detailed history of Coca Cola.
• Coca Cola - Official Site
• Coca Cola Display  - History of vintage coke cans and bottles.
• Dr. John Pemberton - Inventor of Coca-Cola
• Highlights in the History of Coca-Cola Television Advertising
• Themes for Coca-Cola Advertising

• History of Pop - Timeline of the entire history of soft drinks.
• Introduction to Pop - The History of Soft Drinks

ON THE BOOKSHELF:
Mistakes That Worked
by Charlotte Foltz Jones, John O'Brien (Illustrator) / Paperback - 48 pages (1994) / Doubleday
Recounting the fascinating stories behind the accidental inventions of forty familiar objects.

I'd Like the World to Buy a Coke: The Life and Leadership of Roberto Goizueta
by David Greising / Paperback: 304 pages / John Wiley & Sons (June 1999)
Goizueta, a chemical engineer, who first worked for Coca-Cola in Cuba. After the revolution, Goizueta came to the United States and went on to become the youngest vice-president ever at Coca-Cola.

Secret Formula: How Brilliant Marketing and Relentless Salesmanship Made Coca-Cola the Best-Known Product in the World
by Frederick Allen / Paperback / Published 1995
A fascinating portrayal not just of Coca-Cola's corporate brilliance, but of how it inveighed its way into the center of American, and world, consciousness.

For God, Country, and Coca Cola: The Definitive History of the Great American Soft Drink and the Company That Makes It
by Mark Pendergrast / Paperback - 576 pages (March 2000) / Basic Books
An objective account of Coca-Cola's history from its inception to mass production, with the attitude of de-mythologising some of the stories the company has sold to the public.

Coca-Cola Girls: An Advertising Art History
by Chris H. Beyer / Hardcover: 288 pages / Collectors Pr; ISBN: 1888054441; (November 1, 2000)
Page after page of pretty young women posing with the Atlanta elixir. The "Coca-Cola Girl" was the image the company preferred for pitching its potion, from the 1890s to the 1960s.