You may be asking yourself if I could be so bold, so audacious, as to write yet another post about Coca-Cola, to which the answer is yes. It may seem that I am infatuated with the classic, American flavor that is Coca-Cola, but it is no infatuation, it’s a way of life! My admiration for Coca-Cola is a sign of good taste, which are not my words, they are the words of the 1957 Coca-Cola slogan: Sign of Good Taste. This brings us to the topic of this week’s post, the slogans of Coca-Cola over the years.
Have you ever founded one of the world’s largest beverage companies as a byproduct of inventing your personal medication to treat your chronic pain from wounds received during the Civil War, then given your company a clever slogan, only to have it changed 49 times over the next 135 years? Though it is probable that John Pemberton is the only one to experience this wildly specific scenario, if you also encountered these events, there is no need to be ashamed of the indecisiveness, for Coca-Cola is in the same boat.
What are the 49 Slogans of Coca-Cola?
The company has used a number of great slogans in its history, such as Coke Adds Life and Red, White & You. The latter is obviously referencing the colors of the US flag, but also the red and white colors of the company; another speculation that could be drawn is that the slogan coincidently avoids mentioning the color blue, which is used by Coca-Cola’s rival, Pepsi.
Other slogans simply describe the number of sales per day at the given time: the 1917 slogan, Three Million a Day, and the 1925 slogan, Six Million a Day. The Coca-Cola Company presented the dramatic contrast from the sales of those years compared to that of now; the company reported that nearly 2 billion servings of Coca-Cola products are consumed every single day. That means, on average, one in four people in the world consume a serving of a Coca-Cola product each day. If each serving is equal to 12 US fluid ounces, then 65 billion US gallons are consumed worldwide each year; that is equivalent to drinking the entire Wachusett Reservoir near Worcester, Massachusetts, each year.
The 1906 slogan, The Great National Temperance Beverage, is from the time when America was edging toward prohibition. Temperance beverages were consumed rather than alcoholic beverages. Coca-Cola became a very popular temperance beverage, though it is obvious that the decision to abstain from all alcohol was not unanimous given that the 18th amendment, the amendment that prohibited the purchase and sale of alcohol in the United Staes, was repealed.
Ice Cold Sunshine from 1932 is also interesting because of the irony of describing sunshine, which comes from the sun that is greater than 10,000ºF, as ice cold.
Despite some strange slogans, it is fascinating to see the many slogans of Coca-Cola over time; it provides an insight into the gradually changing company and world. I have included a list of every Coca-Cola slogan to date.
The 49 Slogans of Coca-Cola
- Drink Coca-Cola (1886)
- Delicious and Refreshing (1904)
- Coca-Cola Revives and Sustains (1905)
- The Great National Temperance Beverage (1906)
- Three Million a Day (1917)
- Thirst Knows No Season (1922)
- Enjoy Thirst (1923)
- Refresh Yourself (1924)
- Six Million a Day (1925)
- It Had to Be Good to Get Where It Is (1926)
- Pure as Sunlight (1927)
- Around the Corner from Everywhere (1927)
- The Pause that Refreshes (1929)
- Ice Cold Sunshine (1932)
- The Best Friend Thirst Ever Had (1938)
- 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 (1939)
- The Only Thing Like Coca-Cola is Coca-Cola Itself (1942)
- Where There’s Coke There’s Hospitality (1948)
- Along the Highway to Anywhere (1949)
- What You Want is a Coke (1952)
- Coca-Cola… Makes Good Things Taste Better (1956)
- Sign of Good Taste (1957)
- The Cold, Crisp Taste of Coke (1958)
- Be Really Refreshed (1959)
- Things Go Better with Coke (1963)
- It’s the Real Thing (1969)
- I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke (1971)
- Look Up America (1975)
- Coke Adds Life (1976)
- Have a Coke and a Smile (1979)
- Coke Is It! (1982)
- We’ve Got a Taste for You (1985)
- America’s Real Choice (1985)
- Red, White, & You (1986)
- Catch the Wave (1986)
- When Coca-Cola is a Part of Your Life, You Can’t Beat the Feeling (1987)
- You Can’t Beat the Feeling (1988)
- Official Soft Drink of Summer (1989)
- You Can’t Beat the Real Thing (1990)
- Always Coca-Cola (1993)
- Coca-Cola Enjoy (2000)
- Life Tastes Good (2001)
- Coca-Cola … Real (2003)
- Make It Real (2005)
- The Coke Side of Life (2006)
- Open Happiness (2009)
- Taste the Feeling (2016)
- Real Magic (2021)
May I propose a new slogan for Coca-Cola? One that reflects the company’s great contribution toward the development of American culture: The Taste of America.
What is your favorite Coca-Cola slogan?
Onward American 