The History of Pepsi-Cola
Like so many classic sodas and soft drinks, Pepsi’s origins lie in a drug store pharmacy in the 19th century. The year was 1898. The place was New Bern, North Carolina. The man was Caleb Bradham.
Since 1893 Bradham had been selling a popular soft drink in his pharmacy known as “Brad’s Drink.” Like most pharmacies in those days the drug store was equipped with a soda fountain and was a popular place to come and pick up a soft drink. Brad’s Drink was quite popular in the town of New Bern.
Bradham saw bigger and better things for his drink, however, and decided that a name change was in order. In 1898 he bought the name “Pep Cola” from a firm in Newark, New Jersey that had gone out of business. He decided to name his own drink Pepsi-Cola after the pepsin and cola nuts used to make his drink. A neighbor of Bradham’s then created the first Pepsi-Cola logo.
Sales of the new Pepsi-Cola grew and grew. In 1902 Bradham created the Pepsi-Cola Company. The original offices were in the back of his pharmacy. In these earliest years all production was handled by Bradham himself. He created the syrup for the drink and sold it to other pharmacies to sell in their own soda fountains.
In 1903 Pepsi-Cola was officially trademarked with the US patent office. Its tag line was “Exhilarating, Invigorating, Aids Digestion.” 7,968 gallons of syrup were sold to pharmacies that year. Pepsi-Cola was on its way up.
Bradham wisely recognized, though, that selling through pharmacies would only take him so far. In 1903 he decided to start bottling the drink as well. He moved his offices from the back of his pharmacy to a warehouse in New Bern.
Although the drink proved to be quite popular, the company went through some tough times. In 1923 Pepsi-Cola Company went bankrupt due to the large sugar prices resulting from World War I. The franchise was sold to Roy C. Megargel. The company went bankrupt again 8 years later.
This time Pepsi was bought up by the Loft Candy Company. Troublesome times continued for Pepsi and Loft Candy Company president Charles Guth even offered to sell the formula to rival Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola refused.
Sales began to improve after a reformulation of the drink. In 1934 they also offered a new 12 ounce drink for a price of only 5 cents (which other companies charged for a six ounce drink). This led to a 1940 jingle advertising Pepsi: “Nickel Nickel.” The song referred to the price and the quantity of the drink and became very popular. The song was a hit record and was ultimately translated into 55 languages. It was the first advertising jingle ever broadcast nationwide.
The Pepsi-Cola logo changed in 1941. To show its patriotism and support of the war effort it changed the color of its bottle caps to red, white and blue. These colors have remained integral to the Pepsi logo ever since.
In 1964 Pepsi made soft drink history with Diet Pepsi, the first ever nationally sold diet soft drink. Its rival Coca-Cola would wait two decades before coming out with its own diet soft drink, diet coke. At this time they were also capitalizing on the coming of age of the baby boomers with their Pepsi Generation marketing campaign.
Throughout its history Pepsi has attempted to defeat its rival Coca-Cola, the often talked about Coke and Pepsi cola wars. Blind taste tests often showed that Pepsi-Cola was preferred to Coca-Cola. More often than not those studies chose Pepsi as the better tasting soda, yet this fact never enabled Pepsi-Cola to beat Coca-Cola in overall sales. This is due in large part to Coca-Cola’s many exclusive contracts. In places where Coca-Cola and Pepsi are sold side by side Pepsi is often the winner in sales.
In the 1980’s Coca-Cola attempted to improve its formula so that it would taste better. This resulted in the launch of New Coke, one of the most detested marketing moves in the history of the world. Coca-Cola quickly dropped New Coke, which had been designed to taste more like Pepsi, and reintroduced Coca-Cola, now Coca-Cola Classic. Despite the loss in sales due to the flop, Coca-Cola is stronger than ever and Pepsi-Cola remains as it has always been, the perennial #2 soft drink.
