The Evolution of Coca Cola

1886-1899 Coke Bottle

May 8, 1886

In 1886, Dr, John Pemberton created the first ever Coca Cola bottle. He sold these bottles of Coca Cola at Jacob's Pharmacy in downtown Atlanta. At this point, the product was very new and unknown so only about nine bottles of this product were being sold everyday for its first year being on the market. The shape of this bottle is not as similar as it is to the bottles created today because they had not found their outstanding principle from the competition yet.

1906 Coke Bottle

1906

Due to companies mocking Coca Cola and the shape of their bottles, the company needed to make some changes. Since their bottles and bottlers were not as legally protected as they are today, companies were easily able to recreate their product. This caused a lot of customer confusion. In 1906, Coca Cola introduced a new diamond shaped bottle with a colorful label in order to stick out from these mock companies. Some companies such as Koca-Nola managed to imitate this label.

1915 Coke Bottle

Apr 26, 1915

By 1912, the Coca Cola Company had a very distinctive logo but the issue was was that they were still not legally protected. All members of the company came together to achieve a distinctive package that will make it significantly harder for other companies to mock their product. On April 26, 1925 the Trustees of the Coca Cola Bottling Association expended $500 to create this new distinctive bottle with a slightly fatter shape.

1915-1950's Coke Bottle

1920

Through this almost 40 years span the shape of the coke bottle did not change much due to the company making their "distinctive package" back in 1915. There have been slight modifications to the width and length of the glass bottle but not much other than that has changed.

1955 Coke Bottle

1955

In 1955, Coca Cola decided to make a family sized bottle. Raymond Loewy worked to recast bottle bu retained the e proportions. The shape of the family sized bottle is much slimmer compared to the average coke bottle but is a lot larger in length. They made this bottle contour shaped for easier holding purposes and it contains around 26 fluid oz.

1978 Coke Bottle

1978

In 1978, Coca Cola launched their first plastic bottle. Although this was less costly, it pushes their boundaries of sustainable innovation. To avoid this environmental issue, Coca Cola used 30% plant based materials instead of petroleum and other fossil fuels to produce a key ingredient in the plastic. Coca Cols did a study to achieve the perfect shape bottle for all their customers. They found that kids companied about the bottle being too big to hold so they altered the shape for better grip.

2000s-Present

2000

With new technology, Coca Cola has been able to create many different forms of their products. There are now a large variety of containers such as cans (mini and average), glass bottles, plastic bottles, family sized bottles, etc. These containers all range in size from 7.5 oz to 26 oz. The company did this in order to achieve a larger target audience from small children to teenagers and teenagers to adults. These different niches of people all consume different amounts of Coca Cola products.