24 Nov 2025 03:00
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola is… sugar water. And somehow it’s also America, Christmas, summertime, friendship and happiness. Today we tell the story of how The Coca-Cola Company amazingly transmogrified a beverage into emotion in all of our collective psyches, and ALSO built one of the most incredible scale economy businesses of all-time. And oh yeah, there’s also cocaine, WW2, Mad Men, Warren Buffett, James Dean, Bill Cosby, Michael Jackson, Michael Ovitz, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, McDonald’s and Monsanto. So cozy up to the fire with your favorite images of Santa Claus and Polar Bears and enjoy an ice-cold episode of Acquired — always delicious, always refreshing.
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- The Hilltop ad / Mad Men finale
- Pepsi Challenge commercials
- Pepsi’s Michael Jackson commercials
- Coke’s Bill Cosby commercials
- Two liter bottles inflating
- Worldly Partners’ Multi-Decade Coca-Cola Study
- For God, Country, and Coca-Cola
- Secret Formula
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- (00:00) - Start
- (00:41) - Intro
- (05:52) - Patent Medicines & the Birth of an Industry
- (12:13) - Dr. John Pemberton & the "Miracle Drug" Cocaine
- (16:40) - Creating the Secret Formula (1886)
- (22:14) - Frank Robinson's Genius & the First Coupon
- (30:39) - Asa Candler & Building a National Brand (1890s)
- (39:49) - The $1 Bottling Deal: A Fortuitous Mistake
- (52:21) - Protecting the "Real Thing": Lawsuits & the Contour Bottle
- (01:03:24) - Robert Woodruff: The Boss Takes Over (1923)
- (01:12:06) - Creating Lifestyle Advertising & Santa Claus
- (01:23:58) - Standardization, Gas Stations & Early Global Growth
- (01:32:39) - Pepsi: The First Real Competitor Emerges
- (01:40:41) - World War I
