1960s Soft Drink WI

Kalvan

In 1964, when Atlanta businesses threatened to boycott a dinner saluting Dr. Martin Luther King's then recent victory of the Nobel Peace Prize, and ticket sales were almost non-existent, Coca-Cola famously threatened to move out of the city and state of Georgia. The threat worked, because within an hour, tickets to the event sold out and those Atlanta businesses didn't follow through with the boycott.

What if either Royal Crown (RC) Cola (then based in Columbus, Georgia), National NuGrape (also of Atlanta), or Carolina Beverage Company (makers of Cheerwine) quickly announces that they will make either a tender offer or a bid at auction for the Coca-Cola formulary and/or bottling plants in Atlanta, or better yet, all of them make announcements, followed by announcements of a planned bidding war between them?

This would effectively call Coke's bluff, unless it isn't a bluff....
 
JesterBL

JesterBL

First off, I highly doubt that any one of the businesses mentioned would have had cash on hand for such a gamble. Secondly, there was not an actual statement by Coca-Cola (the company) but by the CEO. There's zero chance some two-bit beverage company (at its peak RC was 10% market share) tries to pull such a stunt, especially when Coca-Cola itself had been the brand to double down on marketing exclusively to whites. It would have been a no win scenario for any brand trying to step in like that.
 
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overoceans

@Kalvan

What do you mean by saying that those companies could bid on Coca-Cola's "formulary"? According to what I just read on-line, a formulary is a list of drugs maintained by a pharmacy, hospital etc.
 

phx1138

Kalvan said:
What if either Royal Crown (RC) Cola (then based in Columbus, Georgia), National NuGrape (also of Atlanta), or Carolina Beverage Company (makers of Cheerwine) quickly announces that they will make either a tender offer or a bid at auction for the Coca-Cola formulary and/or bottling plants in Atlanta, or better yet, all of them make announcements, followed by announcements of a planned bidding war between them?
Click to expand...
Even presuming they have the money, how much difference would it make? Getting increased production capacity only helps if you can sell the production, & it's not like Coke was going to leave their formula lying around. :rolleyes:
 
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