The removal of the cocaine in the first years of the twentieth century seemed to have little influence on Coca-Cola’s ability to become, as one journalist described it in 1938, the “sublimated essence of all that America stands for,” the single most widely distributed product on the planet and the second-most-recognizable word on Earth, “okay” being the first.
Is this because Coke is just that good or because Coke is the king of marketing?
