World of Coca-Cola

August 15, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Atlanta attraction bubbles with sweet fun and pure consumerism

By John Bordsen

McClatchy Newspapers

ATLANTA

The case — 24 12-ounce cans — can easily be made that World of Coca-Cola is the top shrine to American consumerism.

Nowhere else will you find more than 1 million people a year forking over $15 to tour a place devoted to a name-brand product consumed in a blink that gives nutritionists nightmares.

Hersheypark, Knotts Berry Farm and Legoland may be directly tied to retail commodities, but their patrons go for the full-tilt theme-park experience, not for candy bars, jam or stackable blocks. There are no roller coasters or carousels at Atlanta’s World of Coca-Cola.

Coke is it.

People go to the sparkling downtown complex knowing they’re in for a century-plus of slogans, jingles and other ads that are part of the country’s cultural history ... each and every one exulting Coke as the national elixir.

It’s the pause that refreshes (1929). It’s the real thing (1969). Enjoy (2000).

And come thirsty.

Step inside

Head through the lobby to what’s called the Coca-Cola Loft, a large foyer plastered floor to ceiling with Coca-Cola memorabilia where every 12 minutes a staffer offers a formal welcome, a verbal once-over about the company, the product and World of Coke. Your attention will be directed to some of the interesting artifacts around you, including the 1931 “Barefoot Boy” — one of two canvases by Americana painter Norman Rockwell — and a Depression-era advertisement showing Hollywood icons Joan Crawford and Clark Gable having a Coke.

At the appointed moment, the doors behind the welcomer swing open to the Happiness Factory Theater, where a brief film “gives a glimpse of the magic that goes into every bottle of Coca-Cola.” At its conclusion, doors down in front open and you pass through into the attraction’s two-story concourse. Where you head now is up to you.

The first floor holds a gallery about the birth and growth of Coca-Cola and a “Bottle Works” where you walk through a mini-mockup of a bottling plant.

The former, “Milestones of Refreshment,” is an elaborate walkway framed by behind-glass displays crammed with memorabilia. It starts, of course, with the product’s invention by Atlanta pharmacist John Pemberton in 1886.

The story quickly moves forward several years to when local businessman Asa Candler acquired the cola’s name and secret formula, and began empire building.

You’ll see chamber after chamber of merchandise, each bursting with Coke items.

Also covered is the company’s business plan — quite novel in the 1890s to sell syrup tanks to franchised regional bottlers. This allowed Coca-Cola to bypass large-scale production, transportation and distribution costs ... and rapidly roll out nationally. An interactive map shows the company’s march to carbonated empire.

Head upstairs

The closest to a ride you’ll find in this World is the second-floor’s “In Search of the Secret Formula” 4-D movie, in which benignly crazed Professor Rigsby, his assistant and a ferret attempt to discover what goes into the Coke recipe. It’s fast-paced fun.

The small and informal Perfect Pauses Theater loops collections of Coke ads into effective short movies, and you’ll want to see all three.

The Pop Culture Gallery next to it has paintings related to you-know-what, including a Warhol, the other Rockwell canvas and folk art of things made from Coke bottles, caps and cans.

Check out the wall of paintings by Haddon Sundblom, the famous commercial artist whose most famous pieces for Coke involved a thirsty Santa Claus raiding refrigerators on Christmas Eve. Also compelling: a wall of 100 antique postcards showing assorted American cities coast to coast ... and each scene has a Coca-Cola sign in it.

Also here, for some reason, is World of Coke’s sole coverage of its one marketing fiasco — New Coke. The company’s approach? Jovially rueful. It flat-out states that the revamped, too-sweet product elicited a “firestorm of complaints” and that the replacement campaign lasted just 79 days.

The firm wisely positions itself as being responsive to customers and the tried-and-true Coca-Cola as an American original that can’t be changed or improved upon.

Which is the perfect lead-in to the “Taste It!” area where you are free to consume as much as you want of company products that quite often are quite strange.

For more information, visit www.worldofcoca-cola.com.