Coca-Cola Polar Bears | Cartoon characters Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Share Coca-Cola Polar Bears in "Northern Lights" The Coca-Cola Polar Bears are the mascots of the soft drink, Coca-Cola. Polar Bears first started to appear on Coca-Cola products in 1922 in France. Since then the polar bears have appeared in many Coca-Cola advertisements. Back then however the Coca-Cola polar bear was simply a picture of a polar bear on Coke advertisements. It wasn't until the commercial "Northern Lights" was made in 1993 that the animated polar bears we all know and love were first seen. "Northern Lights" features several animated polar bears watching the Aurora Borealis and drinking some Coca-Cola. Since 1993 the bears have appeared in a variety of commercial and Coca-Cola advertisements. Later polar bear cubs were introduced as well in a holiday ad in which a family of polar bear picks out a tree for Christmas.

First Coca-Cola Polar Bear Commercial Turns 20: The Coca-Cola Company Believe it or not, the first-ever TV ad featuring the beloved Coca-Cola polar bears — who were inducted into the Madison Avenue Advertising Walk of Fame in 2011 and recently landed starring roles in a Ridley Scott-directed mini movie — turned 20 in 2013. Coca-Cola ’s first polar bear print ad appeared in France in 1922, and the cuddly creatures were used sporadically over the next 70 years. In 1993, the icons made their TV debut as part of the global “Always Coca-Cola ” campaign. Creator Ken Stewart initially got the idea for the groundbreaking commercial called “Northern Lights” from his Labrador Retriever, which reminded him of a polar bear as a cute, fluffy puppy. In the ad, the polar bears watch the aurora borealis (the Northern Lights) and drink Coca-Cola . Stewart enlisted the help of Los Angeles-based Rhythm & Hues to animate the ad using what was considered at the time to be state-of-the-art computer graphics.

Using storyboards by illustrator Eugene Yelchin, Stewart and the Creative Artists Agency (CAA), Rhythm & Hues created pencil sketches of the bears. Next, the team studied films and photos of polar bears to understand how they move their heads, bodies and limbs. A sculptor then created a 3D clay model of the bear's head, which was digitized and stored in advanced computer graphics software. An animator plotted points along the body of the model until a schematic of the bear appeared on screen. Once the image was refined and loaded to memory, the bear could move. Other elements — such as Coca-Cola bottles — were scanned and introduced to the storyline. Once the bears' basic movements were completed, the rest of the picture was refined. Fur was added, eyes were completed, background was "painted in" and lighting details were fine-tuned. The polar bears were an immediate hit with viewers and made encore appearances in two spots during the 1994 Olympic Games, in which the bears slid down a luge and soared off a ski jump. Bear cubs were later introduced in a holiday ad.

We recently caught up with Todd Shifflett , a visual effects supervisor at Rhythm & Hues who has worked on several hit animated movies, including Snow White and the Huntsman, Happy Feet and Babe. He was assigned to “Northern Lights” as a digital artist shortly after joining the Rhythm & Hues team. The world of computer graphics was much different back in 1993. Help us understand the technical challenges you faced in bringing the polar bears to life on screen. It’s funny to look back now and wonder why that commercial was so groundbreaking, when you consider how far technology has come since then. The processing power of the computers we were using was nowhere near what it is today. Our most powerful computers could barely render all of the polygons, so we used lots of little technical tricks to pull it off and make the bears look furry without being able to actually render fur. If you look at the evolution of the bears over the years, you get an idea of how much technology has improved. Any special memories stand out from the project? Oh, yes. This was, of course, well before the days of being able to back up work on the cloud.

We had to back up on reel-to-reel tapes in a machine room, which was a labor-intensive process that required very long hours. None of us got much sleep during that project. As the new guy, I was working the night shift one night — we had more people than computers — when I accidentally typed a command to remove the entire project from the disc! Panic quickly set in, because I thought I’d wiped out everything. I went room to room and finally fessed up. Luckily, I found someone who helped me restore from backup, and the project lived on. What was the overall reaction to the first polar bear ad? The commercial definitely put us on the map. Once the first one was released, it became so popular that Coke decided to produce more of them. The polar bears became a larger part of the overall campaign... I remember seeing them on billboards, for example. I was involved in at least three more commercials, including one of the polar bear family pushing a Christmas tree down the hill and another for the 1994 Olympics. Technology was changing quickly and we needed to adjust for that, but we also wanted to maintain the stylistic look of the original incarnation of the bears.

They eventually became fluffier, and newer tools enabled us to animate more than one bear at a time. How did the animation techniques used in ‘Northern Lights’ influence future projects at Rhythm & Hues? Some of the techniques we used in commercials and movies that followed definitely came from that first polar bear ad. For example, the tricks we used to create the bears' fuzzy look helped us when we made the (1995) movie, Babe . We faced similar challenges with that project because we had to take live-action animals and put new snouts on them without being able to actually render fur. The polar bear ad was an important part of my development because I got to work with and learn from some of the most brilliant people in the industry. I was lucky to be part of the process in the very beginning when we didn’t know how it would get done or what we were capable of from a computer processing standpoint. It was an exciting time, and it’s nice to know people still look back on it as a document in computer graphics history. Related Items The Enduring History of Coca-Cola's Polar Bears: The Coca-Cola Company Company made a dramatic shift in its advertising by introducing the "Always Coca-Cola " campaign.

The campaign by Creative Artists Agency and later Edge Creative was diverse in nature, with an initial run of 27 commercials designed to appeal to specific audiences. The ads ran around the world and included a variety of innovative technical approaches, such as computer animation. One such commercial, "Northern Lights," introduced what would become one of the most popular symbols of Coca-Cola advertising, the animated polar bear. A Puppy Brings a Polar Bear to Life When asked to develop an innovative commercial for Coca-Cola , creator Ken Stewart thought about drinking Coke at the movies. As a puppy, Mr. Stewart's Labrador Retriever had resembled a polar bear. Mr. Stewart saw his dog, thought about polar bears and how they would go to the movies, and the idea for "Northern Lights" was born. In the commercial, the polar bears watch the aurora borealis (the "movie") and drink from bottles of Coca-Cola . Mr. Stewart enlisted the help of animation company Rhythm & Hues to animate the ads. Using "space-age" computers and state-of-the-art graphic programs, each ad took some 12 weeks to produce from beginning to end. A lengthy, complex process is required to bring the furry, always thirsty Arctic creatures to life.

As with all television commercials, the undertaking began with storyboards. With each commercial encompassing only 30 seconds, the animation mirrors scenes taken from previously created storyboards illustrated by Eugene Yelchin, working with Mr. Stewart and CAA. In this way, each second of the action is accounted for. Once the storyboards were completed, Mr. Stewart and Rhythm & Hues created pencil sketches of the polar bears, defining how the bears would appear in each scene. The sketches then were refined to add detail and background. Next, Mr. Stewart and the animators studied films and photos of actual polar bears to get a better idea of how bears move their heads, bodies and limbs, so they could incorporate these movements into the commercials. To get the bear into the computer, Mr. Stewart and Rhythm & Hues employed a sculptor to create a three-dimensional representation of the bear's head in clay. The model then was transferred into three-dimensional images and stored in advanced computer graphics software. The images were constructed by creating a grid of vertical and horizontal lines on the bear model.

An animator, using a stylus connected to a computer, actually plotted the points along the body of the model until a schematic of the bear appeared on the computer screen. Once the image was refined and loaded into memory, the bear could be "moved," allowing it to walk, run, ski, luge or ice skate. "Movement" for the bears was created as animators plotted the bear's course on the computer. In addition to manipulating the bear's torso, the head and the limbs had to be moved separately since the computer-generated-bear was not attached in one piece like a real bear. During this step, the fine motor movements also were completed. Additional elements that were not computer-generated - such as a Coca-Cola bottle - were scanned and stored in the computer and were added at this point. Once the basic movements were completed, the rest of the picture was refined. Fur was added, eyes were completed, background was "painted in" and the lighting details - intricate lighting complete with reflection and shadows - were fine tuned. A polar bear cub shares a ball with a seal cub in this 1996 campaign.

(Photo Credit: ) In this 2002 ad, two Coca-Cola polar bears are catching a wave -- a snowy one. (Photo Credit: ) The Coca-Cola polar bear shows up in this 1995 ad wearing a soccer shirt to support Brazil's national team. (Photo Credit: ) Bottler in Peru entered this polar bear float in a 1952 spring festival parade. (Photo Credit: ) A 1922 poster featured a polar bear cooling down the sun with a refreshing Coca-Cola . This poster was the first time the company used the polar bear in an advertisement. (Photo Credit: ) Although it's hard to see in this grainy street photo, the poster on the previous slide is featured on the side of a building in 1923 Paris. (Photo Credit: ) While the animation was in production, Mr. Stewart also worked with Glenn Rueger at Outside Music to compose original music, and created sound effects with Weddington Productions. To maintain the magical and ethereal quality of the world of the bears, Mr. Stewart kept the music to a minimum.

He used the synthesized music as a source of punctuation only, and kept the bears dialogue-free, except for the notable "oohs," "ahs" and grunts, which were created by Mr. Stewart on a sound stage using his own voice, which then was altered through a computer to make him sound like the bears. The music and "dialogue," which were minimal by design, required months of work. "That's really what we were trying to do - create a character that's innocent, fun and reflects the best attributes we like to call 'human'," said Mr. Stewart. "The bears are cute, mischievous, playful and filled with fun." Once the final elements - music, sound effects and animation -- were finished, Mr. Stewart brought them together during the final edit and the magic of the bears was born. There have been many polar bear television spots since the 1993 debut, including two commercials for the 1994 Olympic Games in which the bear slid down a luge and soared off a ski jump. Bear cubs also were introduced in a holiday ad in which the bear family selects its Christmas tree.

Coca-Cola Polar Bears Commercial 2012 Related Items Coca-Cola polar bears | The Ad Mascot Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia The Ad Mascot Wiki Share The Coca-Cola polar bears have sporadically appeared in many adverts for Coca-Cola since 1993, usually around Christmas. Coca-Cola first featured a polar bear in a French print advert in 1922, shown squirting cola from a bottle into the mouth of a thirsty sun. Since then, polar bears have occasionally appeared in advertisements for Coca-Cola, but were only used as mascots after 1993. The first polar bear TV adverts were designed by Rhythm & Hues. The polar bears have crossed over into three other Coca-Cola advertising campaigns - the then-current "Always Coca-Cola" campaign, the annual Santa Claus campaign and the "Open Happiness" campaign. Use in advertising Edit Creator Ken Stewart got the idea for the polar bears from his Labrador Retriever, which reminded him of a polar bear as a puppy. Stewart got Los Angeles-based visual studio Rhythm & Hues to animate the first advert using computer animation. The ad was storyboarded by illustrator Eugene Yelchin.

The first advert featuring the polar bears was "Northern Lights" in 1993. The ad shows several polar bears sitting down to watch the aurora borealis. Another bear walks in and joins the rest. The lights then appear in the sky and the bears open bottles of Coca-Cola to drink. The ad ends with a face shot of a bear holding a bottle. This advert was animated by Rhythm & Hues, who animated most of the adverts. The bears were brought back for a new campaign running as part of the "Open Happiness" campaign in 2013 to mark their 20th anniversary. Two new adverts, "Snowbear" and "Puffin", were produced by Animal Logic. In "Snowbear", a bear family build a bear from snow, which they feel is incomplete until a cub suggests to add a bottle cap nose and a Coca-Cola bottle. In "Puffin", a puffin struggles to open a bottle of Coca-Cola. The bears help out by opening the bottle and giving it a straw to drink the cola. Film director Ridley Scott produced a computer-animated seven-minute short film with Animal Logic featuring the polar bears for Coca-Cola.

The film shows a family of polar bears on their journey across the Arctic tundra. The polar bear was adapted into a costume character for public appearances by Jim Henson's Creature Shop. First Coca-Cola ad featuring a polar bear, 1922. Why is Coca-Cola's mascot a polar bear? - Quora Why is Coca-Cola's mascot a polar bear? It's difficult to see how a sugary soft-drink product is accurately represented by a large furry animal. Written Jan 6, 2012 Frankly, I'm also scratching my head in the connection. This article seems to explain the history. Applicable quotes below. Full story here. In 1993, The Coca-Cola Company made a dramatic shift in its advertising by introducing the "Always Coca-Cola" campaign, by Creative Artists Agency and later Edge Creative. The campaign was a diverse one, with an initial run of twenty-seven commercials designed to appeal to specific audiences. The ads ran around the world and included a variety of innovative technical approaches, such as computer animation. One such commercial, "Northern Lights," introduced what would become one of the most popular symbols of Coca-Cola advertising: the animated polar bear.

When asked to develop an innovative commercial for Coca-Cola, creator and freelance writer/director Ken Stewart thought about drinking Coke at the movies. Mr. Stewart thought his yellow Labrador Retriever resembled a polar bear when it was a puppy and thought about how polar bears would go to the movies. Mr. Stewart brought the two concepts together in the commercial, "Northern Lights," which depicts a magical place where polar bears watch "movies" (the aurora borealis) and drink from bottles of Coca-Cola. The polar bear was a considerable success, and went on to star in six commercials for Coca-Cola, including two ads for the 1994 Olympic Games in which it slid down a luge and soared off a ski jump. Bear cubs also made their debut for Coke in a holiday ad in which the bear family selects its Christmas tree. Should the Polar Bear Still Sell Coca-Cola? - The New Yorker Should the Polar Bear Still Sell Coca-Cola? By November 6, 2014 The World of Coca-Cola is a ninety-two-thousand-square-foot attraction less than a mile from Coke’s headquarters, in downtown Atlanta.

Taste It, an all-you-can-drink soda exhibit featuring more than a hundred flavors, lies near the entrance to Perfect Pauses Theatre, where Coke’s television commercials play on a continuous loop. Outside the Vault of the Secret Formula, a seven-foot-tall polar bear stands guard three hundred and sixty-three days a year, hugging children, posing for photographs, and even, on occasion, starring in marriage proposals . Each year, a million people pay as much as sixteen dollars a ticket to meet Coke’s “most beloved character,” a fluffy suit of synthetic white fur with a human inside, pulling strings to form a saccharine, glass-eyed grin. In 1922, Coke débuted, in a French print ad, its polar-bear mascot—a jolly animal squirting soda from a bottle into the mouth of a thirsty sun. In the following decades, the image of a mother polar bear and her two cubs became a standby for the brand, used to denote the start of the holiday season. In 1993, Coke introduced its first animated bear, in “ Northern Lights ,” a TV spot that shows polar bears gathering to drink Coke and watch the aurora borealis.

The company returned to this device in a 2012 spot, in which two bears sit on a couch of snow, cheering at the Coke Polar Bowl . Polar bears reflect “the best attributes we like to call ‘human,’ ” the creator of the first animated ad has said . “The bears are cute, mischievous, playful and filled with fun.” In 1980, John Berger observed that, in the industrialized world, “no other source of imagery can begin to compete with that of animals.” So, too, in advertising: a 2010 study found that out of eleven hundred and fifty-one brand characters, more than half were nonhuman animals. Large wild animals—polar bears, tigers (Frosted Flakes’s Tony the Tiger), crocodiles (Lacoste)—appear less often than birds (Froot Loops’s Toucan Sam, Aflac’s duck), which are the most popular icons, followed by domesticated animals (Borden’s Elsie the Cow, the Energizer Bunny).

Many of these characters were “born,” as some academics who study them put it, between 1950 and the early nineteen-sixties, a time when few thought to ask: What happens if our mascot dies off in the wild? Extinction has always been part of life on earth, but current rates are alarmingly high—a thousand times greater than what scientists call the background (or normal) rate of extinction, according to a recent study . Between 1970 and 2010, according to the Living Planet Index , the earth witnessed a fifty-two-per-cent decline in populations of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. The status of large wild animals, in particular, is a dismal litany of loss: only thirty-two hundred to four thousand tigers survive in the wild, and African forest elephants could disappear within a decade. But despite a general awareness of such figures, few consumers associate species loss with Tony the Tiger or Melvin the Elephant (of Kellogg’s Choco Krispis in South America).

Barbara Phillips, a professor of marketing at the University of Saskatchewan who has studied brand characters for eighteen years, explained to me that the more abstract and anthropomorphized a character is, the less consumers tend to think about the animal as it exists in the wild. “The further the character gets away from being a real character in the world,” she said, “the less a company needs to worry about what happens in the real world.” Coca-Cola’s polar bear might be the rare exception to this rule. Coke’s animated bears appeared fifteen years before the animal received protection, in 2008, as a threatened species in the United States under the Endangered Species Act . The timing coincided with rising awareness that Arctic sea ice is melting , which has led polar bears to become the “poster species of climate change,” in the words of a 2013 study . According to the fifth assessment report of the International Panel on Climate Change, which was completed this week, in fifty to seventy years, polar bears won’t be able to live and hunt on most of the sea ice they can access today. “The Coke bear is facing a unique cultural situation,” Phillips told me. “The cultural meaning of the animal is changing.

Polar bears aren’t just cute white bears who drink Coke. There’s this overlap between the advertising world and the real world. When people think of polar bears, they are thinking of a drowning polar bear—and that is not a happy polar bear.” Polar bears sell products other than Coke—frozen vegetables, for instance, in this 2010 spot for Birds Eye. But a Nissan electric-car ad from that same year illustrates the shifting association with the animal. The commercial tells the improbable story of a polar bear’s journey to a leafy suburb, to give an electric-car driver a hug. Environmental groups have also produced dramatic fundraising videos of polar bears drowning in the slushy floes of the melting arctic, while activists in eerily lifelike polar-bear costumes make frequent appearances at protests. In a 2008 campaign to promote mass transit in New York City, white garbage bags were tied to street grates; when subway trains passed underneath, the bags inflated so as to create an uncanny scene of a mother bear and her cub walking down the street. In contrast with these realistic representations of polar bears, Coca-Cola’s use of anthropomorphic polar-bear iconography has intensified.

Brand faithful can now buy polar-bear tumblers for $14.95, and plush bears for $99.95 at Coca-ColaStore.com. A recent holiday spot included a family of polar bears making a snow polar bear . And last year the company produced an animated film about the antics of polar-bear siblings Jak, Zook, and Kaia. Coke declined interview requests for this story, but the company has made some efforts in recent years to acknowledge the true state of the polar bear, too. Most significantly, it pledged some two million dollars to the World Wildlife Fund, delivered across five years starting in 2011, and it has supplemented that money by soliciting three million dollars in direct donations from consumers. The company touted these donations in a 2013 ad that ran in Europe, depicting actual polar bears in the wild. Its partnership with the W.W.F. has included such initiatives as an augmented-reality exhibit at the Science Museum, in London, and a Web site, called Arctic Home , about W.W.F. research efforts and Coke’s contributions to them. One of the four polar bears featured on the site is N26135, a thirteen-year-old female.

After being tagged in April, 2013, she travelled from Norway to central Russia, walking “along the edge of the ice, hunting seals along the way.” With these efforts, Coca-Cola has cast itself as the polar bear’s savior, in exchange for a fraction of its advertising budget and earnings. The Coca-Cola brand has an estimated value of nearly eighty billion dollars, according to Interbrand ; between 2011, the year Coke announced its two-million-dollar pledge to the W.W.F., and 2013, it spent $9.8 billion on marketing and averaged $8.7 billion in profits. To be fair, the two-million-dollar donation is at least on par with the efforts of other companies with threatened-animal mascots. In February, Kellogg’s, which was facing protesters in tiger costumes and an online petition illustrated by Tony the Tiger pleading, “Kellogg’s: Don’t Let Me Go Extinct, Stop Deforestation Now!,” announced plans to use only “traceable palm oil” by the end of 2015, but the company has not given directly to tiger-conservation programs.

In 2010, according to a story in the Independent , Lacoste pledged a hundred and fifty thousand euros, or a hundred and eighty-nine thousand dollars, over three years to the Save Your Logo project, to help pay for a census of a rare crocodile found only in Colombia and Venezuela. Lacoste would not confirm the donation, and in an e-mail said that it now works “by direct connection with local associations.” For example, in August, Lacoste U.S.A. announced a three-year sponsorship of the Everglades Foundation, for restoration planning of threatened species in the area, including the American crocodile. In “Brand Mascots: Anthropomorphic Marketing and Other Marketing Animals,” a collection of academic writings published in 2014, James Freund, a lecturer at Lancaster University, writes, “Clearly, the tiny sum of money given by the Coca-Cola company is not sufficient to ensure that polar bears (or for that matter people) will always have a place to call home.” Freund stopped short of proposing an actual dollar figure. Coke and the W.W.F.

estimate that it will cost “$10 plus million over the next five years” to establish what they call the Last Ice Area—“a sustainable area, as vast as 500,000 square miles, to uphold the habitat needs of the polar bear, other ice dependent species and local people.” Coke’s partnership with the W.W.F. has thus far raised half that amount. I called Clive Tesar, the W.W.F.’s project lead for the effort, to find out how ten million dollars could achieve such an audacious goal. The short answer: it can’t. The money pays mainly for research, such as ice models and polar-bear population studies, and for government lobbying by the W.W.F. “We can’t go out and buy the place, or make laws about it,” Tesar told me. “But we can try to persuade people to make the appropriate laws and regulations that will conserve it. That’s what we are hoping the ten million dollars will do.” Should Coke be giving more? The question raises another: What is the value of the polar bear’s continued existence? I posed this line of inquiry to Adrian Ivakhiv, a professor of environmental thought and culture at the University of Vermont.

In his response, he argued that companies should pay more for the use of endangered animals. “I would say that the payment, or expectation of payment, for the use of endangered animals like polar bears as mascots should be higher because the stakes are higher,” he wrote. “$2 million, by this standard, is not very much at all.” Like Freund, Ivakhiv didn’t offer a more suitable dollar figure, but it seemed clear that ten million dollars was probably not enough. Ivakhiv pointed, too, to the greater need for a more robust and widespread political response to the problem. “I think we’re ultimately better,” he wrote, “not leaving this to the economists.” Mya Frazier is a freelance business journalist based in the Midwest. She is a former staff writer for Advertising Age, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and American City Business Journals. THE MEDIA BUSINESS - Advertising - Coke takes a bearish approach to its new winter campaign. - NYTimes.com THE MEDIA BUSINESS: Advertising; Coke takes a bearish approach to its new winter campaign. By Stuart Elliott Published: July 7, 1993 THE Coca-Cola Company has more news that Madison Avenue might find hard to, you should pardon the expression, bear.

It was bad enough, traditional agencies have growled, that a Hollywood talent agency wrested creative control over the Coke brand's 1993 global advertising campaign from McCann-Erickson Worldwide, its longtime shop. Now the soft-drink giant says it intends to make one of the commercials from that unorthodox campaign the centerpiece of its winter marketing plans. The commercial, the most popular to date among 24 produced under the auspices of the Creative Artists Agency, presents an endearing sloth of computer-animated polar bears in an icy snowscape, anthropomorphically demonstrating a Coke slogan that dates to 1922: "Thirst knows no season." A spinoff of the spot, again featuring the lumbering bears that grunt and smile, will appear at Christmastime, co-starring a white-bearded, red-suited gift-giver who has been pitching Coke for decades. Then in February, additional bear commercials will promote Coca-Cola's sponsorship of the 1994 Winter Olympics. And don't be surprised if the bears also turn up in related promotional and merchandising executions, as stuffed animals, on posters in stores -- even in their own television series.

Think of it all, if you will, as the paws, rather than the pause, that refreshes. "Around the world, regardless of the country, the polar bear commercial has been extremely well received by consumers, our trade retail customers and our bottlers," said Chuck Fruit, the vice president and director of global advertising and media services at Coca-Cola in Atlanta. "There's something warm and likable about the bears," he added. "They appeal to every age group." In addition to communicating qualities like refreshment, he said, the commercial scored high in measurements like memorability and intrusiveness, making the results "extremely encouraging." The 30-second commercial shows the bears drinking from bottles of Coke as they watch an aurora borealis, commonly known as the northern lights. It began running last February, when the campaign, carrying the theme "Always Coca-Cola," was introduced. The campaign has become perhaps the advertising industry's most discussed in decades because of Coca-Cola's unprecedented decision to award primary creative responsibilities for the Coke brand's advertising to a talent agency rather than a mainstream ad agency. As a result, Madison Avenue's attacks on the campaign have been unrelenting.

Even when the commercials have been screened at industry gatherings, they have been booed and hissed. Mr. Fruit shrugged that off. "Our ears are tuned to the public," he said, "and not to the chatter within the tent." Asked about the name coined for the characters by the trade publication Brandweek -- the "cola bears" -- he laughed, and added, "That's two-thirds of the name we came up with: the Coca-Cola bears." Coca-Cola's decision to broaden the use of the bears was significant because it would mean that whatever was decided about its 1994 advertising, Creative Artists, in Beverly Hills, Calif., would have a paw in the door. "These particular spots take a long time to develop because of the animation," Mr. Fruit said. "So we had to get started on them, regardless of what our direction is for 1994." When Mr. Fruit said the spots required long lead times, he was not kidding. The first one took about 22 weeks, compared with 12 to 18 weeks for a typical animated spot.

"There really is no animation technique that's blindingly fast," said Henry Anderson 3d, the animation director at Rhythm & Hues, a Hollywood production company responsible for the bears' winsome charm. Still, he added, the work was complicated by unusual touches like making their fur and the bending of their body parts appear lifelike. Ken Stewart, who developed the idea for Creative Artists, said the bears were based on "my dog, a yellow Labrador retriever that we always called 'the polar bear puppy,' because his face looked like a bear's." Why not, then, a dog commercial? "A dog isn't cool," replied Mr. Stewart, the owner of Sierra Hotel Productions in Beverly Hills, which specializes in movie advertising. Mr. Fruit stressed that the polar bears would not become the sole focus of Coke's brand advertising. "Unlike other bears, ours will be in hibernation this summer," slumbering while ads carrying hot-weather themes appear, he said.

"If you had to characterize the 'Always Coca-Cola' campaign in its first year in one word, it would be 'diversity,' " he added, "and you should expect the same for 1994, with the polar bears being part, but just part, of it." Photo: Coca-Cola's new commercial features computer-animated polar bears in an icy snowscape. The company said it intended to make the commercial the centerpiece of its winter marketing plans. (Coca-Cola Company) Coca-Cola History │ World of Coca-Cola Coca-Cola History Coca-Cola history began in 1886 when the curiosity of an Atlanta pharmacist, Dr. John S. Pemberton, led him to create a distinctive tasting soft drink that could be sold at soda fountains. He created a flavored syrup, took it to his neighborhood pharmacy, where it was mixed with carbonated water and deemed “excellent” by those who sampled it. Dr. Pemberton’s partner and bookkeeper, Frank M. Robinson, is credited with naming the beverage “Coca‑Cola” as well as designing the trademarked, distinct script, still used today. Did you know? The first servings of Coca‑Cola were sold for 5 cents per glass.

During the first year, sales averaged a modest nine servings per day in Atlanta. Today, daily servings of Coca‑Cola beverages are estimated at 1.9 billion globally. Prior to his death in 1888, just two years after creating what was to become the world’s #1-selling sparkling beverage, Dr. Pemberton sold portions of his business to various parties, with the majority of the interest sold to Atlanta businessman, Asa G. Candler. Under Mr. Candler’s leadership, distribution of Coca‑Cola expanded to soda fountains beyond Atlanta. In 1894, impressed by the growing demand for Coca‑Cola and the desire to make the beverage portable, Joseph Biedenharn installed bottling machinery in the rear of his Mississippi soda fountain, becoming the first to put Coca‑Cola in bottles. Large scale bottling was made possible just five years later, when in 1899, three enterprising businessmen in Chattanooga, Tennessee secured exclusive rights to bottle and sell Coca‑Cola. The three entrepreneurs purchased the bottling rights from Asa Candler for just $1.

Benjamin Thomas, Joseph Whitehead and John Lupton developed what became the Coca‑Cola worldwide bottling system. Among the biggest challenges for early bottlers, were imitations of the beverage by competitors coupled with a lack of packaging consistency among the 1,000 bottling plants at the time. The bottlers agreed that a distinctive beverage needed a standard and distinctive bottle, and in 1916, the bottlers approved the unique contour bottle. The new Coca‑Cola bottle was so distinctive it could be recognized in the dark and it effectively set the brand apart from competition. The contoured Coca‑Cola bottle was trademarked in 1977. Over the years, the Coca‑Cola bottle has been inspiration for artists across the globe — a sampling of which can be viewed at the World of Coca‑Cola in Atlanta. Check out a preview of the latest art exhibit . The first marketing efforts in Coca‑Cola history were executed through coupons promoting free samples of the beverage. Considered an innovative tactic back in 1887, couponing was followed by newspaper advertising and the distribution of promotional items bearing the Coca‑Cola script to participating pharmacies.

Fast forward to the 1970s when Coca‑Cola’s advertising started to reflect a brand connected with fun, friends and good times. Many fondly remember the 1971 Hilltop Singers performing “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke”, or the 1979 “Have a Coke and a Smile” commercial featuring a young fan giving Pittsburgh Steeler, “Mean Joe Greene”, a refreshing bottle of Coca‑Cola. You can enjoy these and many more advertising campaigns from around the world in the Perfect Pauses Theater at the World of Coca‑Cola. EVOLUTION OF THE COCA-COLA BOTTLE The 1980s featured such memorable slogans as “Coke is It!”, “Catch the Wave” and “Can’t Beat the Feeling”. In 1993, Coca‑Cola experimented with computer animation, and the popular “Always Coca‑Cola” campaign was launched in a series of ads featuring animated polar bears. Each animated ad in the “Always Coca‑Cola” series took 12 weeks to produce from beginning to end.

The bears were, and still are, a huge hit with consumers because of their embodiment of characteristics like innocence, mischief and fun. A favorite feature at the World of Coca‑Cola is the ability to have your photo taken with the beloved 7′ tall Coca‑Cola Polar Bear. Did you know? One of the most famous advertising slogans in Coca‑Cola history “The Pause That Refreshes” first appeared in the Saturday Evening Post in 1929. The theme of pausing with Coca‑Cola refreshment is still echoed in today’s marketing. In 2009, the “Open Happiness” campaign was unveiled globally. The central message of “Open Happiness” is an invitation to billions around the world to pause, refresh with a Coca‑Cola, and continue to enjoy one of life’s simple pleasures. The “Open Happiness” message was seen in stores, on billboards, in TV spots and printed advertising along with digital and music components — including a single featuring Janelle Monae covering the 1980 song, “Are You Getting Enough Happiness?” The happiness theme continued with “Open the Games.

Open Happiness” featured during the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, followed by a 2010 social media extension, “Expedition 206” — an initiative whereby three happiness ambassadors travel to 206 countries in 365 days with one mission: determining what makes people happy. The inspirational year-long journey is being recorded and communicated via blog posts, tweets, videos and pictures. Experts have long believed in the connection between happiness and wellness, and Coca‑Cola is proud to have played a part in happy occasions around the globe. In Atlanta, check out the Coca‑Cola Theater at the World of Coca‑Cola and see the magic that goes into every bottle of Coca-Cola. Interested in learning even more about Coca‑Cola history? Go to ‑colacompany.com and check out the History section.

Question: In 1993, which animated animal was first used to advertise Coca Cola?
Answer: Polar Bear