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This analysis, like many from Charlie Munger, is worth considering carefully but misses two curious aspects of the Coca-Cola story. First, the price of a 6.5 f
by divbzero 3y ago
This analysis, like many from Charlie Munger, is worth considering carefully but misses two curious aspects of the Coca-Cola story.
First, the price of a 6.5 fl. oz. bottle of Coca-Cola was set at 5¢ in the 1880s and remained 5¢ through the 1890s, the 1900s, the 1910s, the 1920s … all the way until the 1950s when the price was finally raised. The dynamics that led to this remarkable phenomenon is described in a Planet Money podcast [1] and on Wikipedia [2].
Second, “starting in Atlanta, then succeeding in the rest of the United States, then rapidly succeeding with our new beverage all over the world” is much easier said than done. Coca-Cola somehow hit this jackpot, but Munger himself would cite See’s Candies as a counterexample of a brand that, for whatever reason, does not travel as successfully from its place of origin.
[1]: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/456410327 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/456410327
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_price_of_Coca-Cola_from_1886_to_1959 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed_price_of_Coca-Cola_from_...
- shalmanese 3y ago> First, the price of a 6.5 fl. oz. bottle of Coca-Cola was set at 5¢ in the 1880s and remained 5¢ through the 1890s, the 1900s, the 1910s, the 1920s … all the way until the 1950s when the price was finally raised. No, that's explicitly mentioned in the story: > And thereafter the real Coca-Cola company did lose half its trademark and did grant perpetual bottling franchises at fixed syrup prices. And some of the bottlers were not very effective and couldn’t easily be changed. And the real Coca-Cola company, with this system, did lose much pricing control that would have improved results, had it been retained.