Selling Nostalgia, Coke Opens New Tourist Stop

Coca-Cola Co., an Atlanta landmark, on Friday opened a downtown pavilion that is giant advertisement, ode to nostalgia and invitation to feel good all rolled into one.

The $15-million building near popular Underground Atlanta houses historical exhibits, a full-sized soda fountain and 1,000 artifacts that trace the history of the 104-year-old soft drink company. Officials describe the materials as priceless.

Coke advertising jingles from years past bounce around the three-story building. The experience seems at once high tech and old-fashioned. Most of all, it is unabashedly promotional. A gift shop offers Coke clothing and what-nots in the familiar red and white. Daring to be honest, the company even displays a little material on New Coke, its notorious marketing disaster.

Why would anyone pay $2.50 admission to enter the World of Coca-Cola, a world of Coke ads? Company officials offer a simple answer: People love it. The company that wants “to teach the world to sing” is offering a feel-good product in feel-bad times. Admission for the entire first weekend already is sold out--about 4,500 visitors a day. Officials estimate that a half million people will visit the pavilion annually.

Dolly Casey of Akron, Ohio, was among a crowd of several hundred who attended Friday’s opening, which included speeches by the mayor and governor, romping clowns, singing children and an assortment of spirited bands. Dolly and her husband, Jack, were too late to buy admission tickets but were hoping to get inside the building before leaving town. Being around all that upbeat Cokeness “just makes you feel better,” she said.

At the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson touched on the Coke mystique, a feeling that seems to go beyond the city’s appreciation for the publicity and the payroll generated by the corporation.

“Coca-Cola means more than a drink,” Jackson declared. “It’s a way of life.”

Inside, the soft drink advertisements mirror time periods in American society--uniformly white back in the early 1900s, gradually adding people of color in more recent years. A high-definition television theater shows Coke ads in exotic settings around the world. In another exhibit, touch-screen technology offers snippets of news from five-year periods, beginning with 1886, when Coca-Cola was first served in an Atlanta pharmacy.

Ever since pharmacist John S. Pemberton created the concoction, collectors have sought practically any artifact connected with it. At the pavilion opening, Bruce Crim of Tallapoosa, Ga., just couldn’t wait to get a look inside. At home, he said, he has a room full of bottles, clocks, cuff links, dispensing machines and “anything I can find.”

Why? Because the stuff is old, he said, because it reminds him of the good old times he had in the good old days. All of that, he said, “feels good.”

Coca-Cola officials concede that the pavilion, which is not expected to be a money-maker, will serve as a grand ad. However, they point out that, with worldwide sales of more than $9 billion last year, the company is hardly suffering.

Besides, much of the memorabilia had languished in storage at Coca-Cola headquarters, company spokesmen said. Officials say that at least 40,000 visitors a year were trekking to the headquarters already.

In an interview, Coca-Cola President Donald R. Keough said visitors from around the world “want to touch Coca-Cola because as they’ve grown up, it’s been part of their lives.”