Coca-Cola Collectible Stores Are Popping Up
Coca-Cola: the soft drink, is about to become Coca-Cola: the retail store.
Shops that sell nothing but Coca-Cola trademark merchandise--from logo-laden T-shirts to trendy train sets--are opening on both coasts. And more may be on the way.
An independently owned store jammed with new Coca-Cola collectibles opened last week at the Puente Hills Mall in the City of Industry. Next week, a more lavish company-owned Coke retail store is scheduled to open on 5th Avenue in New York.
Officials at Coca-Cola strongly deny that Coke has any plans to become a big retailer--with storefronts popping up nationally at shopping malls and elsewhere. “We’re not going to open a Coca-Cola merchandise store on Wilshire Boulevard,” said Peter Sealey, Coke’s director of global marketing. “We have no plans to open more stores.”
But industry observers insist that more merchandise stores are precisely Coca-Cola’s plans.
For Coke, the move comes at a time when the company’s image has been foundering. Over the past few years, Pepsi-Cola has consistently produced superior ads. One way for Coke to bolster its image quickly may be to get its name into stores at the malls where teen-agers hang out.
Coca-Cola executives have watched with keen interest as such familiar entertainment names as Walt Disney Co., Sesame Street, Warner Bros. Studios and Hanna-Barbera Productions have licensed their names--and trademarks--into profitable mall shops that were first tested in the Los Angeles market before spreading nationally. Even Ringling Bros., Barnum & Bailey Circus recently opened mall shops in the eastern United States--designed to look like three-ring circuses.
The looming question: Is the general public so enamored with Coke that people are ready to pay $62.95 to have Coke clocks ticking on their kitchen walls, or serve ice out of $21.95 Coke ice buckets? It’s too early to tell. But even if they make little profit, Coke officials have to like the idea of mall shoppers scooping up products that advertise the Coke brand.
Industry sources estimate that the year-old Coca-Cola retail store in Atlanta, which opened last fall at the company’s “World of Coca-Cola” museum, grossed impressive first-year sales of nearly $4.5 million. By comparison, the very successful Disney Stores, which operates 123 stores at shopping malls nationally, averages gross annual sales of $2 million per store.
The man who oversees Disney’s mall stores declined to speculate about Coke’s chances as a mall retailer. “Our most difficult task has been making sure the quality of all the stores are all up to Disney standards,” said Steve Burke, executive vice president of specialty retailing.
Industry analysts point out that unlike Disney, which has a number of different properties and cartoon characters, Coke has but a single logo. “With just one look, it might be difficult for Coke to keep customers coming back,” one top retail executive said.
Not everyone is a skeptic. “Coke is licensing its products all over the world right now,” said Rich Levitt, editor of “The Licensing Book.” “Coke stores could be a tremendous success.” While Coke has more than 60 merchandise licensees internationally, rival Pepsi has about 50.
Pepsi says it has no intention of opening retail shops. “We don’t kid ourselves,” spokesman Andrew Giangola said. “We’re in the soft-drink business, not the clothing business.”
Meanwhile, Coke executives seem content to let others do the groundwork for them. The Coke store that opens this week in City of Industry is not owned or operated by Coke, but by two Coca-Cola aficionados who have collected Coke memorabilia for 15 years.
But their mall store, Sign of Good Taste (a Coke ad slogan from the 1950s), doesn’t sell antique Coke items. All the merchandise is brand new--and purchased from Coke licensees.
“Coca-Cola is mom, pop and apple pie,” said Bob Zurn, who owns and operates the mall store along with his wife, Joyce. The Zurns are not Coke employees--and they don’t own any Coca-Cola company stock. They are hobbiests pure and simple, whose interest in Coke products began a decade-and-a-half ago when they purchased some Coke drinking glasses at a swap meet.
Although Coca-Cola has no investment in their store, the soda giant helps them obtain some Coke items from licensees at special prices.
Last week, 17-year-old Cory Smith, a high school student, walked into the Coke store with two pals. Smith eyed something he had never seen before: ice-cold Cokes sold in 16 oz. bottles.
These bottled Cokes haven’t been available in Southern California in years. They are shipped in from Utah, then sold for a stiff $1.50 each. But that price tag didn’t bother Smith, who ran his fingertips slowly around the Coke bottle, then uttered the one word that Coke’s marketing machine spends millions to elicit.
“Cool,” said Smith. And he took a swig.
Briefly...
A TV commercial for Target Stores featuring Magic Johnson jumping though TV sets probably won’t be aired as scheduled next month because the company says the lighthearted tone might appear insensitive to the serious nature of Johnson’s HIV infection. . . . The winner of the $12-million advertising account for Fullerton-based Home Club is expected to be announced next week. . . . The Santa Monica agency Rabuck/Carnie Advertising has won the estimated $200,000 advertising business for Shoppers World, a Los Angeles factory outlet mall. . . . The Venice production company Pytka won the grand prize in last night’s annual London International Advertising Awards, for a Hallmark Cards ad about teen-age anxiety at a dance. . . . The city of Malibu is seeking suggestions for a new logo design. . . . Los Angeles Masterplanner, the scheduling resource book for executives, celebrated its fifth anniversary with a redesigned format.
