Dear {FirstName},

We hope you've been enjoying your Monday Morning Motivator. If you've received this issue for the first time - welcome aboard! It only takes a couple of minutes to start your week off right with the MMM! Be encouraged by the success or great ideas of others in your business community.

Pioneers Of Success - Asa Candler

Welcome back, you are receiving this week's MMM on Tuesday because of the long weekend. We hope you have had a fantastic summer and were able to take some time to rejuvinate and recharge. This week we take a look at a man who was a pioneer when it came to marketing, Asa Candler. 

The power of advertising is ubiquitous today, but Asa Candler was among the earliest entrepreneurs to aggressively use it. Candler wasn't an inventor; he didn't come up with a great company name or distinctive logo. Rather his greatest achievement was as a marketer. When he purchased control of Coca-Cola, it was a fledging five-cent soda fountain drink that only sold about nine glasses a day in its first year on the market.

Under Candler's watch, Coca-Cola's advertising budget grew from $100,000 in 1901 to $1 million in 1911. The Coca-Cola name was plastered on everything from calendars, clocks, fans, and even urns. Pharmacists selling the drink had apothecary scales emblazoned with the name.

A team of traveling Coca-Cola syrup salesmen was sent out to ensure that pharmacists were mixing the beverage correctly with carbonated water, and that their stores were properly adorned with Coca-Cola logos and signs. Candler even contracted actress and singer Hilda Clark to be the face of Coca-Cola, initiating one of the first-ever celebrity endorsements.

Early ads for the beverage said it was "exhilarating and invigorating," while a 1905 slogan proclaimed that "Coca-Cola Revives and Sustains". The company soon backed off from any claims of health benefits -- after all, the real market aim was getting perfectly healthy people to drink it too. A 1906 slogan touted Coca-Cola as "The Great National Temperance Beverage," marketing it as an alternative to alcoholic drinks in a country that would soon head into prohibition.

Candler was the ultimate promoter. He gave away coupons for a free glass of Coca-Cola and offered pharmacists who were reluctant to sell the drink the first barrel of syrup for free. Those same pharmacists quickly returned as paying retailers when they saw all the coupon-wielding customers wandering in.

Candler was born in 1851 and worked as a pharmacist before buying Coca-Cola from John Stith Pemberton, the inventor of the sweet syrup that serves as the base for the drink. By 1891, Candler had purchased the entire company for just $2,300, the equivalent of about $54,400 today.

While the Coca-Cola name spread, the company added syrup manufacturing plants in Dallas, Chicago, and Los Angeles, in addition to its home base in Atlanta. In the early 1890s, Coca-Cola was purely a soda fountain drink; it wasn't until a retailer in Vicksburg, Miss. started bottling the drink that it became portable. Despite Candler's marketing acumen, he wasn't convinced that bottling the beverage was the way to go. He sold the exclusive rights to bottle Coca-Cola in 1899 to two guys in Tennessee for about a dollar.

By 1906 the drink was being bottled in the U.S and overseas, and most of the globe was drinking Coca-Cola long before the company came up with the catchphrase to "Buy the World a Coke." In 1919, the Candler family stake in the company was acquired for around $25 million by an investor group led by Ernest Woodruff. Candler resigned from the company in 1916 and became mayor of Atlanta. He was also an active philanthropist until his death in 1929.

Throughout his career, Candler vigorously pursued copy-cat drinks in order to maintain the integrity of the brand, a mission that continues today. The secret formula for Coca-Cola reportedly resides in a vault in an Atlanta bank and, in 2006, a scheme to sell company secrets to Pepsi landed three employees in jail.

Have a great week unless you choose otherwise.

Drago

PS -  We just finished a series of web videos for Briar Design & Construction. Briar is one of the most progressive design and home renovation companies in BC. The videos were designed to showcase Briar's unique approach to home renovation.To see the videos Click Here! or go to BriarRenos.com to see them live on their site.

PPS - Do you have all the business you can handle? You could be our next success story sending us a message like this:

("You've got us so busy now, we're scrambling to just respond to the quote requests! Keep it up! We're on to something very big here! Have a great weekend." Ross)

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Success Profile

This week we would like to recognize Eric Buchfink and his team at Mattress Mattress. It all started back in 1994. A small group of entrepreneurs opened the first Mattress Mattress store in Red Deer, Alberta. The original concept has never changed. The entrepreneurs felt that by offering customers a “Beducation", it would take the confusion out of their buying a new mattress.

Add to this “Forthright Prices” on trusted brand name mattresses, and great customer service, and the company would grow. And it did. 2009 earmarks their 15th Anniversary. With the opening of 3 new locations in 2009, it brings the total of Alberta and BC corporate stores to 15. To find out more about this success story visit www.mattressmattress.com

Can The Adam Advertising Group help your business, or do you have a success story we should hear about?

Contact Drago Adam at drago@AdamAdGroup.com
or call 604 937 -8886 or 1 866 923 - 6477

PS : We wanted to say Thank You for sharing your Monday Mornings with us. The MMM started three years ago with 35 subscribers, today's issue is going out to over 22,779 Weekly Subscribers.

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