David Rosenthal: evaluation

Transcript context

…Exxon. It’s ExxonMobil. Oh, Exxon. That’s right. I can never keep track of which breakup company became which. So yeah, there’s an alternative future where, instead of CEO of Coke, Robert Woodruff became CEO of Exxon. Robert, through his own devices—again, almost against his father’s will—had been an original investor in the syndicate that bought out Coke from the Candlers. The board of Coke makes Ernest consider his son. Ernest finally says, all right, fine. His first offer to Robert to come be the new president of Coca-Cola is a salary less than half of what he’s making at White Motor Company. Robert rejects that. They negotiate back and forth, and finally they reach a deal with Robert saying, one condition that I absolutely must have is you, dad, you are out. You are going to fully exit the business. Everything gets handed over to me and I am going to have full control and run this company. Ernest is frustrated enough. He says, okay. So in 1923, Robert takes over as president of the Coca-Cola company, becoming the youngest president of any major corporation in America at that time. He would run the company for the next 32 years as president, and then control the company as chairman of the board for another 30 years after that until his death in 1985. Wild. One of the first moves that Robert makes when he comes in is to become close with the head ad man at Coke’s ad agency at the time, a firm in St. Louis called the D’Arcy Ad Agency. Coca-Cola’s main creative account man there is a guy named Archie Lee. Lee had already created a hit slogan for Coca-Cola in Christmas of 1922 with his ‘thirst knows no season’ campaign, which is a great phrase with a great ring to it, but was particularly good because Coke had a legacy of primarily being enjoyed in the summer. You drink it in the hot southern summers of Georgia.…

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