When the United States entered World War II in December 1941 Coca-Cola was already bottled and sold throughout the country. In order show support for the brave men and women and an astute marketing plan Coca-Cola President Robert Woodruff declared that “every man in uniform gets a bottle of Coca-Cola for five cents, wherever he is and whatever it costs the company”. Five cents was the cost of a bottle of Coca-Cola in the Untied States.

In 1943 General Dwight D. Eisenhower commander of the Mediterranean Theater of Operations for all allied forces requested 3 million bottles of Coca-Cola to be shipped to North Africa. He also asked for equipment to construct ten bottling plants. After the bottling plants were constructed the Coca-Cola Company sent 148 of its employees oversees to maintain and manage the plants. The employees were given US Army uniforms, the rank of Technical Observer and treated as officers. They were nicknamed the “Coca-Cola Colonels” by the soldiers.

From the 1940s through 1960 the number of countries with bottling plants nearly doubled. While the Coca-Cola Company was busy boosting the morale of the fighting forces, they were also laying the foundation for becoming an international symbol of refreshment. Most of the bottling plants constructed overseas continued to operate when the war ended.

Coca-Cola’s advertisements during the war focused on coming together and enjoying the little things in life and avoided imagery of conflict. The taglines used would sound familiar to us today. “…Have a Coke”, “The pause that refreshes”, “That Extra Something!”, and “The Real Thing…”.

Below are nine advertisements for Coca-Cola from the back of Collier’s and The Saturday Evening Post from 1942 to 1946. The style of the illustration are familiar to us today with rosy faced people smiling, coming together to enjoy life and drink coke. Something to notice is that most of the service personal pictured are not officers but privates and corporals or no rank is shown, Coca-Cola is the drink for everyone.

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Collier’s. August 01, 1942
This advertisement assures the public that the war rationing has not changed the quality of the product with the tagline “Coca-Cola, you know it’s the real thing” and an unnamed mascot with a bottle cap hat proclaiming “I’m loyal to quality”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Saturday Evening Post. October 17, 1942
This advertisement also assures the public that the war rationing has not changed the quality of the product “It’s the real thing” and Coca-Cola is going to war with the troops, “Coca-Cola goes along” a sort of we are all in this together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Saturday Evening Post. November 14, 1942
This advertisement focuses on the home front and still assures the public that the quality has not changed thought it may be hard to find. The ad mentions Coca-Cola is the pause that refreshes and part of the simple pleasures in life with the tagline “That Extra Something!…You can spot it every time”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Saturday Evening Post. December 12, 1942
This advertisement focuses on refreshment and the energy that you will need while shopping or if Santa delivering presents all night. Coca-Cola did not create the image of jolly old Santa but they did solidify our modern image of him in a red suit and pure white beard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Saturday Evening Post. May 01, 1943
This advertisement features “…the pause that refreshes” by mentioning how a rest pause in the military helps with any task and gives three examples. Stonewall Jackson in 1863 (without Coca-Cola), 1918 World War I and 1943 World War II.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Saturday Evening Post. August 21, 1943
This advertisement focuses on our troops overseas and that Coca-Cola is there as a familiar friend. A little piece of home that can be enjoyed all over the globe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Saturday Evening Post. December 09, 1944
Another Christmas advertisement, this one emphases friends and family and how Coca-Cola is an everyday symbol of hospitality. A way to be friendly all over the globe is to offer people “Have a Coke…”. Strangely for a portrait of a family there are no adult woman in the illustration.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Saturday Evening Post. December 08, 1945
Christmas 1945 the war is over and the troops are arriving home. All the dreams of a soldier coming home include wife, children and Coca-Cola and that it is now the way to be hospitable around the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Saturday Evening Post. February 02, 1946
In this advertisement the troops are heading home with their overseas stripes on their sleeves and a Coca-Cola in their hands. They enjoyed the soft drink overseas brightening many a drab moment and now that they are home a bottle of Coke is a way to continue the tradition.

Cheerios was introduced on May 1, 1941 as Cheerioats, but the name was changed to Cheerios in 1945. By the early 1900s cereal companies had wheat, corn, and rice cereals but one made mostly of oats had yet to gain in popularity. Cheerioats was made of 75% oats with corn and rye add for flavor. The name emphasized the main ingredient to distinguish it from other cereals on the shelves. It was promoted as a modern ready to eat oatmeal cereal “no cooking needed”. In the first year that Cheerioats appeared in stores General Mills sold 21.6 million boxes.

Approximately ten different shapes and sizes were considered for Cheerioats before the small “o” shape we know was chosen. Lester Borchardt was a physicist working for General Mills in Minnesota. He and his team developed a puffing gun making the dough puff into an “o” shape. The Vitamin-enriched dough is heated and shot out of the gun at hundreds of miles per hour. Puffing is a pressurized flash cooking process that has been used to make puffed rice and puffed wheat since 1904.

In 1945 the Quaker Oats Company issued a trademark infringement complaint objecting to the term “oats” as a commercial name. To avoid a trial General Mills changed the names to Cheerios in 1945. The new name Cheerios was inspired in part by the shape of the cereal.

By 1951 Cheerios was the top-selling cold cereal sold by General Mills. Today, Cheerios continue to dominate the market with about one eighth of all cereal boxes sold in the United States being Cheerios.

Below are four advertisements for Cheerioats from the back of The Saturday Evening Post in 1942 and 1943. Notice that the advertisements are not directed toward children but adults. During World War II companies and advertisers looked for ways to get behind the war effort. Today Cheerios does not have a mascot, but then they had Cheeri O’leary who appeared in printed ads in the 1940s. Their advertisement also included early examples of effective cross-marketing campaigns with such stars as Claudette Colbert and Johnny Mack Brown, both were prominent Hollywood actors.

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The Saturday Evening Post. August 29, 1942
This advertisement promotes a ready to eat oatmeal cereal and the use of maple syrup to save on sugar during the war. It also included a cross-marketing campaign for Universal Picture’s Johnny Mack Brown’s movie “Boss of Hangtown Mesa”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Saturday Evening Post. October 24, 1942
This advertisement encourages eating healthy during war rationing and uses Uncle Sam and Cheeri O’leery to promote a new kind of healthy ready-to-eat oatmeal cereal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Saturday Evening Post. April 10, 1943
This advertisement encouraged war workers not to skip their first meal of the day and has Cheeri O’leary helping with seven menu ideas for breakfast. All include Cheerioats of course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Saturday Evening Post. August 28, 1943
This advertisement is an example of cross-marketing promoting “So Proudly We Hale” by Paramount Pictures staring Claudette Colbert. Cheeri O’leary is also here in uniform informing the public of the nutritional value in a rather strange descriptions of the vitamin’s properties.

McClure’s Magazine was founded by S. S. McClure and John Sanborn Phillips. It was an American illustrated monthly magazine that was published from 1893 to 1929. The magazine aimed to promote good moral and family values and is credited with starting investigative journalism.

The magazine featured both political and literary content, publishing in a serial format one chapter at a time. McClure’s published many writers we still read today, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes), Rudyard Kipling (The Jungle Book), Jack London (The Call of the Wild and White Fang), Robert Louis Stevenson (Treasure Island and the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde), and Mark Twain (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn).

McClure’s also published a series by Ida Tarbell, she is thought to have pioneered investigative journalism exposing the monopoly abuses of Standard Oil Company, and Ray Stannard Baker who focused on the operations and abuses of the United States Steel Corporation.

In 1911 S. S. McClure sold the magazine to creditors. It was then re-branded as a women’s magazine and ran from October 1921 to February 1922, September 1924 and April 1925, and February to May 1926. From July 1928 until March 1929, the magazine was published as the New McClure’s Magazine. The last issue was published in March 1929, after which the magazine was taken over by The Smart Set. An American literary magazine, founded by Colonel William d’Alton Mann and published from March 1900 to June 1930. The Smart Set wanted to provide sophisticated content that would reinforce the values of New York’s social elite.

World War I, the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, lasted from July 28, 1914 to the eleventh day, the eleventh month, the eleventh hour of 1918. The United States joined the conflict on April 6, 1917 after the sinking of U.S. merchant ships and the release of the Zimmermann telegram.

The artwork for McClure’s is from a time when Adobe Photoshop was still 70 years away. The railroad was the main form of bulk transportation for people and freight on the continent. Because of the cost and difficulty of printing full color only the front and back were printed this way. The interior artwork was done by hand and published in black & white. The skill of these artist is often overlooked but VMShoppe.com would like focus on the ones in McClure’s, Win-the War, March 1918 issue.

The cover art for this issue was done by Neysa Moran McMein (1889–1949) an illustrator and portrait painter. She illustrated magazine covers, advertisements, and articles for national publications, such as McClure’s, McCall’s, The Saturday Evening Post (as seen in our previous blog post), and Collier’s. For General Mills she created the portrait of the fictional housewife “Betty Crocker”

“Triumph!”, by W.B. Trites and illustrated by James Montgomery Flagg.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“It’s the Huns!”, by H.C. Witwer and illustrated by Hamlin Gardner.

“The Super-War”, by Cleveland Moffett and illustrated by Wallace Morgan.

“New York Stuff”, by Dana Gatlin and illustrated by Clarence F. Underwood.

“Uncle Sam’s Flour Barrel”, by Edward Mott Woolley and illustrated by W.T. Benda.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Wild Apples” [Serial], written anonymously, and illustrated by C.E. Chambers.

“The Touch on His Shoulder”, by Frederick Ivring Anderson and illustrated by F. Graham Cootes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Two Wives”, By Ernest Poole and illustrated by John Alonzo Williams.

“What Are These Voices?”, By Anna Steese Richardson and illustrated by Herbert Paus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“As to Melting Pots”, by Porter Emerson Browne and illustrated by Peter Newell.

“The Man Who Knew His Place”, by James C. Young and illustrated by P.V.E. Ivory.