Coke digitizes ad archive

Drug Store News, Jan 21, 2002

ATLANTA -- Coca-Cola and IBM have teamed up to create an online archive of digitized images. Ranging from calendars created by Norman Rockwell to Coke's famous "Teach the World to Sing" TV commercial, the goal of the project--which has an estimated cost of about $5 million--is to provide Coca-Cola easier access to its advertising and marketing material through the years. The company's first newspaper ad appeared in May 29, 1886.

The digital archive, which has more than 24,000 items, has been operating for about a month. There is capacity for millions of images. Employees of Coca-Cola and its agencies can look at the material on their desktop computers through a link from the worldwide Coca-Cola intranet site.