Coca-Cola Turns 126 years old this year!

A few weeks ago, Coca-Cola Singapore invited some Coke Collectors and bloggers to Coca-Cola’s 126th Birthday party. Coca-Cola turned 126 in May this year. It was a cosy party held at Dallas Restaurant and Bar in Clarke Quay.

Other than meeting some familiar blogger friends, I met a few Coke Collectors. Wow, talking to them, you realise they are some serious collectors. I wonder how they store the collectibles at home!

I like Coke, but would not call myself a collector. I only have a few vintage bottles that I bought more than 10 years ago while studying in Australia. I also have a Coke Recipe book that I bought in Malaysia, or rather I bought Coke so that I can get the recipe book! I tried in vain to look for Coke bottle with my name in Australia last year.

It’s a birthday party so there’s some food. What I liked most were these Coca-cola glazed baby back ribs and the Coca-cola chicken wings. I don’t have the recipe, but I guess you can do an online search for it.
Since this is a food blog, I thought I will share with you a recipe that I have from the little Coke recipe book. Scroll to the bottom for the Coke Potato Salad recipe.

Now about the little party we had:

It was a mini Coke Paradise. There were lots of Coke related things everywhere at the party. Coke aprons, Coke drinks – regular, light and zero, Coke T-Shirts by Uniql, Coke Singapore staff, Coke fans, Coke Collectors, Coke Drinkers, Coke name tags, etc.

Part of the party was having a hands-on in mixing Coke cocktails. Well, it was fun, but I still think drinking Coke by itself is nicer! The colder the better!

Coca-cola being the world’s greatest marketer, of course “marketed” to the audience lots of good things they have done. We were given a short history of Coca-cola and coke-washed with lots of coke info. 

One thing that struck me was that they have a policy that does not target children.

Do you know that there are now official Coke T-shirts sold in Singapore now by Uniqlo?
That night I was also 1 of the first 10 person in Singapore to own a Coca-cola T-shirt. Coke fans out there, you know where to go!

We were shown a few video clips that night. A few were very touching and this one was particularly touching.

Coke has also been spreading cheer to people around. They have also cleverly made them into viral marketing campaign. This was one of the campaign they had.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_9fQEqZCWs]
This is the campaign video now on YouTube.

Another interesting campaign they had was the Hug Me Vending Machine in Singapore.

I posted about this way back in March here. Yup, at that time, we did not know it will be a viral marketing campaign and those like me and friends who hugged them will be filmed! I am glad the video below did not have me in it!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-A-7H4aOhq0]
This is the video Coke had produced of the Hug Me Coke Machine. News of the Hug Me Coke Machine appeared all around the world! Newspaper, tv stations picked it up and told the world about it!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06TwdEuFwN8]
After watching the professional version, I have this amateur version taken using my iPhone. This was my friend trying to hug it, but he was not hugging the machine correctly and he did not get his coke!

I have to confess, I hugged it twice and got 2 cans!
There were two places to press simultaneously at both sides to release the coke!

Let me end this post with this recipe from this little recipe book I have which should be more than 10 years old now. This was published by Coca-Cola Malaysia.

Enjoy this Coke Potato Salad recipe.

Happy 126th Birthday Coca-Cola!