Coke Card 315

Coca-Cola was blessed with some of the most gifted, influential, and revolutionary illustrators in the advertising world. The likes of Gil Elvgren, Coby Whitmore, Al Buell, Andrew Loomis, Ben Stahl, Robert Skemp, Robert Bensing, and the legendary Haddon Sundblom provided Coca-Cola with an unprecendented stable of talent to generate Coca-Cola's image and message.

Coca-Cola's Calendar Girls were as amply endowed with wholesomeness as they were with natural American pulchritude. This would be a highly persuasive combination in and of itself. Indeed, it had become the practice between the 1920's and 1930's, especially, to produce pinup calendars for all manner of businesses to promote their particular service or commodity. The raw natrual appeal of these illustrations virtually assured that any calendar containing them would be displayed for a year at a time -- either prominently or furtively, as the nature of the viewer's workplace might dictate, providing a constant conscious and subconscious reminder of the calendar's advertiser.

But this type of illustration was not simply destined for calendars. Weekly magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, Redbook, and Harper's Weekly provided 20 to 30 of this type of illustration art in the ads contained within their pages. Illustration Art rose to a level of acceptability and popularity never seen previously, and a talented, contemporary illustrator of the day could make a very comfortable living working for such magazines, or ad agencies or department stores.

Voluptuous, comely, red-cheeked, brunette females had long been a tradition in Coca-Cola's promotional campaigns, often using the same illustration over and over and over again in various media, and on various objects. The turn of the century was still a time when communication was mostly localized, so that Coca-Cola could utilize one illustration several different ways in any number of local markets -- and even in national campaigns -- without fear of that illustration becoming 'dated' for months or even years in some instances.