Coca-Cola

From 1885 til 1950 coca-cola was a nickle. For 70 years the coca-cola did not increase in price. other things around coke like gas, television, butter, corn, cars, etc the price grew.

Daniel Levey became very intrigued when he was visiting the coca-cola museum and being an economist wondered about the nickle coke and how is never rose in price. Andrew Young said that the price never changed in an attempt to attract customers but noticed that flavored fountain drinks like grape soda etc went up to as much as 10 cents. By May 8 1886 Atlanta was the first sale of coca-cola.

By 1899 two lawyers went to the president of the coca-cola company and asked to bottle coke. Instead they got a fixed price on the coke syrup at 90 cents a gallon. The problem was that bottled coke took off.

If coke were to increase is wouldn't go towards coke it goes towards the bottlers. Another reason why the price in coke was kept down was because of advertising. 5¢ was the main focus of the ads and was prominently featured.

One way that people could make money off of coca-cola instead of raising the price was to give out smaller glasses to people who were getting coke from the fountain, or use less syrup in the mix.
In 1921 sugar started to rise and the company started to loose money. But coke stayed at a nickle.

One reason why coke didn't change the price in coke was because of its advertising campaign and how long it would take to paint over the buildings that had 5¢ coke on the side of it, coca-cola trays,etc.

Another great invention that helped out the coca-cola business was the vending machine. The most important reason why the price of coca-cola stayed at a nickle was because the machine only took one coin and that was a nickle.

Single coined plan was introduced as an idea that might help the coca-cola business to get more money for each bottle of coke that they sol but doing it threw the vending machines. The plan was that every 9th bottle that came out of the machine was an empty bottle so that people would have to put in another nickle to get another bottle of coke this time a full one. Basically is was an extra 5.62 cents that consumers were paying. Eventually in 1946 vending machines gave change.

 The one and only thing that made coca-cola go up in price was inflation. When ingredients to make the product go up the price of the product has to go up.  1959 was the last nickle coke to be sold. 



At the end of the podcast they talked about how all prices give us that same feeling when they increase. That statement really made me think about it and think of how true it is. prices shouldn't chance and with that feeling is a psychological component that makes us think that way. Companies know this so instead of increasing the price of products companies will shrink a product and raise the price. For example, fewer potato chips in bags, instead of a pint of ice cream they give you 15 ounces etc.
Nickle cokes price was the longest constant in history but wasn't really a bad thing.

The song of the Summer

While I was listening to this podcast I was really interested in how much money went in to making songs that didn't even end up being a hit song. In the podcast when they were talking the competition with songs Rihanna song "Umbrella" was a number one hit. Then two years ago in 2009 "I gotta a feeling" by Black Eyed Peas was the number one hit of the summer. Then after that was "California Girls" by Katy Perry. But the one song that this pod casts really focused on was "Man Down" by Rhianna.

What suprised me is how much work, effort, time, money, patients, etc. goes into making one song and thats not even making it a hit song. In the podcast they explaied the writing camps which is a camp usually for two weeks where they bring in the best producers and writers to help with the making of this song. Usually the cost per day is around $2,000-$2,500 and maybe there would be 10 rooms which need to be occupied for two weeks.

In the writing camps how its done is that there are song writers and producers in the studio and they play beats that they think would be good for the song without lyrics and once they have one they come up with a melody first by humming something that they think would be worth it. What surprised me was that Rihanna still has no part in this or knows whats going on. In the podcast they said it took 12-13 minutes to put the song together which in total was 200 grand. They made the whole album in two weeks.

So, $200,000 divided by 11 singles on the track equals $18,000. But that $18,000 is only for the fancy dinners and rooms within the writing camps. Its another $15,000 for the writer and $20,000 for the music so in total now its $53,000 for "Man Down" so far and still there is no Rihanna.

Another thing that i found interesting was that when Rihanna is introduced to the song and she is in the studio actually singing it its like a party. there could be 30-40 people in the room with strobe lights, incessant burning, and even doves. But the person who put this all together was the vocal producer which costs $10-15,000.

Then the song has to get mixed and mastered which is another 10K. This whole producing activity is so much money to not even know if it is going to be published or not which is shocking to me. So far the total is $78,000 to have a song but not a hit. The next thing that is important for the song is its radio play which can be scandalous sometimes. Many people have paid the radio an amount of money to play the song on radio as its number one hit but now it has become illegal to pay someone to put the music on the radio.Why? Because it can be considered fraud and pay for play is deception. If a radio station does take money to play a song you are suppose to announce that you got donated the money to play the song or something like that.


The grand total all together is 1.25 million dollars to make a hit and a music video. But a shocking fact that I did not know before listening to this podcast was that "Man Down" was not a hit on the radio and that the song did not sell that well. The only reason why it sold was because the song was on the album and 1.3 million copies of the album sold.

                           

                                Adele is moving in and is becoming the top radio hits so far.