Oh Atlanta, we are coming back to you

So after 11 years we have come back to Atlanta. In the words of one of my favourite singers; Alison Krauss: 

Same old place, same old city. What can I do? I'm falling in love... 

Oh Atlanta, I hear you calling, I'm coming back to you one fine day.

To listen click here

So this must be the fine day, as here we are. 

We got a cab the 2 1/2 miles to downtown - we could have walked but (a) the temperature was in the high 80s and (b) there is no way for a pedestrian to get from the south to downtown as two major highways cut-off the two parts of the town. 

We travelled through very heavy traffic and the 2.5 miles took 20 minutes, so we arrived at our first destination - the CNN Centre - at 2.30 pm. Atlanta is famous for being the home of 4 international companies, CNN, Coca-Cola, UPS and Holiday Inn. The first two play on the link between the organisation and the town and have become magnets for tourists, us among them.

The CNN centre is huge, as well as hosting CNN, CNN Worldwide, CNN en espanol, CNN Radio, CNN.com and HLN it also has an hotel attached. The ground floor, as well as selling tickets for the tour is also the location of a wide variety of food outlets. We paid for the tour tickets ($15 each) and had half an hour before the next tour so went to one of the food places we had not heard off before, called Moe’s Southwest Grill, and bought lunch. I had a Burrito Bowl called Earmuffs! This was made with ground beef and all the trimmings which came with chips and a salsa. Drew had the Chicken Club quesadilla which also came with chips and salsa.

We arrived at the start of the tour at just before 3.00 and were greeted by our tour guide, Nico. The building had been a indoor theme park before being purchased for CNN and the remaining sign of this was at the start of the tour as we travelled up the world's highest free-standing escalator. At the top we waited until everyone had passed through the airport style security. Then in a loud and enthusiastic way Nico took us through rooms that included demos of the technology used in broadcast, in particular the picture of him before the green screen and on the screen are the same shot, through the wonder of tele.  

This was followed by being taken into the gentry over the newsroom, which is about 20 times the size of the same provision in BBC Wales' newsroom in Llandaff. 

We then got to see through a glass wall the live studio where CNN was being broadcast live, the anchor waved at us during one of the commercial breaks. This was a no photo area. We then did the same for the HLN studio and were also able to take photos of the CNN Worldwide studio with its bank of clocks for timelines across the world. Like tours across the world the end if the 55 minutes was to be taken to the CNN gift-shop which as well as the standard mugs and t-shirts allowed you to buy life size cut-outs of Wolf Blitzer and the other CNN anchors.

Across the road from the CNN centre is the Olympic Memorial Park commemorating the 1996 Atlanta Olympics - the centennial games. The park is nicely laid out and relaxing, with fountains and play areas as well as nice places to sit in the middle of a very busy city.

The other side of the Olympic Park is the World of Coca-Cola, often known as the Coca-Cola Museum. As I explained in my last post we arrived here 11 years ago to find it shut. So it had become one of the reasons that influenced us to choose a stop in Atlanta rather than taking a different route between the Carolinas and Arkansas.

We bought tickets ($16 each) and went straight to the entrance, a tour was just beginning.

We joined the group and another enthusiast guide, her name was Lisa, led us into the World of Coke. Where we saw lots of Coke associated memorabilia before we were asked to watch a 8 minute film celebrating the current Coke brand theme - Coke gives you happiness.

After this we were free to do a self-guided tour which include a visit to the vault. This was a walk through the early history of Coke and its competitor brands and rip-offs, we were then led through to a room which had a 360 degree screen, making it appear we were looking out of a glass of Coke. After some images and explanation - finally the reveal, the safe where the secret formula for Coke is secured. I have no idea whether it is in there or not, but the safe itself was very secure and had sense if people got to close. What is reality and what hyperreality? I guess the whole point is that it is only really impactful if you can't tell the difference.

The next area was called Milestones of Refreshment which provided a history of Coke branding over the years and included the image of Pemberton serving Coke over his counter.

Next it was in to the bottling plant, which actually produces Coke which is sold in the shop on site. This gives in insight into the manufacture of the product and included live screens showing production in larger bottling plants across the country.

After the bottling plant Drew saw a queue for a photo with the Coca-Cola polar bear, so he joined the queue and really loved having his photo taken in the bears company.

After the excitement of the bear we went to an exhibition called the Pop Culture gallery, which showed how Coke has influenced popular culture. This included images by Norman Rockwell and other artists influenced by or working for Coca-Cola. Part of this display would be of interest to my friend Robin who has been researching demarketing. His blog post on New Coke raises issues about the product launch and its intentions and this is covered in the exhibition with images of the period, none to friendly to Coke. This was followed by the video of Don Keough, the president of the company, saying: that "We're not that dumb, and we're not that smart" to have done this deliberately. 

Following this area we went into an area where films of the old Coke TV ads over the ages were shown and then how Coke has been represented in animation. Finally, or at least almost finally, we came to the 'Tasting Room'. Drew had been talking about this all of the journey today. His 'they have 60+ different soft drinks' had become a fairly consistent refrain. And here they were. Luckily for me the selection of sugar free ones was less than that number, but Drew did all 60+ and had a sort of hyper-sugar rush.

The final finally was, of course, the Coca-Cola store, with a wide selection of random products all branded with Coke or one of its sub-brands!!

We left the World of Coca-Cola two and a half hours after entering, having had a really fun, enjoyable time. If you want to see even more photos of the World of Coca-Cola, they start here on Flickr.