Company
The Coca-Cola Company
The Coca-Cola Company is one of the world’s most recognized beverage corporations, founded in 1886 by pharmacist Dr. John Pemberton in Atlanta, Georgia. While not a yo-yo manufacturer, Coca-Cola has a rich history of yoyo promotional campaigns spanning from 1947 to the present day, making it one of the most prolific sources of collectible promotional yoyos in history.
Beginning with Jack Russell’s work as a Duncan Toys demonstrator in 1947, Coca-Cola’s yoyo promotions became a global phenomenon. In 1958, Jack Russell purchased the promotional yoyo business and molds from Duncan and formed his own company, which eventually became Russell Promotions Inc. — the exclusive yoyo promotional partner for Coca-Cola worldwide. Over the following decades, Russell Promotions deployed professional demonstrators across 95 countries and sold over half a billion Coca-Cola-branded yoyos globally.
The Coca-Cola yoyo campaigns sparked some of the earliest modern yoyo booms in countries including Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and Mexico. The campaigns ran through the 1990s and were revived in the 2000s and 2010s through licensed partnerships with Japanese manufacturers Matsui Gaming Machine and Freshthings.
