Mr. Marsh recruited a network of more than 300 bottlers and distributors in all 50 states.
The company sells these syrups and concentrates to bottlers who, in turn, sell the finished product.
FORBES: Coca-Cola Not So Sweet, Shares Likely To Leak 10% Down To $60
Bottlers, who have to administer container deposits in some states, also oppose the laws.
But beyond edgy ads, is there any real cause for concern for big bottlers?
The bottlers took on the capital-intensive job of bottling, canning, distributing and local marketing.
What's left is a company that primarily sells concentrate, which bottlers combine with sugar and carbonated water.
What's left is a company that primarily sells concentrate, which bottlers combine with sweetener and carbonated water.
Prices of syrup, the concentrate Coke sells to restaurants and bottlers, have slowed to 2% from 3-4%.
Meanwhile, the bottlers have an incentive to keep costs low, thanks to their heavy burden of debt.
Together they opened Coca-Cola Bottlers Uzbekistan (CCBU), owned in equal parts by Coke's export subsidiary, Coca-Cola Export Corp.
Hellenic Bottling is one of Coca-Cola's biggest bottlers, and Titan Cement should benefit from all that Olympic buildup.
There is talk of forming co-operatives with the bottlers for some products, with Coke assuming more of their risk.
Indeed, a January price increase by Coke's North American bottlers is partly responsible for the slowdown in American volumes.
He has also been improving relations with bottlers, without whom nothing would happen.
The Italian report comes at a bad time for Coke and its bottlers.
Earlier this year the judge dismissed the charges against Coca-Cola Co. but allowed the suit against the bottlers to proceed.
And there is uncertainty about how bottlers will adapt to the increased flexibility that Mr Daft is demanding of them.
But even that number is misleading, because Coke hands its bottlers huge subsidies to help pay for marketing and capital improvements.
The bottlers have been grumbling, not least because the hunt for a new boss was turning into something of a fiasco.
ECONOMIST: Coca-Cola has turned to its past to find a new boss
Coke has built its booming overseas business by teaching thousands of bottlers, distributors and retailers how to sell the world's best-known soda.
It has been sued in a class action accusing it of forcing "unneeded" beverage concentrate on bottlers to stoke its growth numbers.
By handing over distribution rights to its independent bottlers, the Atlanta company would lower its own expenses in favor of franchising fees.
The biggest bottlers aren't subsidiaries of Coke, nor are they completely independent.
Coke set strategy, dictated overall advertising and supplied concentrated syrup to its bottlers, in many of which it has significant minority stakes.
Yet it keeps its stakes in the bottlers below 50%, thereby avoiding getting hit with their piles of debt and any unpleasant liabilities.
If the bottlers expensed stock option grants, Coca-Cola Enterprises would have lost 11 cents, or 22%, of 2001 earnings, according to Morgan Stanley's Pecoriello.
Analysts say Pepsi is absorbed with consolidating its largest Mexican bottlers, Embotelladoras Unidas and Empresas Polar, giving Coke and Danone room to build market share.
The trap: Daft can't simply milk the bottlers to boost sales.
Strikingly, in most of the countries in which Coca-Cola and its bottlers are under investigation, it is accused of trying to stop retailers (and wholesalers) making Pepsi available.
应用推荐