In 1919, Archie Lee left his job as a newspaper reporter to join the St. Louis agency producing ads for Coca-Cola.
“Like most advertisers of that time, Coca-Cola published a variety of statements in newspapers and magazines and used billboards with varying appeals,” the St. Louis Globe-Democrat wrote. “Lee introduced a practice now basic in advertising: a theme for the printed message and a pattern for the billboard, with emphasis on repetition.”
He tried a variety of slogans, but in 1929, Lee crafted the one that would stick: Coke was “the pause that refreshes.”
It would become one of the most successful advertising pitches in American history, helping to build the brand for the next two decades and beyond. “No single individual has done more to popularize Coca-Cola than Archie Lee,” the company’s president, Robert Woodruff, once said. That included commissioning artist Haddon Sundblom to create a Christmas ad that would forever fix in children’s minds the image of Santa Claus as a rotund, ruddy-cheeked and bearded figure in a red suit.
For at least the past few weeks, America has been on a pause, but not necessarily one that refreshes. The contest between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump is too close to call, and for many people, that creates profound anxiety. Major and minor life decisions are on hold as we await the result.
Taking a break
Going all the way back to 1886, Coca-Cola’s advertising had used the word “refreshing,” but Archie Lee put a different twist on the appeal of the soft drink. America in the 1920s seemed like a hectic, tension-filled place, more than ready for a refreshing pause.
According to Mark Prendergrast’s history of the company, For God, Country & Coca-Cola, Lee’s first iteration of the slogan that would become a classic came in 1923, when he created “Pause and Refresh Yourself.” Lee explained, “our nation is the busiest on earth. From breakfast to dinner there’s no end of work.” Thus taking a break in the day was well justified, and even needed.
Prendergrast wrote that Coke “provides a panacea whenever daily life seems too difficult, harried, fragmented or confused.”
“The pause that refreshes” implies an acknowledgment that respite is needed from a troubled world — perhaps a more realistic message than that of the 1971 Coke commercial that began:
I'd like to buy the world a home
And furnish it with love
Grow apple trees and honey bees
And snow white turtle doves
I'd like to teach the world to sing
In perfect harmony
I'd like to buy the world a Coke
High anxiety
Anxiety about the election outcome is keeping people awake at night. The only thing certain about the results is that a second Trump term would look very different from a Harris presidency.
With so much up in the air, consumers are holding off on making offers to buy homes or cars, and companies are hesitating to fill some jobs.
As the New York Times reported last month, “The American pastime of spending money on stuff — a honeymoon in paradise, that new car smell, a kitchen renovation, impulsive online shopping — is currently on pause for some.
“There are engaged couples so preoccupied with the current state of affairs that they can’t commit to wedding venues for 2025, and some who, a year ago, anticipating that a political pall could color their big day, steered clear of October and November dates. Car dealers and real estate agents say buyers are waiting out the election to see if interest rates or prices fall in the aftermath.”
The election is not only affecting pocketbook decisions. “The American Psychological Association’s annual Stress in America survey found that, as of August, politics was the leading cause of stress for seven out of 10 adults across party lines,” Shayla Love wrote in The Atlantic. “In a poll from a mental-health-care company the same month, 79 percent of respondents reported that the presidential election made them feel anxious this year, and more than half thought about the election every day.”
In less complicated times, networks and newspapers would call the winners on Tuesday after the polls close — or the morning after. But it’s quite possible this agonizing pause will last longer. In 2020, the election wasn’t called until Saturday. In 2000, the uncertainty lasted until mid-December when the US Supreme Court ended the Florida recount.
If the outcome is that long in coming, many Americans may need stronger drinks than Coca-Cola.