2 Cuban Exiles Who Were Central to the ‘Cola Wars’
Few brands in the history of global commerce have generated such a fierce rivalry as that of PepsiCo and Coca-Cola. This rivalry has permeated popular culture and even inspired Hollywood stars like Steven Spielberg, who will produce Sony’s film “Cola Wars,” currently in development.
And perhaps the lesser-known story is that, behind the scenes, Cuban-American businessmen were making key decisions that elevated these two brands to the status of epitomes of good marketing, aggressiveness, and market savvy. The two men we will analyze here helped shape the American imagination and popular culture in recent decades.
Néstor T. Carbonell was born in 1936 in Cuba. His paternal grandfather had already lived in the United States as an exile during the island’s war of independence; upon his return to Cuba, he served as ambassador of the new Republic to Mexico and president of its National Academy of Arts and Letters.
He never imagined that his descendants, because of another revolution, even more radical and violent, would have to spend most of their lives in the country that welcomed him with open arms in the 19th century.
Carbonell recounts that it was on his maternal grandfather’s hacienda (confiscated by Fidel Castro’s socialist regime) where, on October 15, 1962, a U.S. U-2 reconnaissance plane photographed the first Soviet offensive missile base, triggering the crisis that brought the world to the brink of World War III.
But, as has happened so often with Cubans fleeing communism with almost nothing, he carved out a place for himself in the new American society. After participating in various initiatives to reclaim the island (from joining Brigade 2506 to diplomatic efforts to isolate the Castro regime) and following the Kennedy administration’s agreement with the Soviet Union that prohibited attacks on Cuba, he began his 40-year professional career at PepsiCo in New York in 1967.
Carbonell spent approximately 40 years there. He rose from being a lawyer to holding positions related to international relations within the corporation. Along with his wife and family, he traveled and lived in Mexico, Venezuela, the United Kingdom, the Bahamas, and the United States. “I was fortunate to meet and establish personal relationships with many prominent figures, including the three pillars of the free world during the Cold War: Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II,” he recounted in an interview.
As part of the PepsiCo team, Carbonell saw its net sales increase from $665,345,000 in 1967 to $43.25 billion in 2008.
That year, the Cuban-American ended his tenure at the mega-corporation as vice president in charge of international public and government relations, a position he had held since 1995.
But during his time at PepsiCo, Carbonell had a formidable rival: Coca-Cola. And within Coca-Cola, another Cuban-American was driving the company forward. I’m referring to Roberto Goizueta.
Goizueta was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1931, “with a natural curiosity and a great love of learning,” according to the website of the foundation that bears his name. He studied at prestigious institutions in Cuba and the United States, such as the Jesuit Belén School, Cheshire Academy, and Yale University, where he majored in chemical engineering. In 1953, he married Olga Casteleiro, his high school sweetheart.
On July 4, 1954, Goizueta began working as a chemist at The Coca-Cola Company’s Havana branch after responding to a job offer; however, he didn’t stay there long. A year after Castro took power, he nationalized Coca-Cola’s Cuban operations. In 1961, Goizueta fled with his wife and three children to the United States.
They arrived with little more than $40 and 100 shares of Coca-Cola stock. At the company’s headquarters in Atlanta, his leadership potential was recognized by others, including Robert W. Woodruff, former president and CEO and later a member of The Coca-Cola Company’s board of directors.
“Two years after moving to Atlanta, at the age of 35, Mr. Goizueta was elected vice president, at the time the youngest vice president in the history of The Coca-Cola Company,” according to the Goizueta Foundation. In 1981, he was appointed president and CEO, inheriting a successful company with great potential. The company experienced tremendous growth during his tenure, and Coca-Cola became the most recognized brand in the world.
The Cuban-American was known for his focus on shareholder profitability. To achieve this, he sold unrelated and unprofitable parts of the business, developed new products, and launched global advertising and distribution campaigns that, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, left PepsiCo, Coca-Cola’s main competitor, far behind.
Goizueta also left his mark on the company’s marketing strategy, creating the slogan “Coca-Cola is the best!” and he was credited with the successful introduction of Diet Coke in 1982. As with everything, there were also ups and downs. The marketing failure of introducing New Coke in 1985 and the simultaneous withdrawal of original Coke was a major setback. The disaster was only mitigated by reselling the original formula as Coca-Cola Classic.
The Emory University business school has borne his name since 1994. The admiration he commands within the business world is well-deserved. During his 16 years as president and CEO, according to The New York Times, he increased Coca-Cola’s market value from $4 billion in 1981 to more than $152 billion at the time of his death.
Carbonell and Goizueta, each influencing or leading the operations of PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, respectively, transformed the free market into a breeding ground for healthy competition.
Perhaps without intending to, their success in the Cola Wars was their way of demonstrating the flaws in Castro’s centralized planning. Fleeing a regime like Cuba’s, which condemned the free market, they became legends when they made it their space for freedom and success.
AUTHOR
Yoe Suarez
Yoe Suárez is a writer, producer, and journalist, exiled from Cuba due to his investigative reporting about themes like torture, political prisoners, government black lists, cybersurveillance, and freedom of expression and conscience. He is the author of the books “Leviathan: Political Police and Socialist Terror” and “El Soplo del Demonio: Violence and Gangsterism in Havana.”
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