Pepsi began with a pharmacist mixing a fountain drink in New Bern, North Carolina. More than a century later, its logo has appeared on concert stages, football broadcasts, celebrity advertisements, clothing, international packaging, movie tie-ins, vending machines, beach gear, and objects made for markets around the world.
That journey helps explain why Pepsi collecting is much broader than collecting soda bottles.
Across this series, we have followed Pepsi from Caleb Bradham’s early beverage through mid-century advertising, the Pepsi Generation, international expansion, celebrity campaigns, and promotional crossovers. Taken together, those objects document something larger: the transformation of an everyday consumer product into a recurring presence in American—and eventually global—popular culture.
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