In 1862 the Civil War cartoonist Thomas Nast drew Santa Claus for Harper’s Weekly.  Santa was depicted as a small elf-like figure who supported the Union.  By good chance for the Coca-Cola Company, the character wore red and white – inadvertently reflecting the company’s brand colours.  Officially the company explains the red suit came from Nast’s interpretation of St. Nick.

In the 1920s The Coca-Cola Company began its Christmas advertising with shopping-related ads in magazines like The Saturday Evening Post.  At this time, consumers drank Coca-Cola mainly when the weather was hot.  In 1922 The Coca-Cola Company started a campaign “Thirst Knows No Season,” and continued with a campaign again connecting the brand to Santa Claus.

In 1930, artist Fred Mizen painted a department store Santa in a crowd drinking a bottle of Coke.  In 1931 the Coca-Cola Company commissioned Michigan-born illustrator, Haddon Sundblom, to develop advertising images using Santa Claus showing Santa himself rather than just a man dressed as ‘Santa’, as Mizen’s work had portrayed him.  Sundblom was inspired by Clement Clark Moore’s 1822 poem “A Visit From St. Nicholas” (commonly called “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”.)

Sundblom’s Santa was also said to be based on a live model- his friend, Lou Prentiss – a retired salesman. When Prentiss passed away, Sundblom used himself as a model, painting while looking into a mirror.  (The children who appeared with Santa Claus in Haddon Sundblom’s paintings were based on Sundblom’s neighbours.)

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1930 was also the year when radio listeners could tune into one of the first national coast-to coast radio programmes – ‘The Coca-Cola Hour’ – broadcast nightly on NBC.  The show was a mix of celebrity interviews, sports news and live music played by the thirty-one-piece Coca-Cola Dance orchestra.  Leonard Joy, the conductor, composed a simple theme tune for the programme, ‘Coca-Cola Signature’.  The tune, which was preceded by the sound of a bottle of Coca-Cola being opened, was the company’s first official jingle and was used for over two decades.

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The Coca-Cola Santa made its official debut in 1931 in The Saturday Evening Post and appeared regularly in that magazine, as well as Ladies Home Journal, National Geographic, The New Yorker and others.  From 1931 to 1964, Coca-Cola advertising showed Santa enjoying a Coke, playing with children who stayed up to greet him and raiding the refrigerators at a number of homes.  (Taken from Soul Traders).

Happy Christmas from Brandforensics!

Jonathan Gabay

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