Tyrone Pardue

Amidst the great depression of the 1930’s Coca Cola advertising executives scrambled to find compelling advertising images that would help to keep the brand alive during this dark time. Winter was a particularly difficult time for the company when sales went into a deep slump. Part of their solution was to widen the appeal of the Coca Cola brand from a mainly adult audience looking for some new ‘pep in their step’ (Coke was the first energy drink!) to a family orientated beverage central to good times and family memories.

In the early ‘30s, Coke launched a major poster advertising campaign, saturating pharmacies and five and dime stores with posters designed by well known artists depicting Coca Cola as central to family life. Fred Mizon painted the first of Coke’s popular Santa Claus images for a series of ads that were run in the Saturday Evening Post early in 1930. But Haddon Sundblom who was first commissioned in 1931 to paint a series of posters for the winter campaign that year painted the most memorable posters.

In the Dutch tradition that was largely adopted in America, the mythic Bishop Sinnterklaas, who delivered gifts to those in need on Sinnterklaas day in late December never wore a red suit and was a thin and somewhat stern looking character. In the 17th century British religious folklore created the character of Father Christmas also known as Santa Claus. Pictures of him that survive from that era portray him as a well nourished bearded man dressed in a long, green, fur-lined robe. He typified the spirit of good cheer at Christmas, first established by the "Ghost of Christmas Present" in Charles Dickens's “A Christmas Carol.”

Cartoonist Thomas Nast for the January 3rd 1863 edition of Harper’s Weekly magazine created the first popularized American rendition of Santa Claus. Inspired by the poem “The Night Before Chistmas” written by Clement Clarke Moore for the New York Sentinel in December of 1863, Nast depicted the first the modern Santa that we have come to recognize. He was also the first to paint the red suit, although this depiction of Santa did not catch on until Coke took ownership of it.

Coca Cola can’t be credited with inventing the ‘modern’ concept of Santa Claus, but it can get credit for one of the greatest advertising coups of modern times. Ever since the 1930’s, Cokes Christmas advertising has been built around the Sunblom style Santa that has become the standard image of him now accepted around the world today. This standardized image of a chubby, cheerful white bearded Santa in his Coca Cola branded red suit is central to good times and cheer. Santa Claus is now forever fused with the Coca Cola brand in the American consumer subconscious.

Check out some of Sundbloms posters below: