The best marketing campaign
As the festive season approaches, I thought I’d take a minute to highlight one of the most successful marketing campaigns of all time – and it all centres around the man in red!
While Santa Claus was originally portrayed wearing bishop’s robes, in modern times Santa is generally depicted as a plump, jolly, white-bearded man wearing a red coat with white collar and cuffs, white-cuffed red trousers, and black leather belt and boots.
This image of Santa Claus became popular in the United States and Canada in the 19th century due to the significant influence of caricaturist and political cartoonist Thomas Nast. His iconic depiction (illustrated below) in Harpers Weekly was the definitive image of Santa for almost 50 years.
What many people don’t realise though, is that the image of Santa we know and love today was re-invented in the 1930s by Haddon Sundblom for Coca-Cola’s Christmas advertising campaigns (one example is illustrated below). The popularity of the image spawned urban legends that Santa Claus was in fact invented by Coca-Cola or that Santa wears red and white because they are the Coca-Cola colors. This is inaccurate though, as several other companies have also used an image of Santa to promote their products. It is likely though that Coca-Cola briefed Sundblom to alter Santa’s red coat to their own ‘Coke’ red – simulateously giving us the definitive Christmas red we all recognise today.
However, its Coca-Cola’s full-on Christmas marketing campaigns since the 1930s that have kept this image of Santa forever fixed in the minds of children and adults all over the world for almost 70 years.
Still, both are beautifully evocative illustrations though… don’t you think!?
Just shows what a powerful tool successful marketing can be!