Coca-Cola / 1931
How Coca-Cola helped shape the Santa we recognize
1:33 / A short film by Chirag SpeaksWatch on YouTube
When you picture Santa, you probably see a warm smile, rosy cheeks and a red suit. Coca-Cola did not invent that image, but it spent decades putting its own version in front of people. This film looks at Haddon Sundblom, the illustrator behind those ads, and the role repetition played in making a commercial image feel familiar.
The question to take with you
What would people recognize if you kept telling one simple story for decades?
A closer look at the history
An existing image, repeated on a remarkable scale.
Santa wore red before Coca-Cola commissioned Haddon Sundblom in 1931. The company acknowledges that history. Its contribution was the reach and consistency of a particular warm, human depiction.
The film's language about giving Santa his red suit goes too far. The useful distinction is between inventing an image and helping popularize it.
Read the film transcript
From the published film, with caption spelling corrected. The history notes above provide additional context.
When you picture Santa Claus, most of us see the same man. Warm smile, rosy cheeks, a bright red suit trimmed with white fur. It feels like a timeless image, something that might have been passed down through centuries unchanged. But the Santa that you and I know, he did not come from ancient folklore.
He came from a moment when America needed comfort and a company saw an opportunity to reshape a season. Welcome to the Stories They Told: How Brands Have Shaped the World, episode 1. It was the 1930s in the middle of the Great Depression when Coca-Cola hired an illustrator named Haddon Sundblom to reimagine Santa Claus. He ended up painting one that was full-bellied, a joyful Santa who shared a Coke, kind of like how an old friend might.
Coca-Cola placed these images everywhere on magazines, shop windows, and billboards all around the country. And within a decade, this Santa had now become the world's Santa. Before that, St. Nicholas had appeared in green robes, in brown robes.
He was thin, sometimes solemn, sometimes even severe. Coca-Cola Santa gave him red and warm, and the world, well, they accepted that version as if it was tradition. Campaigns standardized the visual language of Christmas. Artists copied it, advertisers leaned on it, and families, well, they ended up decorating with it.
A commercial illustration quickly became a cultural truth. Repetition, it shapes memory. Find a simple idea, repeat it over and over again consistently for a long time, well, that's how you shape belief. I'm Chirag, the Brand Historian, and in our next story, we'll look at how the fear of dying alone built a billion-dollar mouthwash industry.
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