Coca-Cola and Santa Claus: How a Soft Drink Brand Came to Own Christmas

Ask people to picture Santa Claus and most will describe the same figure: a plump, cheerful man with a white beard, rosy cheeks and a red suit trimmed with white fur. Many will also believe that Coca-Cola invented him.

That is not quite true. But Coca-Cola’s advertising did more than almost anything else to fix that image in people’s minds. And decades later, a line of glowing red trucks made the brand part of Christmas all over again.

The Context

In the early 20th century, Coca-Cola had a seasonal problem. It was seen as a summer drink, something to cool down with on a hot day. Sales dropped in winter. The company wanted people to drink Coca-Cola all year round.

Santa Claus already existed in popular culture, but his image varied. He had been drawn as tall and thin, small and elf-like, and in a range of colours. The cartoonist Thomas Nast had drawn a round, jolly Santa in the 19th century, and red suits had appeared in several illustrations before Coca-Cola’s campaign, including in other brands’ ads.

In 1931, Coca-Cola and its agency, D’Arcy, commissioned the illustrator Haddon Sundblom to paint Santa for the company’s Christmas advertising.

The Campaign

Sundblom’s Santa was warm, friendly and human. He was inspired partly by Clement Clarke Moore’s poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” which described Santa as chubby and jolly. Sundblom painted him taking a break with a Coca-Cola, reading letters from children, playing with toys and raiding the fridge.

The paintings appeared in magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post and on posters and store displays every Christmas. Sundblom painted Santa for Coca-Cola for more than 30 years, until 1964. Because the ads were so widely seen, year after year, his version of Santa became the one people knew.

Decades later, Coca-Cola created a second Christmas tradition. In 1995, the agency W.B. Doner produced “Holidays Are Coming,” an ad showing a convoy of red Coca-Cola trucks, lit with fairy lights and decorated with Sundblom’s Santa, driving through a snowy landscape. Towns light up as the trucks pass, and the jingle “Holidays are coming” plays. The visual effects were produced by Industrial Light & Magic.

The ad was brought back year after year in many countries. In the UK especially, its first broadcast each winter became a moment people talked about as the “start of Christmas.” From 2011, Coca-Cola sent real trucks on a tour of UK towns and cities, where crowds gathered to see them and take photos.

Sundblom’s paintings were carefully produced. For the first few years he reportedly used a friend, a retired salesman named Lou Prentiss, as his model. After Prentiss died, Sundblom used his own reflection in a mirror. The paintings showed Santa in small, relatable moments: pausing for a drink during his deliveries, being caught by children, playing with a train set. They made Santa feel like a warm, kindly grandfather rather than a distant figure.

Coca-Cola used the paintings everywhere. They appeared on magazine back covers, in shop window displays, on cardboard cut-outs and later on trays, calendars and packaging. Many of the original paintings are still held in the company’s archives and are displayed in exhibitions around the world.

The “Holidays Are Coming” ad drew directly on this heritage. The trucks carried Sundblom’s Santa on their sides, linking the modern campaign to decades of Coca-Cola Christmas imagery. The jingle was simple and repetitive, which made it easy to remember and sing.

Why It Worked

It solved a business problem. Christmas gave Coca-Cola a reason to be advertised and drunk in winter. Linking the drink to Santa made it part of the season’s celebrations.

It was consistent. Sundblom painted the same warm character for over three decades. The trucks returned with the same music and imagery year after year. That consistency turned ads into traditions.

It tapped into emotion. Santa and the trucks were about warmth, family, generosity and anticipation. Coca-Cola became associated with those feelings rather than with taste or price.

It became an event. When people look forward to an ad, it stops being an interruption. The first airing of “Holidays Are Coming” became a cultural moment in its own right.

It moved into real life. The truck tour turned an ad into something people could visit, photograph and share. It gave the campaign a physical presence in communities.

The Results

Sundblom’s Santa became the dominant image of Santa Claus in much of the world. Although Coca-Cola did not invent Santa or his red suit, its advertising is widely credited with shaping and standardising his modern look. The company still uses his paintings in its Christmas marketing.

“Holidays Are Coming” became one of the longest-running Christmas campaigns on TV. In the UK, surveys and media coverage regularly describe the ad as the start of the festive season.

The campaign has also faced criticism. Health campaigners have objected to the truck tour and Christmas advertising for promoting sugary drinks to children, and some local authorities have declined to host the trucks. Coca-Cola has responded by promoting its zero-sugar drinks more prominently in recent campaigns.

The campaign has continued to evolve. Coca-Cola has updated “Holidays Are Coming” with new versions over the years, including digital effects, new scenes and, in 2024, a version created with the help of generative AI, which drew mixed reactions from viewers and critics. Whatever the format, the core elements have stayed the same: the red trucks, the lights, the Santa imagery and the jingle.

The longevity of Coca-Cola’s Christmas marketing is unusual. Many brands change their seasonal campaigns every year, hoping to find a new hit. Coca-Cola has done the opposite, returning to the same symbols again and again. That has made the brand part of many people’s Christmas memories, which is something a single new campaign could never achieve.

The Lesson for Today’s Marketers

Repetition builds tradition. Coca-Cola’s Christmas advertising became part of the season because it appeared in the same recognisable way for decades.

Emotion outlasts features. The campaign rarely talked about the drink itself. It talked about the feelings of Christmas, and Coca-Cola borrowed those feelings.

And a seasonal problem can become a seasonal opportunity. A summer drink became a Christmas icon because the brand found a way to belong in winter.