Holidays are coming…

‘Tis the season and one brand that screams festivity is of course Coca-Cola. For many of us the famous Coca-Cola Trucks signify the start of Christmas, but Coca-Cola’s Christmas advertising journey began way back in the 1920’s. Coca-Cola, in fact gave us the Santa Claus that we all know and love today.

The Coca-Cola story began in 1896 when pharmacist John Pemberton first made up the mixture at Jacobs Pharmacy. The name Coca-Cola was written down by his bookkeeper Frank M Robinson, it was then that one of the worlds most recognisable trademarks was born. Here we look at Coca-Cola’s Christmas advertising journey and how it began…

Coca-Cola Santa

Santa has been appearing in Coca-Cola adverts in magazines since the 1920’s, it wasn’t until 1931 when illustrator Haddon Sundblom was commissioned to create an illustration of Santa, that the jolly, red-suited, white-bearded Santa Clause was born. Sundblom took inspiration from Clement Clark Moore’s poem “A Visit From St. Nicholas” (“’Twas the Night Before Christmas”), and it’s this image of Santa that we have all come to know and love today.

Sandblom created his final version of Santa in 1964 and since then, the Coca- Cola Santa image has been based on these original illustrations.

It’s often said that Santa wears a red coat because of Coca-Cola, but he had appeared in red, amongst other colours before Coca-Cola’s Santa illustrations were created.

The Coca-Cola Santa first appeared animated in 2001 in a TV advert and was based on Sandblom’s illustration.

Holidays are coming

It was in 1995 that the famous Coca-Cola trucks, first made their journey onto our TV screens. The iconic illuminated trucks appeared decorated with the image of Santa Claus on the side, driving in convoy through the snow. The theme song ‘Holidays Are Coming’ has also featured in their adverts since the 1990’s. For many of us the arrival of the Coca-Cola trucks signifies the start of Christmas. As well as appearing on our TV screens, the Coca-Cola trucks appear at 46 locations around the UK. The trucks annual Christmas tour is now underway and at each stop friends and family can have their photo’s taken with the trucks. Last year 50,000 official photo’s were taken with the truck.

Coca-Cola Facts

• The Coca-Cola bottle is 100 years old
• In the first year, just nine glasses of Coca-Cola were sold a day
• Coca-Cola was first sold for 5 cents per glass
• There are 1.9 billion servings of Coca-Cola Company products sold every day