“Mom, is Santa real?”

Watch this space to see your favourite festivals get brutally picked at.

This month, I will attempt to look at popular festivals through a marketing lens. Some posts will dissect famous customs or personalities; some might tear down the festival as a whole. The common thread in all will be how our festivals are heavily intertwined with capitalism.

This isn’t to bash any festival, but to objectively analyse exactly how marketing plays a role in getting us to empty our pockets in the name of celebration. Christmas seems like the natural first step. For today’s post however, we will only look at one popular figure we associate with this ho-ho-holiday.

I’m sure most of us asked our parents if Santa Claus was real at some point. They probably laughed nervously and vehemently nodded that yes, this jolly bearded man was in fact, very real. And we’d gladly accept this with no question. After all, for those of us who celebrate Christmas, it means gifts galore.

I’m sorry to break it to you, but Santa isn’t real. Well, not the red-suited white-bearded jolly grandpa-esque version at least.

Santa, is that you?

The illustration you’re seeing below depicts the generally accepted appearance of Santa before the 19th century.

But the Santa you’re seeing below seems to be the correct one, right?

Clad in a red suit, this one seems to be the Santa we’ve all come to know and love. But how did this depiction change so drastically?

How did Santa literally cross the colour wheel, from green to red?

How did Santa gain a paunch? How did he appear jolly? Why did he suddenly look like he was on a permanent sugar rush?

More importantly, who made this change?

The clue is in the photo, sort of. That Coke bottle isn’t there for no reason.

In 1931, Coca-Cola came out with a series of advertising campaigns that featured this new Santa enjoying a bottle of Coke with children. While the revamped version of Santa had been around since a few decades before 1931, Coca-Cola played a huge role in stamping this modern red Santa in all our minds for centuries to come.

It is important to keep in mind that the red they used for their Santa was the same as the one used for their brand. After all, the Coca-cola red is famous, and they cleverly used Santa and Christmas colours for their own financial benefit.

Why did Coca-Cola use Santa?

Please note that Coca-Cola used Santa, they did not invent his new avatar. This red suit-clad version was first introduced in an illustration of Saint Nicholas Myra, a 4th century bishop. Coca-Cola merely borrowed it as an inspiration for the Santa in their own campaign.

They conveniently picked the aspects of Santa that went with their own brand identity. That classic red Santa goes very well with their own colours, no?

Some of the original campaigns featuring Santa include –

• ‘Me too’ Santa campaign in 1931 was made to reflect the Great Depression
• ‘Give and take, say I’ in 1937 showed children leaving out Cokes for Santa at night. What followed was thousands of children leaving Coke bottles out on their porch for Santa.
• ‘When a friend drops in,’ 1961 campaign shows Santa attempting to hush the family dog

After a point, people started expecting Coca-Cola to show Christmas themed campaigns every December. Santa and Coke went as hand in hand as, well, Santa and Christmas.

There is no doubt that Coca-Cola capitalised on a Christmas myth and made it their own. Their brand recognition soared. Coke sales shot up, and the brand maintained its family friendly image thanks to Santa. I think it’s safe to say that Santa was used as an influencer for the brand.

So, we just deduced that the Santa Claus we’ve come to love came from a brand wanting to gain a bigger market share.

To answer the age old question, no, Santa as we know him isn’t real. But hey, now you have the perfect trivia to share at your upcoming Christmas parties.

For more debunking posts such as this one, keep checking this page out. Oh, and please share this post if you think you learned something new today. Thanks!