Newsletter: Why Does Santa Look The Way He Does?December 12, 2008 —
LET’S FACE IT - WE’RE ALL WRAPPED UP SMACK IN THE MIDDLE OF HOLIDAY SEASON. We could have sent out our usual marketing advice like we do every month, but we too have Christmas on the brain. So, we thought it would be a fun reprieve to share a little bit about how the jolly old man himself, Santa Claus, ended up in his bright red suit with furry white trim, jovial red cheeks and floppy hat. Was it all really just a big marketing ploy?
America’s Santa Claus has its history in the German and Dutch traditions of Saint Nicholas. Germany’s Sankt Niklaus and Holland’s Sint Nikolaas would delight children with treats on the morning of December 6th. Eventually, the Dutch Sint Nikolaas was transformed into Sinterklaas and thus was the beginning of Santa Claus.
Fast forward to 1822 when a crafty father penned for his daughters “An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas.” This father was Clement Clarke Moore and his poem is the now famous “Twas The Night Before Christmas.” In it, Moore characterized St. Nick as a small elf-like character that used eight tiny reindeer to propel his sleigh. Several years later, in 1862, Thomas Nast illustrated Moore’s poem for Harper’s Weekly. This was the beginning of our contemporary Santa, transforming him from the traditional religious figure into the jolly image we know today. Nast continued to draw Santa for nearly 30 years, eventually changing the color of his coat from his original tan to the now traditional red.
Some of you might be saying “I thought Coca-Cola was responsible for Santa’s red suit.” While that part of the myth is false – Thomas Nast gets credit for the red suit – Coca-Cola is responsible for using Santa Claus as a remarkable marketing tool that ended up transforming our impressions of this classic Christmas character.
In the 1920s, Coca-Cola was considered a warm-weather drink. In an attempt to debunk this idea, the company began advertising campaigns in magazines like The Saturday Evening Post that featured Santa Claus , the true icon of winter, drinking a coke. In the beginning, Coca-Cola’s Santa was much like Thomas Nast’s version, a bit strict-looking. But, in 1931, while working with the D’Arcy Advertising Agency, the company commissioned illustrator Haddon Sundblom to create new images of Santa Claus. Crucial to his portrayal was the fact that Santa was shown as himself, not a man dressed as Santa (as most previous portrayals had been). Sundblom’s depiction of Santa as the warm, plump, friendly man is really what lives on in the minds of people all over the world today.
So, to all those folks out there who say marketing is just the pretty face of business: what would your Santa look like without the help of our marketing predecessors?
Resources http://www.mpdailyfix.com/2007/12/the_brand_called_christmas.html
http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/heritage/cokelore_santa.html
|