• Everyone of us is familiar of the popular image of our beloved Santa Claus. Ever wondered where did this image originate from? Here are some quick facts! • Santa Claus is instead a hybrid, a character descended from a religious figure (St. Nicholas) whose physical appearance and backstory were created and shaped by many different hands over the course of years until he finally coalesced into the now familiar (secular) character of a jolly, rotund, red-and-white garbed father figure manned by elves and travels in a sleigh pulled by eight reindeer to deliver toys to children all around the world every Christmas Eve. • Although we can identify some of the most influential sources who contributed to the formation of the modern Santa Claus figure (such as writers Washington Irving and Clement Clarke Moore, historian John Pintard, and illustrator Thomas Nast) no single person or institution can lay claim to having created him. • At the beginning of the 1930s, as the burgeoning Coca-Cola company was looking for ways to increase sales of their product during winter (then a slow time of year for the soft drink market), they turned to a talented commercial illustrator named Haddon Sundblom, who created a series of memorable drawings that associated the figure of a larger than life, red-and-white garbed Santa Claus with Coca-Cola and the slogan The Pause That Refreshes • Cokes annual advertisements featuring Sundblom-drawn Santas holding bottles of Coca-Cola, drinking Coca-Cola, receiving Coca-Cola as gifts, and enjoying Coca-Cola became a perennial Christmastime feature which helped spur Coca-Cola sales throughout the winter. • One might therefore fairly grant Coca-Cola some credit for cementing the modern image of Santa Claus in the public consciousness but they are not the creators of the modern image as some reports claim. #santa #thecocacolacompany
Posted on: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 14:34:20 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015