Light Relief
Coca-Cola and Father Christmas

Father Christmas has a long and rich history, but up until 1931 he had been portrayed most often in black and white, or green and white. It was in that year, 1931, that Coca-Cola created an image of Father Christmas in red and white, for a Christmas advertising campaign.

The campaign was designed to encourage sales of Coke during the cold winter months (up until then Coke had mainly been a summer drink).

To achieve this campaign objective, Haddon Sunblom (the artist hired to work on the campaign), hit on the idea of making Father Christmas a Coke drinker. To add to the image Sunblom dressed him in the red and white of Coke.

The image of the 'Coca-Cola Christmas' has stuck with us, and the rest is history…