Present Santa Image is a Coca-Cola Creation
Coca-Cola Helped Shape the Image of Santa Santa the cheerful guy in the red suit has been featured in Coke ads since the 1920s. The Coca-Cola Company began its Christmas advertising in the 1920s with shopping-related ads. In 1930, artist Fred Mizen painted a department-store Santa in a crowd drinking a bottle of Coke. The ad featured the world's largest soda fountain. The painting was also used in print ads that Christmas season. Coca-Cola commissioned Michigan-born illustrator Haddon Sundblom to develop advertising images. In 1931 the company began placing Coca-Cola ads in popular magazines. Sundblom’s Santa debuted in 1931 in Coke ads in The Saturday Evening Post, Ladies Home Journal, National Geographic, The New Yorker and others. From 1931 to 1964, Coca-Cola advertising showed Santa delivering toys (and playing with them!), pausing to read a letter and enjoy a Coke, visiting with the children who stayed up to greet him, and raiding the refrigerators at a number of home