The Santa We Just Packed Away Wasn’t Always This Santa
Now that Christmas is over — and the lights are coming down — I keep thinking about Santa.
Not in a nostalgic way. More in a “how did this become so fixed?” way.
Because every year, Santa shows up looking the same. Red suit. White beard. Soft smile.
And we rarely question it. It feels… inevitable.
But it wasn’t always.
Santa wasn’t always this “version”
Before the 1930s, Santa was inconsistent.
He appeared in different colours. Different shapes. Different moods.
Sometimes cheerful, sometimes almost strict. Sometimes folkloric, sometimes religious.
Santa existed — but he wasn’t settled. And without consistency, nothing really sticks in our collective memory.
Then Coca-Cola stepped in (with an artist, not just a brief)
What often gets oversimplified in this story is how the transformation happened.
Coca-Cola didn’t just run ads. They worked with an illustrator named Haddon Sundblom — and that detail matters.
Sundblom didn’t draw a distant, mythical Santa. He drew a human one.
Warm. Approachable. Kind. Someone who looked like he could sit in your living room.
Over time, through Sundblom’s illustrations, Santa became:
- Softer
- Friendlier
- Familiar
- And dressed in red that just happened to align perfectly with Coca-Cola’s brand
But the real power wasn’t in one illustration.
It was in repeating that same version — patiently — year after year.
The part we don’t talk about enough
Coca-Cola didn’t invent Santa Claus.
They rebranded him.
And then they did something brands struggle with today: They didn’t change their mind every season.
They stayed consistent long enough for the rest of the world to forget there had ever been alternatives.
That’s when branding stops feeling like advertising and starts feeling like “this is how it’s always been.”
Why this feels clearer now, after Christmas
Now that Christmas has passed — especially here in Egypt, after January 7 — it’s easier to see it for what it was.
What felt like tradition was actually repetition.
What felt timeless was the result of long-term discipline.
And what felt emotional was designed — carefully, thoughtfully, and humanly.
A quiet takeaway for brands (and creatives)
As we move into 2026, the Santa story leaves me with one simple reminder:
Great branding isn’t about constant reinvention. It’s about clarity — sustained over time.
It’s about trusting a story enough to keep telling it until it becomes memory.
Santa will disappear again now. And when he comes back next year, he’ll look exactly the same.
And most of us will still believe that he always has.
—
Built By Marketing: A series about the stories behind the brands we think we already know.
What other “traditions” do you think were quietly shaped by branding?
