Haddon Sundblom painted Coca-Cola’s iconic Santa Claus advertisements beginning in 1931. His warm, human-looking Santa helped establish the visual version of the character that remains familiar in modern Christmas culture.
Coca-Cola commissioned Sundblom to create holiday advertising that showed Santa enjoying the drink while visiting homes. Sundblom used his own appearance and later a friend as models, producing a cheerful, large, bearded Santa in a red suit. The illustrations appeared for decades in magazine and point-of-sale advertising.
A common misconception is that Coca-Cola invented Santa Claus or introduced the red suit. Santa had appeared in many forms before 1931, and earlier artists had already shown him wearing red. Sundblom’s contribution was to popularize a particularly friendly, realistic image through Coca-Cola’s extensive advertising reach.