Which Coca-Cola advertising figure created the modern image of Santa Claus in 1931?

Haddon Sundblom created Coca-Cola’s influential modern Santa Claus advertising image in 1931.

Coca-Cola hired the American illustrator to make Santa appear warm, friendly and human in a series of holiday advertisements. Sundblom based the character partly on the poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” commonly known as “The Night Before Christmas,” and used his own appearance as a model in some paintings.

The advertisements showed Santa delivering gifts, enjoying Coca-Cola and interacting with children. Their repeated publication helped popularize a large, jolly Santa wearing a red suit with white trim. Coca-Cola did not invent Santa Claus or the color red, however; similar depictions existed before the campaign.

The important distinction is between creation and popularization. Sundblom shaped Coca-Cola’s enduring advertising version of Santa, while the broader figure developed through older European traditions, literature and earlier American illustrations.