An end to the rumours: Santa's red outfit is NOT down to Coca-Cola

It's that fantastic time of the year, the awful Christmas jumpers are out in full force (and are actually the height of fashion?!), the hectic rush of buying 3 for 2 body wash sets from boots are go go go and the paper-cuts from wrapping all those presents are stinging in the worst pain known to man. Okay, so Christmas isn't that dramatic and I do love everything about it, from the same recycled Christmas songs to the silly hair bobbles with bells on them BUT there is one Christmas tradition (and it has become a tradition) that I without doubt will always roll my eyes at. It is the predictable flood of Facebook status' of 'Just seen the Coke advert, it's officially Christmas!'. Don't get me wrong, I too get that warm fuzzy 'holiday's are coming' feeling when that red truck rolls onto my screen, I just don't feel the need to scream it at the world.
Anyway, enough about my disdain for the same repeated status blocking my news feed from those hilarious cat videos; my topic today is about Coca-Cola's Christmas campaign and why they have adjusted slightly something that works so well.

The iconic Coca-Cola truck

Firstly lets dispel THE rumour: Father Christmas is not in red because of Coca-Cola (shocked gasp) but simply because Bishop of Myra in the 4th Century wore red and is known as the original Saint Nicholas. According to their website, Coca-Cola did define the Santa we know and love in their 1931 Christmas advert. This advert was to show that coke, thought of as a summer drink, could be had all year round. I suppose they didn't expect that this grandfather figure with the big comforting belly and homely white bushy beard would become the iconic figure that we all think of instantly when somebody mentions Mr Claus. 

Coca-Cola's Santa

Lets just take a moment to appreciate how amazing this campaign is. Every year, coke is bombarded with hatred about how bad the drink is, what a terrible evil corporation it is and anything else that can be thrown at them is. As the public, we see this and our opinion of Coke changes, we perhaps don't buy as much Coke as we did previously, perhaps we don't see them in such a positive light anymore. Then comes Christmas and we watch the Santa Coke created in an television advert with the warm red and yellow colourings, bells jingling and suddenly we get this warm Christmassy feeling. Suddenly it doesn't seem to matter anymore that coke can clean a dirty penny because we are associating it with a warm, comforting traditional Christmas. And there they have you, because subconsciously we have erased all of Cokes bad publicity and instead been reminded of how 'nice' the company appears, and actually how nice Coke is. This winning formula Coca-Cola has used for many many years but this year especially they have adjusted it slightly.
 
They've adjusted it through their new Christmas advert, which still has the key elements of the jolly Santa and warm appeal but the focus is instead on 'Give a little Happiness' where they look towards this true meaning of Christmas. It's clever because who can watch the advert and not feel like sharing the Christmas joy? Then you will always associate that happy festive feeling to Coke. This latest Christmas advert is a smart follow up to the years campaigns which focused on friendship, laughter and sharing. These all involve very positive emotions that we link to Coke now.

Why are they focusing more on a continuing emotion based campaign? I assume, that because of increasing social media use, Coca-Cola is under more constant fire about its negative aspects, especially it's paint-stripper ingredients (disclaimer: it has not been proven there are paint-stripper ingredients in the drink). Because of this, it is perhaps a clever, and necessary, strategy to constantly promote their campaign of 'feel good', a campaign of making Coke more of a friend than a product.

In conclusion, I would give Coca-Cola a 8.5/10 for the Christmas adverts. Whilst the emotion based adverts are a good move and have definitely stood the test of time, the adverts are not quite good enough to stop all the negative publicity that they are constantly under fire from. It was reported earlier in the year that sales are dropping, which could have prompted the stronger campaigns. But, as the Coke adverts have been aired, it is Christmas time so I hope everybody has a wonderful Christmas full of joy! Now, back to those cat videos...


Websites used:
 http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-07-31/coca-cola-sales-decline-health-concerns-spur-relaunch
http://www.coca-cola.co.uk/faq/rumours/is-it-true-santa-is-red-because-of-coca-cola.html
http://www.coca-cola.co.uk/about-us/heritage/christmas/haddon-sundblom-coca-cola-santa.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7152054.stm