BRAND IMAGING: Coca-Cola: The Good ol' American beverage

Since it is almost the holiday season, I'd like to taker a break from the financial jargon and depressing crisis that have dominated my last two blog posts. Instead, I would like to touch upon something a little bit...merrier. THAT'S RIGHT!!!!!!!!!! - I'm talking about those Santa Claus printed soda cases that Coca-Cola puts out every year!



HOWEVER: I found this a little puzzling:

• "Most people can agree on what Santa Claus looks like -- jolly, with a red suit and a white beard. But he did not always look that way, and Coca Cola advertising actually helped shape this modern-day image of Santa."
• Through the centuries, Santa Claus has been depicted as everything from a tall gaunt man to an elf. He has worn a bishop's robe and a Norse huntsman's animal skin. The modern-day Santa Claus is a combination of a number of the stories from a variety of countries.
• 2006 marked the 75th anniversary of the famous

  Coca-Cola Santa Claus. Starting in 1931, magazine ads for Coca-Cola featured St. Nick as a kind, jolly man in a red suit. Because magazines were so widely viewed, and because this image of Santa appeared for more than three decades, the image of Santa most people have today is largely based on our advertising.

Now...Let's take a look at some of Coca-Cola's Santa artwork throughout the years (in no specific order)

Now to put my little Santa rant in perspective...
For about the past 80 years, Coca-Cola has used "their" image of Santa Claus as a marketing tool for selling their product during the Holidays. What really stands out to me is that they have been using the same pictures of Santa in their ads for the past 80 years. By the same pictures, I mean that they have used the same style of painting, features, characteristics, expressions, and overall tone. To be straightforward, it looks old. But old is not necessarily a bad thing. In this sense, old is traditional and Coca-Cola's intended bland image, CLASSIC. Coca-Cola is all about being the soft drink beverage that your grandparents, and their grandparents used to order for a nickel down at the drug store after playing stick-ball, going to school, or doing whatever ever else those crazy seniors used to do back in the day.

Even to this day, cases and bottles of Coca-Cola are printed with the word "Classic" on the top in bold script. The idea here is that Coca-Cola is a classic American company, built by American people some one hundred and fifty years ago, yet is not going to change what it originally set out to sell, refreshments for the people. "Classic" is an image within itself which promotes brand recognition, consistency, trust, and quality.

In addition to the classic Santa Claus ads that reinforce Coke's classic image, who can forget about those cute cuddly, coke drinkin' polar bears? Talk about a classic image that Coca-Cola has branded themselves to. If you were to be given "places you would find a polar bear" on Family Feud, chances are "in a Coca-Cola commercial" would be the #1 answer above "the north pole.

In 2008, Coca-Cola stared a PR campaign to save the polar bears called the Polar Bear Support Fund. The goal of this campaign was to reduce the human involvement in global climate change and help support polar bears because of their litterally, melting environments. Coca-Cola teamed up with the WWF (World Wildlife Foundation) to take part in this cause. This is definitely an effective PR plan because after seeing those commercials with the cute polar bears, who wouldn't want to save them after hearing about their environmental dilemma?