According to the popular version, the image of Santa Claus familiar to us first appeared in Coca-Cola advertising. Check if this is so.

On the official Russian-language website of Coca-Cola It is said: “The modern image of Santa Claus appeared in the 1930s with the direct participation of Coca-Cola as part of the campaign“ Santa also drinks Coca-Cola ”. Archie Lee, the executive director of the D'Arsi advertising agency, attracted by the company to work on the project, set the task of creating the image of "real Santa, not a person dressed as Santa." In addition, the image of the wizard was supposed to be close and understandable to the heart of every person: from a child to a pensioner. ”

The same article describes how the image was born. Allegedly, at first, Sandblom decided, as a model for a drawing, to take his neighbor Lou Pontis, who has an elderly retired salesman. But while working on the first sketches, Pentis suddenly died. Then the artist looked in the mirror and decided to draw himself in the image of Santa.

“The New Santa's debut took place on the eve of the birth of 1931 ... in ... The Saturday Evening Post, and then the advertising modules with it were published in Ladies Home Journal, National Geographic, The New Yorker and many other American media. For another 30 years, Sandblom created a new picture with Santa for each Christmas, ”the article tells the site Coca-Cola.

The contribution of Coca-Cola to the popularization of the modern “red-white” image of Santa Claus, of course, cannot be underestimated. However, the facts say that neither the company nor the artist Sandblle has to do with it. This is a popular city legend in the whole world, which is promotes Coca-Sola itself.

The origins of the Christmas image of Santa, in addition to Christianity (after all, it is considered to be none other than St. Nicholas the Miracle Worker) and Western European folklore, you need to look in the work of writers of the first half of the 19th century: Washington Irwin, Charles Dickens and especially Clement Moore.

In 1823, Moore published the poem "Visit of St. Nicholas." Title hero in him Described So:

... I froze at the window in amazement:
Wonderful sled and eight deer.
For the coachman - a lively dashing old man.
Yes, yes, this is Santa-well, who else.

... dressed in fur from head to toe
(All in soot, Santin is a luxurious outfit!),
With a bag thrown over the shoulder,
Full toys - what else!

Eyes shine like stars in the cold,
Two apples-cheeks and cherries.
A smile - I have not seen funny forever!
Bela a beard, like morning snow.

(translation by Olga Litvinova)

Further it is said that Santa has a tidy thick tummy that shooks when his owner laughs. And he smokes the phone and looks like an elf.

In 1863, the American artist Thomas Nasta painted the character of Moore, and after the success of the drawing made him a constant hero of fun pictures for journal publications. Nast invented new facts for the biography of Santa: for example, that he lives at the North Pole and writes in a special book all the actions of the children to decide who is worthy of a gift and who is not.

In the drawings of the Names, the fur coat Santa Claus from the brown over time became more and more red. Coca-Sola insists that, unlike the previous image options, Sandblom “took” Santa’s pipe. But this is also not so. On the covers of Christmas numbers of Puck magazine in 1904 and 1905, Santa has no tube. And in general, his image there is not fundamentally different from those that will appear in Coca-Cola advertising 25 years later.

It is interesting that even the idea of using the image of a Santa Claus for advertising a soft drink was also not innovative. In 1915 the company White Rock Beeges Put it on Advertising its mineral water, and in 1923 - ginger ale.