Not So Fast My Fat Friend

A quick follow-up to my previous post. Here's Coca-Cola's site where it explains how it pretty much commandeered the Santa Claus image and attempted to link it indelibly to its corporate brand.

Coke Holiday Ads Through The Years

By the way, the little boy with the bottle cap hat? That's 'Sprite', of course.

And here's Snopes who says not so fast: "at best what Coca-Cola popularized was an image they borrowed, not one they created." Yes, but the crafting of that image, its ubiquity, and the indelible association of it in the popular mind with the brand's product cannot be denied. They are playing a long game. Their next move, by the way, is polar bears. You've seen the ads. They're associating themselves with concern about global warming. Watch for it.