From 1933 to 1965 Coca-Cola advertised in National Geographic. Some of the ads were within the covers, but usually the most popular were on the back cover.

I decided to go to my shelves and grab a few issues that had Coca-Cola ads on the back cover.

This back cover is from December, 1936. Here we see Santa taking a break and enjoying a nice cold Coca-Cola.

The Coca-Cola Christmas advertisements are by Haddom Sundblom and the model for Santa was one of his neighbors.

Here is the December, 1937 issue of National Geographic. We see that Santa is raiding the refrigerator and holding a turkey leg along with his bottle of Coca-Cola.

Seeing the refrigerator brings back memories. I am sure that many of you remember very similar ones with wire racks and small little freezer compartments.

‘The pause that refreshes‘ was an early catchphrase for Coca-Cola.

Here Old Santa is joined by a little girl. He says thanks for the ice-cold Coca-Cola.

The Christmas ads helped boost sales at a time of the year when sales were not as robust. No longer was Coca-Cola just to cool you down on a hot day. It was also ‘so delicious with festive holiday food.’

The December, 1938 issue is where the third Santa ad came from. I had to take a closer look at this issue as it had some good articles about the Bible Lands. It was interesting to compare what I have seen on trips to Israel with pictures taken almost 90 years ago.

Steven

Originally written in 2016. Posted here with a few small changes.