Coca‑Cola Blog: Christmas

Christmas is always a magical time of year, especially here at Coca‑Cola - and 2011 is no different.

There are plenty of things synonymous with Christmas: mistletoe, mince pies and Cliff Richard to name a few. But for millions of people every year, the sight of our iconic 'Holidays are Coming' advert is a sign that Christmas has officially begun. Internally, however, it's a sign that six months of hard work has come to fruition.

For me, Christmas began back in May when I first considered how we could make our festive brand activity even more magical than last year, and the year before that, and the year before that... My role here at Coca‑Cola Great Britain is to help turn the ideas that are discussed internally into tangible things that you can see, hear, touch, experience and love.

I started working for Coca‑Cola at a marketing agency in 2004. Being passionate about football I jumped at the chance to work on Coca‑Cola’s football account. With it came the creation of our ‘Win a Player’ campaign, which literally gave Football League fans the chance to win a new player for their club. It was a ground-breaking campaign and the love affair had begun - when the opportunity came to take up a role inside the Company, I grabbed it with both hands.

Since then I’ve delivered, among others, a FIFA World Cup campaign, Football League Play-Off activity, music campaigns, Olympic Games activity and the launch of our new PlantBottle™ packaging – diverse campaigns, each with an incredible ability to engage and excite our consumers.

But it's fair to say none of these are as iconic as Coca‑Cola Christmas – and personally I find it an incredible and uplifting campaign to work on. Christmas is an extremely important time of year for us as a business and it’s clear that it’s an important time for our consumers as well. This year, we had our first query about the 'Holidays are Coming' advert in June and have received a steady flow from there!

So why are Coca‑Cola and Christmas so intrinsically linked? Why am I more excited about Christmas this year than I've been since I was a child? In short, until Coca‑Cola commissioned Haddon Sundblom to create his now-famous images, no single image of Santa Claus had been universally embraced. Once created, our captivating, jovial image of Santa in full red attire was quickly adopted across the globe as an enduring symbol of Christmas, and delivers the great optimism and happiness our brand stands for in one quick glance. This year, in fact, we’re celebrating 80 years of Sundblom's loveable personification of the North Pole’s most famous resident.

It would be easy to assume that a campaign like Christmas runs itself and a few years ago I may have thought the same. However, the truth is that whilst our iconic TV advert stays the same, we are always looking for bigger and better ways to bring the magic of Christmas to you all.

So what does that mean for you this year? It means...

1. Bringing the Christmas trucks to life with a full tour covering 6,000 miles across England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland
2. Giving out 500,000 samples of Coca‑Cola products along the way
3. The chance to "tweet" your Christmas wish to appear on our world-famous Piccadilly sign in London
4. Two-for-one soft drinks (Coca‑Cola, Diet Coke and Coke Zero) at participating pubs across the country, as part of our Designated Driver campaign
5. Rewarding loyal Coke fans and public service staff working at Christmas in our Capital Radio Gift of Giving campaign
6. Fantastic activation, display and offers in-store to help you enjoy Christmas with us
7. Great digital rewards on Coke Zone and the chance to send Christmas wishes to loved ones with our Snow Globe e-cards
8. And much, much more...

I hope you all enjoy a fantastic Coca‑Cola Christmas this year – make sure you visit cokezone.co.uk so you can experience the true magic of our Christmas trucks for yourself!

Merry Christmas!