Santa: The Original Meme?

From The Itinerant - by @BenErsing

It’s Christmas Day, and as the festivities settle into a cozy rhythm and my children begin heckling me to open presents, my father-in-law asks if I know the history of Santa Claus and Coca-Cola.

I nodded, recalling the tale of how the jolly, red-suited Santa became synonymous with the modern notion of Christmas, thanks in large part to Coca-Cola's marketing.

It’s Christmas Day, and as the festivities settle into a cozy rhythm and my children begin heckling me to open presents, my father-in-law asks if I know the history of Santa Claus and Coca-Cola.

I nodded, recalling the tale of how the jolly, red-suited Santa became synonymous with the modern notion of Christmas, thanks in large part to Coca-Cola's marketing.

He smiled – “fascinating, isn’t it?” he said as we quickly moved on to more pressing matters like making sure my four-year-old didn’t go ahead open all my one-year-old’s presents.

But the question lingered in my mind. “How is Santa as we know him today, anything more than a meme at this point? If that’s true, what might it mean for meme coins and onchain marketing?” – I rolled it over and over in my head throughout the day. I couldn’t help but see parallels between the two.

Let’s go back in time for a moment - it's 1931 and Coca Cola is strategizing about how to boost winter sales. They land on tying the brand to Christmas since it evokes feelings of warmth, joy and family – all things they want the Coca Cola brand to be associated with.

Now, at the time, Santa Claus was a known lore associated with Christmas, but it was far from central to it and in fact there were all sorts of depictions of Santa ranging from ghostly and gaunt, to strict and saintly – often with differing attire and colors ranging from blue to green. Not ideal for a corporate brand trying to tap into cultural lore to evoke positive feelings and brand association.

So what did Coca Cola do? They commissioned an artist to create a more approachable version of Santa – you guessed it, the rosy-cheeked, plump, dressed in the same red and white that just so happens to be Coca Cola’s brand colors.

This version of Santa and all the lore created around it in the coming decades, became so synonymous with Christmas that as a generation or two passed, most people forgot entirely that it was the construct of a corporation looking to boost sales. Coca-Cola didn’t just create a finite ad campaign; they ultimately created a cultural meme that spanned decades and continues to influence buyer behavior and perspectives of the holiday nearly 90 years later.From 1931 – 1934, Coca Cola’s stock price rose 50% while the broader stock market declined significantly. While quantifying the exact financial impact of the Santa on Coca-Cola's market capitalization is challenging, it doesn’t take a huge logical leap to argue that Santa played a central role in enhancing brand equity and goodwill, and contributing to consumer loyalty and by extension, financial performance during an otherwise economically trying time. To this day, consumer studies still show a strong brand affiliation between Coke and Santa Clause / Christmas, particularly around the Christmas season.

Fast forward to today. Memes coins like $Doge are fast becoming cultural artifacts born of shared online cultural moments. Try to suspend disbelief for a moment and consider what it may have looked like for Coca Cola in 1931 if there was already a $Santa coin affiliated with the concept of Santa Clause.

I could go on, but I’ll spare you.

So if modern-day Santa is a meme promulgated by corporations, then by logical extension, there will be a significant opportunity for brands to tap into memes and meme coins as we know them today.

Let's continue to suspend disbelief and unpack this a bit more:

I’m not suggesting that established companies should go out tomorrow and create a campaign that ties their brand to $PEPE or $DOGE. Before that might make sense, the concept of meme coins needs to evolve further.

I’m merely looking at parallels between how culture has been used to create economic value for shareholders, and how corporations have helped to create lasting cultural memes, and then extrapolating that forward into a likely future where cultural memes are tokenized and corporations continue to look for an edge.

It's hard to say how long it will take for a meme coin to experience a “Santa Moment,” when the ethos, spirit and shared culture around it transcends financial speculation to become a lasting cultural icon.

What is clear is there is a large opportunity to build best practices and tooling to enable brands to manage the end-to-end process, all the way from analytics to help determine the optimal campaign strategy and which communities to target, to monitoring the campaigns, and managing the tokenomics and regulatory compliance of it all.  Given the complexity and the speed at which online memetic culture now evolves, I suspect such tooling will need to rely on semi-autonomous agents to thoughtfully manage the process.