For decades, Coca-Cola has used polar bears to advertise and market one of its the most popular soda brands in the world. Whether images of the Arctic animal appear on packaging or star in television commercials, polar bears are strongly linked to the Coca-Cola brand. Although first seen in 1922, the Coca-Cola bear as we know it today is due to a reinvented campaign by a talented artist that debuted in 1993.
These Coca-Cola polar bears have appeared to sell soft drinks (and drink them themselves) in dozens of commercials, and are the only major mascot in the soft drink company’s long and storied history (unless you count Santa Claus, who has appeared in Coca-Cola advertisements since the 1930s). From its origins in European print ads, to the animated characters starring in Super Bowl ads, to the inspiration for many products, here’s a look back at the development, evolution and importance of Coca-Cola’s polar bear mascot.
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Polar bears first appeared in Coca-Cola advertisements in the 1920s
Made of one of the best kept recipes in the world, Coca-Cola was first sold in France in 1919, and three years later, local distributors created a print advertisement for the drink, imploring consumers to buvez (or, in English, “drink”) Coca-Cola. The art strongly conveyed how refreshing Coke could be by placing it in the hands of a polar bear. According to Cardiff University Blog in Arctic Relations, this coincides with a time when “polar bear imagery thrived in fine art, popular culture, and entertainment” in Europe. In Germany, there was a polar bear “craze” where people dressed as polar bears often posed in public for photos.
Over the next seven decades, Coca-Cola’s print marketing campaigns utilized images of polar bears here and there. But the company never fully adopted the cold-living animal as an advertising mascot until 1993, when the animal starred in a TV commercial. To create a visually stunning campaign for Creative Artists Agency, artist Ken Stewart thought about how he drank Coca-Cola while watching movies, and then caught a glimpse of his Labrador retriever, which he says resembles a polar bear in stage of puppy. Stewart put these two ideas together and decided that a film for Coca-Cola-drinking polar bears in the Arctic wilderness would be the Northern Lights. “Northern Lights” became the name of that Coca-Cola commercial, the first of more than two dozen animated commercials starring animals.
The polar bear mascot still appears in many places
Bears still appear in occasional Coca-Cola commercials, while enjoying the status of a beloved corporate mascot. Atlanta Visitors World of Coca-Colaone of the tastiest gastronomic museums in the world, you can take photos with an employee in costume. The bear also makes frequent public appearances across the country. Every winter holiday season, artistic depictions of Coca-Cola’s growing family of polar bears appear on Coca-Cola product packaging and cans, and merchandise is sold on the company’s website. In 2013, the second generation of characters starred in a seven-minute short film called “The Polar Bears,” directed by Oscar winner Ridley Scott.
In 2008, polar bears qualified for protection under the Endangered Species Act. Along with increased public awareness about melting sea ice, polar bears have become strongly associated with climate change. This could have threatened Coca-Cola’s use of the animal as a cute mascot. “The further the character gets away from being a real character in the world, the less the company has to worry about what happens in the real world,” Barbara Phillips, a marketing professor at the University of Saskatchewan, told New Yorker. To help save polar bears, Coca-Cola pledged a $2 million donation to the World Wildlife Fund in 2011 and raised an additional $3 million from consumers. These measures were announced in a 2013 Coca-Cola ad starring real polar bears.
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