Warm-up

• Are you familiar with such Christmas characters as elves, Grinch, Rudolph? Who are they? Can you name some other Christmas characters?
• What are your favourite winter holiday characters? Are there any Christmas characters that were created for ads?

Do you know?

Read the passages and say which country has such traditions: Italy, Finland, Japan, New Zealand.

Key: 1 Japan, 2Finland, 3 Italy, 4 New Zealand

Let’s think:

• You have read 4 descriptions of Christmas celebrations in different countries. Did you notice any influence of marketing on Christmas traditions?
• What winter holiday traditions do you have in your country? Do you feel any influence of marketing during that period? Give some examples.
• What Christmas is for you?

Someone can say:

The Christmas tree, houses covered in lights, nice Christmas movies and cartoons, socks over the fireplace… Or maybe endless shopping lists, the chaos of Black Friday, and Christmas music that begins to play in shops in October and makes us feel nostalgic about the times when Christmas wasn’t about holiday marketing and consumerism. Wait a minute… That time doesn’t exist!

Reading

Right. That time doesn’t exist. At least, not in America. The American Christmas as we know it today and consumerism were born on the same day. And marketing extends its influence on both of these trends simultaneously.

The role of marketers wasn’t just in the obvious areas of making people buy more Christmas gifts. In fact, marketing is behind some of the most iconic symbols of Christmas. And the story of how this happened can provide a fascinating insight into how marketing can help shape society.

It is well known that until the mid-nineteenth century, most Americans didn’t celebrate Christmas. So, what changed? Well, America became more industrial and more urban. That was the reason why many families felt the need for traditions to forget about the industrial world for some time. Americans began adopting old-world Christmas traditions to bring their families together. Christmas trees were copied from the traditions of German immigrants, while Santa Claus had been originally “brought over” by the Dutch. In the days before really fast communication, though, it would have taken quite a while for these traditions to spread throughout the entire country. That’s where marketing interfered.

What do you think? Do you agree?

Look at the words in bold in the text above and explain them.

Listening

The beginning of commercializing the holday.

Listen to the audio and choose the right oprions.

Choose the right options.

The Christmas tree became popular in America because

1. Queen Victoria liked it very much.
2. the image of Queen Victoria and her family gathered around the tree was promoted by magazines and newspapers.
3. it was the symbol of a united family.

The Christmas gift-giving tradition

1. was always very popular in America.
2. appeared when department stores started to decorate their window displays.
3. was developed because it was a great business opportunity for department stores.

Louis Prang, a German printer, invented Christmas cards

1. to promote his new color printing technology.
2. to make something special for Christmas.
3. to sell them in department stores in big quantities.

Key: 2,3,1

True or false?

The Dutch tradition of Santa Claus came to America in 1822 with the poem The Night Before Christmas. But at that time, no one had any idea of what exactly Santa looked like. The most popular images of Santa showed him as a small elf-like figure who was much more gloomy than the Santa that we know today. So, how did his appearance change so much? The image of Santa we all have in our minds appeared thanks to the marketing efforts of Coca-Cola. In 1931, the company asked illustrator Haddon Sundblom to create an image of Santa to use in their ads, and the artist took the description of a cheerful character from The Night Before Christmas.

Marketers didn’t only shape the image of Santa: they also thought up his well-known helper. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was created in the context of a content marketing strategy by the Montgomery Ward department store. The company used to resell coloring books to attract children into its stores during the Christmas season, but in 1939 it decided to save up and produce something of their own. The head of the company asked their copywriter, Robert May, to write an original children’s book. So, he created a tale about an outcast reindeer with a red nose. His story was extremely popular! The company sold 2.4 million copies of the book to the children of their customers that year.

• Santa Claus is depicted as a small, not smiling elf in the poem The Night Before Christmas.
• Thanks to Coca-Cola, we know Santa as a cheerful and friendly old man.
• The head of the Montgomery Ward department store asked their copywriter to create a story about a red-nosed reindeer.
• The story about Rudolph brought a lot of money to the department store.

Key: f,t,f,t

Answer the questions

• Who brought Santa to America?
• How did Santa look before his image was changed by Coca-Cola?
• Who created Santa as we know him today? Why was it needed?
• Which Christmas character is the result of a marketing strategy?
• Have you read the story about Rudolph?

Where do they learn?

Watch the video and discuss the questions.

Say true or false:

1. The Santas from the school like having fun and making people happy. 
2. The oldest Santa school in the world is in California. 
3. It is not important to be a good Santa because the children you visit will forget about it very quickly. 
4. In the beginning, there were 3–4 students in the school. 
5. They don’t have Santas from the US in this school. 

Key: t, f, f, t, f.