ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the changing face of 'Americanness' in Coke advertising with a view to contextualising this shift within the evolving media landscape. It examines seminal Coke campaigns across different media - print, television, and digital - and across three separate periods. Sundblom's images built on this conventional format, but the ubiquity of Coca-Cola's advertising campaign across multiple media outlets over an extended period of time meant that Coke's Santa became the standard representation. The campaign's worldwide success revealed the degree to which the media landscape had changed, and the need for brands like Coke to change and evolve with them in order to remain relevant. While Coke's connections with America were abiding, 'Share a Coke' demonstrated that the brand's future success had become increasingly intertwined with broader media trends and patterns of consumption among consumers at the global level.
