In the early 1940s the ‘Sprite Boy’, an elf-like cartoon figure, made his appearance in magazine ads for Coca-Cola. He was created to help associate the term ‘Coke’ with Coca-Cola. (For some time, the company fought the idea of using the word Coke to refer to Coca-Cola.) The Sprite Boy wore two hats, a bottle cap and a soda jerk’s hat, to represent Coke in the bottle and Coke at the soda fountain.
There was a vogue for elfin figures in advertising. Kellog had three little elves, Snap, Crackle and Pop, to promote Rice Bubbles. Esso used a little white sprite figure whose head, in the shape of a pale yellow drop of oil, also had the same upswept hair style. The Coca Cola Sprite Boy was created by staff artist Haddon Sundblom,
also responsible for the iconic Coca Cola Father Christmas.
From rusty signs in small town America
to Main Street
and on to the world of antiques and collectibles
the Sprite Boy has taken on a life well beyond his advertising career, a kind of Robin to the Batman of Father Christmas. The Sundblom version of Father Christmas defines our vision of him, exported to the world as the red-suited gent, courtesy of Coca Cola.
In the same way, the Sprite Boy has become a minor icon in his own right, not only connected with his beverage,
though he has been enlisted for non-commercial work before now.
(from History of Coca Cola in Brasil at http://jipemania.com/coke/1940/ )
The Sprite Boy was generally disembodied, only hands and face showing
and seeming to take on the characteristics of the host country.
I recall him as a decal on the glass door of the Flash Gelateria in Hindley Street in downtown Adelaide in the 1970s. As for his product, I remember being thrilled in the 1960s to win a whole crate of Coke as a prize in an essay competition. And afterwards I could take the bottles to the local ‘deli’ (shop) to claim the deposit. The essay? It was about my visit with the school to … the Coca Cola bottling plant. We treasured such things as branded bottle openers from these visits too … we had some from small local competitor Woodroofe’s, makers of Woodie’s Lemonade, another childhood elixir.
In business terms, the Coke Sprite Boy advertises the reliability of his product. Just as with Macdonald’s, you know what you’re getting.
He is to be trusted.
Or is he? An internet search suggests that he is generally regarded with affectionate nostalgia, a reminder of a bygone innocence, but some http://jadetora.blogspot.com.br/ find the image repulsive, in much the same way as clowns have become a ‘scary’ image.
Outliving the physical artefacts,
the image has its own appeal and goes on with its own life in our collective memories. Where have you seen the Sprite Boy?