If You Invested $1,000 In Coca-Cola Stock When Company Redesigned Santa Claus, Here's How Much You'd Have Today

Beverage giant Coca-Cola Inc KO was founded in the 1880s and today is one of the largest companies in the world, valued at $250 billion. The company is also one of the 30 components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Coca-Cola invented several beverages over the years and acquired others. Coca-Cola didn't invent the concept of Santa Claus, but played a role in growing the legend of the Christmas character.

What Happened: Coca-Cola went public in 1919 and began paying a dividend in 1920. Today, the company is one of the few public companies that has paid and raised its dividend for 50 straight years.

The beverage company has grown around the world with a portfolio of brands that are well-known and through many clever advertising campaigns.

Coca-Cola has a section on its website dedicated to its history with Santa Claus including answering the question "Did Coca-Cola invent Santa?"

The roots of Santa Claus date back to Germany and the Netherlands with characters known as St. Nicholas, Sinterklaas and Santa Claus. The regions began celebrating the Christmas figure known for leaving presents for children in the 17^th Century. Santa later found his way to North America.

"Coca-Cola did not create the legend of Santa Claus. But Coca-Cola advertising did play a big role in shaping the jolly character we know today," Coke's website reads.

The company began using Santa Claus in advertisements in the 1910s and 1920s, following other companies like Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG, which had used the Christmas figure for an Ivory Soap ad in 1885.

The images of Santa were all very similar until Coca-Cola decided to create its own version of the Christmas character.

In 1931, the beverage giant commissioned advertising artist Haddon H. Sundblom to create a new version of Santa Claus.

"Those paintings established Santa as a warm, happy character with human features, including rosy cheeks, a white beard, twinkling eyes and laughter lines."

According to Coca-Cola, Sundblom got inspiration from the 1822 poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas," which is commonly known as "Twas the Night Before Christmas" today.

The image of Santa created by Sundblom went on to be used by Coca-Cola in advertisements in The Saturday Evening Post and in magazines like Ladies Home Journal, National Geographic and The New Yorker.

Sundblom's final version of Santa Claus was created in 1964. Coca-Cola advertising has used many of Sundblom's versions of Santa over the years.

Related Link: If You Invested $1,000 In Coca-Cola Stock When Warren Buffett Did, Here’s How Much You’d Have Today

Investing $1,000 in Coca-Cola Stock: Investors who recognized that Coca-Cola could see a boost in sales thanks to its advertising and marketing efforts using the newly created version of Santa Claus would have been pleasantly rewarded.

Data tracing Coca-Cola's stock price back to 1931 is more difficult given the time that has gone by. Data from Coke shows the closing price at the end of each year, with Coca-Cola stock ending 1930 at $146 and ending 1931 at $107. The company went public in 1919 at $40.

For the purpose of this exercise, we use the higher price of $146. A $1,000 investment could have purchased 6.85 KO shares in 1931.

Coca-Cola stock has split 10 times since then: 1935 (4-for-1), 1960 (3-for-1), 1965 (2-for-1), 1968 (2-for-1), 1977 (2-for-1), 1986 (3-for-1), 1990 (2-for-1), 1992 (2-for-1), 1996 (2-for-1) and 2012 (2-for-1).

The stock splits would have turned the 6.85 KO shares into 31,564.80 shares today.

Today, the original $1,000 purchase of Coca-Cola stock would be worth $1,841,806.08 now.

Merry Christmas indeed!

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