Remains of the Day

Santa in the 21st Century

The article Little Helpers Aren’t Enough: Santa Needs an Image Expert in the NYTimes today caused me to wonder what an modernized Santa myth would be like:

• Santa is trimmer for sure, probably from an Atkins diet in which he eats only venison. Maybe he replaces Jared as the Subway spokesperson. It fits the obsession with thinness in modern society. Also, it certainly doesn't hurt if Santa appears on People's Most Beautiful list once every three or four years. In recognition of Santa's health kick, instead of leaving out milk and cookies, most kids worldwide leave out bottles of mineral water and some beef jerky.


• Santa is probably somewhat younger, though still a family man. He probably has a few adopted children, as is the trend with celebrities.


• His toy manufacturing is outsourced to China to lower costs. It just isn't economical to manufacture all the toys in-house at the North Pole, and several painful rounds of layoffs leave hundreds of unemployed elves. There are likely lawsuits, but Santa works with only the top PR firms to ensure that images of sweatshops where Chinese elves are assembling DVD players for sub-standard wages are debunked as quickly as they arise. In the end, most people worldwide keep quiet because they want their damn gifts at Xmas, and outsourcing keeps the prices of those goods down which means the standard of gifts rises consistently year after year.


• Still, Santa does continue to manufacture some North Pole branded products in-house, undercutting some more well-known brands in price. The $25 North Pole DVD player is a huge hit in 2003, causing some of the more well-known brands like Sony and Toshiba and Panasonic to grumble.


• Imagine the kind of database he needs, tracking every person in the world along with their wishes and behavior and nice/naughty status. I'm guessing he uses Oracle for performance reasons. The programming for his systems is likely outsourced to India.


• Santa's advertising is adapted for local markets. Also, instead of sleighs filled with toys like rocking horses and bugles and wooden toy soldiers, his bags are seen to be filled with Playstations, iPods (Santa being one of four distribution outlets worldwide approved by Apple), cell phones, and laptops.


• Recognizing that several distribution companies worldwide are able to ship physical goods overnight worldwide at efficient cost levels, Santa has partnered with Fed Ex, UPS, USPS, Airborne, and various other local distribution companies to fulfill Christmas Day shipments. Still, Santa makes a few token appearances worldwide on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in his sleigh, with a few reindeer, just for show. For now, the sleigh remains unadorned, though advertisers are knocking down his door to plaster the sleigh like a NASCAR stock car. Santa appears nearly everywhere with his wife beside him, to counter allegations of sexual discrimination in his elf divisions. And he hasn't ruled out choosing a female to succeed him as Santa once he reaches retirement age.


• Allegations of grade inflation have tainted the North Pole, to an extent. It seems the bar for being considered nice as opposed to naughty has fallen in recent years. The behavior of some company CEOs and Wall Street investment firms would have once been grounds for visitations by ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, with intense visions of death and doom. Yet many have still made Santa's nice list. What gives?


• Actors still play Santa at department stores around the world, but all must go through an accreditation program just to qualify. Then, if they pass, they must pay steep licensing fees to the North Pole for any revenues earned through their performances, including a rumored 60% of all revenues from photos with children. Santa has a hedge fund manager that invests his cash reserves, rumored to rival those of Microsoft, though Santa continues to resist cries to take the North Pole public.


• Santa has made a few aggressive bids to acquire Chanukah, the Easter Bunny, and Valentine's Day. He recognizes his business is ridiculously seasonal and would love to even out the revenue stream during the year. This comes after several unsuccessful bids to extend Christmas into other parts of the year. The brand just hasn't proved flexible enough. Easter seems like the most likely acquisition, what with some overlap in Christian motifs.


• Rumor has it that the North Pole rivals Wal-Mart and Home Depot for its ruthlessness with suppliers. It gets away with it, though, because it generates greater than 25% of revenues for nearly every manufacturer in the world. Sales reps dread the semi-annual trips to the North Pole, where they are left in unheated waiting rooms to shiver nervously, giving whole new meaning to the idea of icing someone before negotiations.