You know it’s Christmas when the Claymation classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer comes around for its annual broadcast. The Rankin/Bass production aired last Saturday night. It has played every year on CBS since in debuted in 1964 – 53 years! You would be hard pressed to find someone who has not watched the story of the outcast reindeer with a glowing nose turned hero for saving the holiday on a foggy Christmas Eve. The songs and the lines of the TV classic are well known. What is not well known is that the story of Rudolph was written as a marketing tactic.

In 1939, retail giant Montgomery Ward was looking for a new twist to attract parents with children into their stores. Wards had been handing out coloring books to children who came to their stores during the Christmas season for some time. Partially to save the expense of buying coloring books from an outside source and partially to spice things up, they asked an employee named Bob May to write a story they could turn into their own book. May worked as a copywriter for Montgomery Ward. May borrowed ideas from such classics as The Ugly Duckling to write a story line about a reindeer born with a problematic nose that rose above his own lack of self worth to lead Santa’s sleigh on Christmas Eve. However, it almost didn’t happen. May’s boss thought the children’s story of a deer with a red nose would be associated with drunkenness. Artists from the advertising department illustrated the book and, after seeing their drawings, the boss relented and decided to let the publication go forward. It was an instant success! Over 2 million copies of the booklet were distributed during the Christmas season in 1939. Over the next seven years, 6 million copies were passed out at Montgomery Ward’s stores.

The rights to Rudolph were owned by Montgomery Ward until 1947, when they turned them over to May. From there, he went on to publish a book by the same name and the story of Rudolph was turned into a short animated cartoon in 1948.

But that is not where the marketing stopped. Bob May’s brother-in-law was a composer named Johnny Marks. He took May’s story and penned the song that was later recorded by Gene Autry in 1949. It also became a staple at Christmas, selling 12.5 million singles worldwide. It is the 19^th best selling single of all time. The song brought new life to the story of Rudolph. From there, GE got involved. GE had used TV during its golden years to market itself on the GE Fantasy Hour. Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin, Jr. produced the stop action Claymation TV show for this programming slot in 1964. The show is the longest running TV special in history. Along with the show was a new musical recording of the song by Burl Ives, along with seven additional songs written by Johnny Marks.

The quaint little story used as a marketing ploy to get children into a department store for the Christmas shopping season turned into quite a marketing success on several levels. Here is the key to its marketing allure. First, it was original with a heart-warming story line. Second, it was different than what had been done in the past. Third, it used multiple mediums to gain popularity. Fourth, it was unique for its day. Stop action clay animation was something very new for a feature length show in 1964. Fifth, it worked! That may be the most important point of all in marketing. Rudolph drew a crowd, first for Montgomery Ward, and later, for GE, and for the past five decades, for CBS. Learn a lesson for your own marketing efforts from the classic tale of Rudolph.