There are many fun parts to travelling. One relevant in this space is how being in a different place changes how we see ads like the one below.

While visiting La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, this past November we came across this Coca-Cola ad using the famous Santa Claus and the wonderful line, “Together we make magic reality.”

There are so many interesting layers to this photo:

• A Coca-Cola ad featuring Santa on a snowy, starry night backdrop the Southern hemisphere in November (that’s spring heading for summer)
• Santa as spokesperson for Coca-Cola (who else does pull this off?)
• That jolly big man drinking his Coca-Cola
• The Santa image, it is said, has been shaped significantly by Coca-Cola advertising going back to1931
• A Coca-Cola ad in Bolivia where Coca leaves are a large crop some destined for traditional uses and some for let’s call it “export”and that doesn’t even have anything to do with the Coca-Cola formula
• The statue in the foreground is of Simon Bolivar, Liberator of Bolivia from colonial (Spanish) rule, August 6, 1825.