Coca-Cola's "It feels good to give" campaign was used across the South Pacific.

Coca-Cola has been banned from using Santa Claus to promote its fizzy drinks to children.

Healthy Auckland Together, a coalition of 21 public health organisations, complained to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) about a Coca-Cola billboard showing Santa holding up a peace sign with one hand and two cokes in the other.

The ASA complaints board found that the billboard, on an Auckland bus Stop on Kepa Road near two schools, was targeting children and young people.

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The billboard was part of Coca-Cola's South Pacific campaign, "It feels good to give" last Christmas.

The board agreed with the coalition that Coke is an "occasional food" and therefore should not be targeted at children and young people.

NZPA University of Auckland Professor Boyd Swinburn says the ASA's code for advertising to children lacks teeth.

Under the ASA's new code for advertising towards children and young people, chocolate, deep fried food, energy drinks, and candy are also considered "occasional foods".

Coalition spokesman, Dr Michael Hale, welcomed the ASA ruling that the advertising had breached its code.

The board found that Santa had a strong appeal to children and therefore encouraged children to "engage with the content".

Coca-Cola Oceania spokesman Peter Jiang said the ASA's ruling was not against the use of Santa in general.

"Coca-Cola and the image of Santa Claus have a long history together… The purpose of using Santa in our advertisement is to appeal to families, it is not to target children or young people," the company told the board.

Jiang said the company was adapting to the ASA's new code for children and young people and had conducted an "extensive internal review of existing and upcoming advertising".

Hale said it looked like the industry's "self-regulation" has worked on this occasion, but there was no sanction for the company.

"Manufacturers and advertisers of unhealthy food need to take note.

"The code is there to protect children and young people from being targeted."

Hale said children did not understand that they were being marketed to, but adults understand that "ubiquitous advertising aimed at children normalises unhealthy food and drink, and encourages pestering".

﻿The board did not find Coca-Cola in breach of using Santa as a character popular with children "irresponsibly".

ASA's children's code was reviewed in 2016 to reduce harm to children and young people from the promotion of unhealthy food and drinks, as part of the previous government's childhood obesity plan.

Hale said both the sugar sweetened Coke and the artificially sweetened Coke in the advertisement are defined as 'occasional' drinks.

"These drinks also contain caffeine and displace everyday drinks like milk and water," Hale said.

This is Healthy Auckland Together's second complaint under ASA's new children's code and its first complaint to be upheld.

Auckland University public health professor Boyd Swinburn said a complaint was also lodged against "Coca-Cola Christmas in the Park" events in Christchurch and Auckland. He expects the ruling to be released on Monday.

Swinburn said the complaints were a test to see if the code "would actually hold water".

"As is the case with many of these voluntary industry run codes – by the time they go through the process the advertising campaign's already finished and there are zero sanctions."

He said if Coca-Cola was to have Santa Claus holding a bottle of Coca Cola on advertisements targeting kids next Christmas, "they'd probably get a slap over the wrist with a wet bus ticket again".

Last year the coalition complained to the ASA that the Pepsi Max campaign used emoji caricatures of the All Blacks to encourage children to collect fizzy drink cans. This complaint was settled as Frucor took down the adverts voluntarily.