DID you know there are 150 days left until Christmas? Sorry, I'll rephrase that: did you actually want to know there are 150 days left until Christmas? You see, when I read that Hamleys is already predicting this year's sell-out toys I actually checked my diary to find out where my summer had gone. I'm sure it was only July the last time I looked.

The world of retail is always well ahead of the rest of us, but I have to say it is still a trifle disconcerting to read about this year's must-have toys to be placed under the Christmas tree when it's this hot.

Not only is it still summer, but did nobody at Hamleys notice that there is a credit crunch biting right now? Clearly they don't believe the global crisis is going to affect Christmas, so they went right ahead with their annual presentation of this season's top toys regardless.

The toys predicted to sell out by mid-November include dancing Teletubbies, sound-activated kung fu dolls, Dr Who Dalek voice changers and a Skychallenger remote-control helicopter.

Santa will have to be extra busy this year working on the main trend for 2008, which is apparently going to be retro toys such as Stylophones, Snoopy, and Emu and Spit the Dog puppets from 1980s television programmes.

Is the magic of Christmas strong enough to ward off the current credit crisis? I don't know, but it definitely got me thinking: Santa Claus, Father Christmas, whatever you call him – and whether you believe in him or not – has to be the strongest brand in the world.

Just think about it for a moment. Set aside your horror that we are actually talking about Christmas when your tan still looks real, and consider this from an entrepreneurial, nay educational perspective: Santa is the original brand.

Just look at all the component parts of a brand: values, characteristics, consistency, quality, staying power. Santa's got the lot. Everybody knows Santa.

You always see Santa in a big red suit with a white furry trim, black buckled belt and shiny black boots. He always has a white hairy face, a set of bushy white eyebrows (I bet they're on Alistair Darling's Chrissie pressie list), rosy cheeks and a wide, gentle grin, topped off with a large red hat with a white pompom. Have you ever seen Santa in a blue suit, or with a green trim, or clean shaven with dark hair? Absolutely not. Not ever.

That's brand consistency for you. To be fair, if you peer closely he does look different (don't you think Santas are getting younger every year? Or am I just getting older? No, don't answer that). But you get the idea: there is total control over brand identity and consistency.

Wherever you go, wherever you might live in the world, Santa looks the same and Santa the brand stands for the same things. Santa personifies love and happiness, fun and sharing, giving and receiving. He's all about kids and families and believing in the unbelievable. I mean, squeezing a mountain bike, a flatscreen TV and a PlayStation down a chimney in a flat which doesn't even have a coal fire? Come on. But belief in the brand is incredibly strong. I can't think of another that has the same power. Nike, Coca-Cola and Nintendo, among others, would pay millions for that kind of brand power.

How many other brands could persuade young children to believe that an old man from the North Pole spends all year making presents with his team of little elfin helpers and then flies around the world in one night delivering presents to every little boy and girl who has been good throughout the year?

Santa's original brand manager was really smart, though; he enlisted serious help. How else would you get every parent to lie through their teeth to convince their kids that he drives a sleigh, pulled by flying reindeer with daft names, and lands on the roof. And do it every year.

Just an aside: perhaps Santa's brand manager should have used some of his considerable expertise to give the poor reindeer a higher profile. Dancer, Prancer, Chancer, or whatever they're called, work just as hard as Rudolph but they tend to be forgotten.

But back to the branding lesson. Brand Santa delivers – exceeds even – customer satisfaction every year without fail. The sheer delight on the face of a child who wakes up and realises Santa has been while they were sleeping is wondrous to behold. The world population is growing every year, meaning more kids to visit than ever before with more outrageous demands than ever before, but I've never known Santa to be late or to disappoint.

In fact, the brand has a life of its own. Nobody has to promote Santa any more – word of mouth has taken over. In fact, as clearly demonstrated by Hamleys, he appears earlier every year. I know of parents who use the promise – should that be threat? – of Santa to extract angelic behaviour from their little horrors from summer onwards.

But managing the disappointment of discovering that Santa isn't real (that was a real trauma for me, it's taken me the past three years to get over it) is probably the brand's coup de grace.

I don't believe there is another brand in existence that could get away with delivering such an enormous blow to a customer, a young child, then encourage that young child to forget the disappointment and tears, get over the psychological damage of finding out that his or her parents lied to them – and bribed them – for years, and then go on to perpetuate that same myth to their own children. Truly, it is a stroke of branding genius.

"Young man, make your name worth something," said Andrew Carnegie. Santa did. Can your brand?