Robert L. May
...created Rudolph in 1939 as an assignment for Chicago-based Montgomery Ward. The Wards had been buying and giving away coloring books for Christmas every year and it was decided that creating their own book would save money...

1) Robert May considered naming the reindeer "Rollo" or "Reginald" before deciding upon using the name "Rudolph".  Robert said his daughter liked reindeer, and he said he was treated like Rudolph as a child.

2) In its first year of publication, Montgomery Ward distributed 2.4 million copies of Rudolph's story. The story is written as a poem in anapestic tetrameter, the same meter as "A Visit from St. Nicholas" (also known as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas").

3) While Robert May was pondering how best to craft a Christmas story about a reindeer, while staring out his office window in downtown Chicago, a thick fog from Lake Michigan blocked his view—giving him a flash of inspiration. "Suddenly I had it!" he recalls...

4) "A nose! A bright red nose that would shine through fog like a spotlight."

The cultural significance of a red nose has changed since the story's publication. In 1930s popular culture, a bright red nose was closely associated with chronic alcoholism and drunkards...

5) Robert May asked his illustrator friend at Montgomery Ward, Denver Gillen, to draw "cute reindeer", using zoo deer as models. The alert, bouncy character Gillen developed convinced Montgomery Ward management to then support the idea of Rudolph..

6) May's brother-in-law, Johnny Marks, adapted the story of Rudolph into a song. Gene Autry's recording of the song hit No. 1 on the Billboard pop singles chart the week of Christmas 1949. Autry's recording sold 2.5 million copies the first year, eventually a total of 25 million

7) The most well-known version of all the Rudolph adaptations is New York-based Rankin/Bass Productions' Christmas TV special in 1964. Filmed in stop-motion "Animagic" and then the show premiered on NBC...

I have an analysis on this TV special...but thats for another thread!