The John Lewis Christmas ad is a rip-off

We’re calling it. The new John Lewis Christmas ad is a ripoff…

… of an old John Lewis ad…

You see…

The first John Lewis Christmas ad wasn’t actually a Christmas ad.

That’s right, before the bear and the hare, before that cute kid dressed up as a wizard, before that ill-advised moon man debacle, there was this:

LOOK FAMILIAR?

Released in 2010, this seminal spot was the first of John Lewis’s more emotive offerings, and paved the way for what is now an annual staple.

So it’s no surprise if the department store’s newer ads bear a passing resemblance to this classic.

But this year’s edition gets a little too close for comfort.

Before we get into that though, it seems only right to give a nod to what’s original about the new ad.

Starting with the insight, which is roughly:

Even if you’re a lazy PoS who does their present-buying on Christmas Eve, do it at John Lewis and you can still get a gift that doesn’t totally devalue your most important relationships.

✅

Top marks. Very nice. And markedly different to the simpler (and arguably less interesting) insight of the older ad: You can trust John Lewis to furnish you with all the stuff you need from actual cradle to literal grave.

And if there were awards for end-lines we’d happily hand one to ‘The secret to finding the perfect gift? Knowing where to look.’ A genuinely excellent bit of writing.

Now to what’s… less original about the ad.

The storyline: A woman takes an emotional journey through the many chapters of her middle-class life with the help of clever transitions.

OK, so far we could call that an homage.

But things take a turn for the over-familiar when we get to a couple of scenes that are… the same scene?

We’re talking about the family row accompanied by a thunder storm and the mum and daughter gadding about in the kitchen.

And honestly, all of that would be fine. Because we’re sure we’re the only people on god’s earth who still remember that old commercial. And brands dupe their old ads all the time – sometimes shot-for-shot. So what’s the problem?

The problem is: John Lewis taught us to expect more.

It might look hum-drum now, but when it came out, that original was ground-breaking. It shocked us with its humanity. Ads didn’t tell stories like that. Department stores weren’t meant to make you cry.

It worked through understatement – telling a simple story, and trusting its audience to do the rest. It wasn’t dramatic. It didn’t hit you over the head with an emotion. It just showed you a life. That’s all.

CUE FURIOUS WEEPING ACROSS BRITAIN.

But if the old ad feels restrained and elegant, the new one feels glossy and frantic. It bounces dizzyingly between timelines and locations. Now we’re in an attic. Now we’re in a pub. Now we’re in… an outer space ice rink?

And despite having a whole extra 30 seconds to play with (a lifetime in advertising), the newer ad feels rushed compared to its perfectly-paced predecessor. Yes, it’s telling a more complicated story, but did we really need three (count ‘em three) scenes showing us these two women co-existed as moody teenagers?

The result? The emotional beats don’t have time to land, and the ad has to over-emphasise them instead. THEIR MUM IS DEAD it seems to scream as our lead wells up with tears. THESE TWO REALLY REALLY LIKE EACH OTHER it yells as one sister literally grabs the other by the face.

Even the casting and soundtrack are just that bit less imaginative. The disarming intimacy of ‘She’s Always a Woman’ is replaced with a Verve song that might as well be titled ‘Emotional Montage Music’. And the any-woman lead of the older ad has been swapped for a model pretending really hard not to be a model.

None of which should be surprising, really, given what an event John Lewis’s Christmas ads have become. It’s hard for anything to feel effortless when it’s creaking under the weight of budgets, expectations, and fretful stakeholder feedback.

But as a result, the department store has been re-gifting us roughly the same thing year after year. And now they’re even recycling their old wrapping paper.

Don’t get us wrong: the new ad is good. It is objectively a good ad.

But John Lewis didn’t become the King of Christmas by making good ads. They did it by making startling ads.

We can’t wait to see them do it again.