John Lewis Gets Mick Jagger's Blessing for Its 20th Christmas Ad
Dame Kristin Scott Thomas, a talking toy dog, and a Sam Fender cover of "You Can't Always Get What You Want" anchor this year's pitch against giving cash for Christmas.
After Tesco jumped the Christmas ad gun two days early, John Lewis finally dropped its own: the 20th installment of its annual tearjerker, titled "Gloria and Pickles." Dame Kristin Scott Thomas plays a grandmother whose childhood toy dog, voiced by Paul Whitehouse, comes to life on Christmas Eve to needle her into skipping the cash and finding an actual gift. She tears across London by TukTuk, lands at John Lewis, and on Christmas morning her grandkids open a key instead of an envelope. It unlocks her home office, rebuilt as a disco-lit "Gran Cave."
The real coup is the soundtrack. Sam Fender covered the Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want" for the spot, and Mick Jagger himself signed off as "a fan of Sam's work." John Lewis is selling physical copies of the cover on its own website, with proceeds going to Action for Children, which quietly turns a Christmas jingle into a charity single and a reason to visit the retailer directly instead of just watching the ad on YouTube.
The brand's own language gives away the strategy. Marketing and loyalty director Rosie Hanley says the campaign is built to "restore the nation's gift-giving confidence." That is a retailer campaigning directly against a trend, cash gifting, that cuts stores out of Christmas entirely. The nostalgia and the disco ball are just the delivery mechanism for a much blunter pitch: come inside and buy something.
Source: Retail Times
Kyle Duford, Founder & Editor, BRNDWIRE. More from Kyle →
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