John Lewis' Christmas ad was more Brussel sprout than roast potato
John Lewis brings little to the Christmas table this year, says a disappointed Gemma Moroney, co-founder, SHOOK.
It’s been an emotional year for reasons I won’t bore you with. And I feared this could be the year the John Lewis ad finally made me cry.
I have a personal policy against any ads that explicitly (as opposed to covertly) manipulate my feelings, and a proud 17-year tradition of not welling up. No, not even a little bit.
Now, that’s not to say I don’t appreciate the longstanding craft (Monty especially), and that's not to say I don’t appreciate the incredibly tough gig Saatchi had taking over from adam&eve. In fact, I think this year they’ve really nailed it – and God knows the tricky third album is trickier than the tricky second album. (In fact, it's why people – wrongly – hate Oasis' Be Here Now...anyway, I digress.)
This year, John Lewis has the magic formula, of course they do: Family. Societal issue. Heartstrings. Remixed soundtrack. Hero present.
And they’ve done an amazing job of nailing so much of family life and teenage parenting in 2025.
Its insight about teenagers and masculinity is bang on the zeitgeist. One of my lot wears a covert headphone at all times, lest they actually fully hear what I’m saying. Another is only not in their room to eat. And you do wonder: How did we get here? The days are long but the years are short, as they say.
There’s a deftness of touch to how they tell this. It’s subtle. And painfully on point. Plus, it’s believable. One of the things my kids and I do bond over is music. The GenZ/A nostalgia trend shows up as a love for ‘my’ music.
But for all the pitch-perfect parts, I also found the ad painfully middle class (though of course it is, it’s John Lewis and, to be fair, I am middle class).
The home is painfully tidy for Christmas Day. The mum? Painfully irrelevant. I’m pretty sure the dad lives round my way, known locally as Muesli Mountain, and frequents the local tap bar on weekday evenings.
The PTSD style flashbacks were a step too far for me, too. Although that might also be because the son either is, or looks very much like he is, the son from Martin Freeman’s Breeders, another painfully close-to-the-mark bit of parenting-related content.
Copywriter LinkedIn has gone to town on the strapline too, bemoaning the use of the Americanism ‘gift’ rather than the open-goal double entendre of ‘present’.
But the point of this ad isn’t about words, is it? It’s about what we don’t say and should, and what we could say, and how.
And ultimately, this is an ad out to both build the brand and sell us products. It nails it: why we buy them, what they can say when we can’t, and complicated family dynamics. Oh, and it told us John Lewis sells vinyl, who knew?
Still, it's no Monty.
It still didn’t make me cry (phew). But I have to admit: I think that’s a me problem.
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