The X(Mas) Factor: The Results

And so this is Christmas, and what have they done? Well, what they’ve done is pull out all the stops once again to make Christmas advertising in the UK the Cup Final of creative communication.

Ever since John Lewis noticeably upped the ante a few years ago, specifically with its The Long Wait film in 2011, brands and their agencies have entered into what seems like a festive, fantastically creative (in some cases) arms race.

Last year it was shots’ opinion that adam&eveDDB's John Lewis, Yuletide’s original creative catalyst, won the battle for Christmas with the brilliant (shots Award-winning, FYI) Monty's Christmas. But what of this year’s crop of commercial Christmas crackers, no one who isn’t trying to fill their word count might ask? Good question.

John Lewis’ 2015 Christmas film is both the same, and noticeably different. An emotional story? Check. Involving a small child? Check. With a gentle, soothing remake of a great, existing pop tune? Check.

But Man on the Moon [above] is slightly more esoteric than previous spots; a lonely, elderly gent is seemingly marooned on the moon, but his loneliness is assuaged by a caring young girl who wants to connect with him and who, eventually, floats the gift of a telescope up to him using multi-coloured helium balloons.

Yeah, sounds mental, doesn’t it? It sort of is, but it is also brilliant. There’s fantastic direction from Kim Gehrig and, once again, you’d have to have a heart made of stone not to feel something at the end.

Whether it’s as good as previous John Lewis offerings is a matter of opinion (personally, Monty wins for us), but adam&eveDDB has set such a high creative bar for the brand that each year comes with greater expectancy and anticipation. But in the first two weeks of its release it had over 14 million hits on the John Lewis YouTube channel alone, so, you know; win!

Elsewhere, overt emotional displays were in shorter supply this year. Last year Boots’ Special Because tugged on the heartstrings but 2015’s Discover More [above], both via Mother, was a more upbeat, if slightly less engaging film, which, this year, had a bit more product than personality.

Waitrose, too, changed tack – and agency – with 2014’s sensitive story of a girl and her gingerbread stall, via BBH, making way for adam&eveDDB’s celebratory approach featuring a series of families using Waitrose’s ingredients to make Christmas, Christmas [below].

Asda, via VCCP, was the first of the big retail stores to release its festive campaign this year (just after Halloween, on November 1) and despite the choruses of “it’s not even bloody Bonfire Night yet”, which undoubtedly echoed up and down the British Isles, we liked it. Another upbeat ad which, simply but effectively, highlights some classic Christmas scenarios (watching The Snowman, Christmas tree-buying, fancy dress) to a pumping, Uptown Funk-esque track [below].

M&S decided to use the actual Uptown Funk trak in the continuation of their The Art of… campaign [below] which, in its Christmas iteration, via RKCR/Y&R is a show-stopping film that covers all the Christmas bases of food, clothes, decorations and smiley kids. It’s not dissimilar to Asda’s effort; more stylish, just a little less charming.

Of the other big retailers, BBH went old school for Tesco in 2015, with a quite traditional campaign featuring Ruth Jones and Ben Miller as a husband and wife, who, along with their teenage son, get into some funny-in-parts (Emergency’s the best one, below) superstore-set scenarios which are reminiscent of the 90s/early 2000s spots featuring Prunella Scales as Dotty.

Lidl also chose a comedic route as TBWALondon set about creating the Lidl School of Christmas [below] which sees people being taught about food, fairly lights and faking it. It’s pretty standard Christmas fare in the main but, crucially, it has a boxer dog dressed as Father Christmas in it, so for that alone, it gets our vote.

But the undisputed champion of the retail stores for 2015’s Christmas campaigns (as far as I’m concerned, at least) is Sainsbury’s. After last year’s beautiful, poignant, if somewhat controversial film coinciding with the 100^th anniversary of the First World War, the supermarket, and AMV BBDO, has changed direction but kept it’s Christmas is for Sharing tag line to bring us a brilliantly crafted, beautiful-looking and, crucially, engaging story of Mog’s Christmas Calamity [below].

Directed by James Rouse and with VFX from Framestore, it brings children’s author Judith Kerr’s feline creation to life with heart-warming aplomb and, if it counts for anything, which I’m not sure it does but I’m going to tell you anyway, my two-and-a-half year old son watched it at least 25 times over one weekend and laughed (mainly at the bit with the ceiling fan) every time.

Now, he admittedly doesn’t shop in Sainsbury’s because they, somewhat unfairly, won’t accept chocolate coins as legal tender, but if he could, I think he would.

There were a few commercials which utilised the ‘act pleasantly surprised when you received a bad gift’ premise this year. Lidl’s aforementioned spot included a brief scene based on that idea but adam&eveDDB took it further for Harvey Nichols with Gift Face [below].

The funny 60-seconder is essentially an accompaniment to last year’s Could I Be Any Clearer campaign, which brought Harvey Nics customers the ability to create Christmas cards expressly telling people what to buy them as a present.

Now, 2015’s campaign flips that concept and features an unfortunate woman who has to maintain a joyous expression as she receives a succession of rubbish gifts. Like the best comedy, it’s funny because we can all relate.

The other brand which gets in on the ‘acting’ act is Currys PC World and, if we’re being honest, it wins the comedic Christmas war with some brilliant writing from AMV BBDO and the appearance of the genius that is Jeff Goldblum.

The Spare the Act campaign [Jigsaw, above and Turkey, below] includes a series of films ranging from one minute to two-and-a-half minutes and puts Goldblum in a variety of festive, domestic scenes which see him coaching people on how to act grateful. The campaign blatantly, but cleverly, gets Currys PC World products front and centre and watching Goldblum is, as always, a joy.

Other notable campaigns this year include a brace from adam&eveDDB, who, with the amount of work they seem to do over this period, are like advertising’s Christmas elves. The first is another brilliantly simple idea which takes cats, fancy dress, and a good tune (Elton John this time) to promote Temptations cat treats [below].

Then Mulberry gets a very clever comedic online film which centres around the giving of a Mulberry bag which then spoofs the story of the birth of Jesus [below].

The Sky Movies spot from WCRS is also worth mentioning for its charming mix of live-action and animation which weaves in characters from some of Sky’s Christmas movie offerings.

So, as with every year, there’s a mixture of fairly traditional, formulaic Christmas ads (many of which don’t even warrant a mention) that are like supermarket own-brand mince pies; you know you’ll be offered them a lot in December but after the first one you avoid them at all costs.

Then there’s some pretty decent stuff, the Christmas pudding commercials; they divides opinion depending, at times, on your tolerance to Christmas stodge, but you know they contain quality ingredients.

And then there is the creamy, silken custard commercials that makes the stodgy Christmas pudding more palatable.

What’s that? I’ve hit my word count? Ok.

So, if we had to choose, for us, AMV BBDO win the creative Christmas battle this year for two fantastic spots for Currys PC World and Sainsbury’s, but there are a few, John Lewis chief among them, that’ll definitely be staying on our Christmas card list.