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Shops are rolling out their Christmas 2024 adverts and John Lewis finally revealed its own on Wednesday (November 13) but it has left some people scratching their heads.
People look forward to the John Lewis Christmas advert each year, and it’s usually one of the signs that the festive season is fast approaching.
The retailer has nailed down a particular formula for its Christmas ads; it’s usually a short, emotional tale set to a piano version of a well-known pop song, just like the 2015 ad showing a lonely elderly man on the moon or last year’s clip about a cheeky tree banished to the garden.
But it’s fair to say that this year’s John Lewis clip has conjured feelings of confusion because the brand has decided to go meta.
The plot follows a woman named Sally who goes shopping in the big John Lewis shop on Oxford Street because she wants to buy her sister a present.
She then whizzes back through time thanks to a series of flashbacks where she revisits her sister at different points during her life in order to figure out what to buy her.
Many of these moments correlate to the type of products you’ll be able to find in John Lewis, such as furniture or jewellery.
But the quick two-minute trip down memory lane has garnered a mixed reaction from viewers. Naturally people are using Twitter/X to share their complaints. “That’s it, Christmas is ruined,” declared one viewer. “The John Lewis ad is quite comfortably the worst one yet.”
Another theme among viewers is that they simply don’t understand what’s going on during the ad, as another person complained: “The John Lewis Christmas ad is very underwhelming. I don’t get it?”
A third unsatisfied fan shared: “Don’t really understand it. Like the song but another miss. I think it’s safe to say they’ve lost their Christmas Ad crown with so many misses.”
There was also a lot of confusion about the gift the main character Sally bought for her sister in the end - and one key question that remained after watching the clip.
“WHAT DOES SHE F***ING BUY HER?” an X user asked the internet.
"The new John Lewis advert...does anyone get it? Is it her sister? What's the gift?" another said.
However the reactions are not all bad. “Well, I like the John Lewis ad,” one viewer posted. "Purely because it features my all time favourite song.”
The song is Richard Ashcroft's acoustic rendition of The Verve's 1998 single 'Sonnet'.
John Lewis has responded to some of the disappointed reactions to the clip by explaining the meaning behind it.
In response to a member of the public on X, the brand’s official account shared: “The story of a sister looking into her heart and soul to find the perfect gift works really well for this story. Our story centred on a young boy last year, so we like to have a balance across our ads.”
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English (US) ·