This weeks most memorable with an Xmas twist.
It’s that time of year, the festive campaign spectacle, when brands share their Christmas ads with the world. From a gran with a disco in her office to a toy brick dancing over a Daft Punk gig, there are already some real top-of-the-tree runs out there.
So we got together in the office this week, watched a handful of them (with plenty more to come) and pulled together our fave five from this week’s viewing.
01 — John Lewis | Gloria and Pickles
Plenty of us have slipped cash in a card because we were scared of getting the gift wrong. John Lewis built its 20th Christmas ad, “Don’t give up on giving”, on that. Gloria can’t work out what her grandkids want, so out come the envelopes, until her old pull-along dog comes to life and tells her she can do better. Cue a tuk-tuk dash across London, empty envelopes on Christmas morning, and a key to the Gran Cave, a disco in her office. We’d take that over a tenner.
02 — Barbour | Barbour x Wallace & Gromit
Wallace has found a way to go for a Christmas walk without taking a single step: an armchair on giant wheels made from Barbour wellies. It goes about as well as you’d expect, and he ends up in a snowdrift. Gromit, who got a wax dog coat earlier, answers with a Barbour jumper wrapped in tartan. Then Shaun the Sheep and his flock turn up with the wellies on their heads. We’d have stayed on the sofa.
03 — Sainsbury’s | Big Delivery
Three Christmases in, the BFG has a proper friend, and she works at Sainsbury’s. Annie’s a real colleague, and this year the giant has a stinking cold and has given up on Christmas. Annie’s view is that nobody should miss Christmas, so she and Fred load a van with dinner and head into Giant Country, giants and all. Most of it makes it to his cave. Same giant, third year running, and it still works. The verdict? Wondercrump.
04 — Prada | Drawing Prada: Animated by Hand
Real people, drawn animals, and not an AI shortcut in sight. Prada’s Christmas campaign puts a snow lynx and a few mice in the same room as Sadie Sink and Maya Hawke, and every frame is drawn by hand, pencil and paper. It would have been quicker to ask AI. They didn’t, and you can see it. It’s a proper throwback to the Disney classics too. Mine was always Bedknobs and Broomsticks.
05 — Lego | Gift the joy of LEGO Bricks
Daft Punk have worn helmets for years, so turning them into Lego minifigures hardly changed a thing. In the film they race through the snow to a tiny glowing door, and behind it is the workshop where the sets get made. We follow one brick through the departments until it ends up dancing over a Daft Punk gig, then drops into a gift bag, set to “One More Time”. The gag is that the gifts are so good you’d want to keep them. A gift you’d rather keep for yourself is about the best review there is.
