Christmas Adverts 2020

Yes, they're already coming out.

Here's Very's effort (and without a Zoom call in sight):

Quite the coup for Very to sign up Jacinda Ardern.

Guessing some might hold them back a week or two or have to rework them to focus on online sales due to the lockdown. You'd also expect them to be less extravagant- I don't think John Lewis spending £7m on a campaign would be a good look this year.

So you think the ads should have no joy or happiness in them? I think despite not being a normal Christmas, it doesn't mean the ads should reflect it.

Can’t wait for grandparents and grandkids all on a zoom call, opening presents and eating a tiny turkey. I can see it in my head already.

At what point did I say that? Being less extravagant doesn't mean they can't be full of Christmas joy, although they'll need to judge the mood of the nation I suspect as highlighting the big family Christmas we may not be able to have may not be received well by all.

I'd like to think an advert can hopefully convey a sense of joy irrespective of how much money is spent on it. Would agree with Brekkie that John Lewis need to show some financial restraint, especially as they were already in the red before this whole COVID business kicked off IIRC.

Interested to know how they and others will approach the adverts this year - it's obviously going to be different. With John Lewis I'd like to think this would be a blessing in disguise, as frankly they've just been doing permutations of the same advert in my view for a few years, and a new approach is needed, less like The Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld and more The Orb's Pomme Fritz.

I'd personally like something a bit more punk - like the music video to Aphex Twin's Come To Daddy, but with Christmas elves?

Of course, with the rapidly-changing situation and all the uncertainty as to what Christmas will look like this year, for all we know not even the shops advertising themselves are probably sure what they're going to do with the ads, and we might just get a lot of hastily-compiled 20-sec compilations of food, or essentially shots of dust balls rolling in a desert or something. With a really bad snow effect just because.

If John Lewis want to spend £7m on Monty The Penguin 2 (or whatever) for their Christmas advert, that's up to them.

In fact they're actually doing a fundraiser this year:
https://inews.co.uk/news/uk/john-lewis-christmas-advert-2020-waitrose-campaign-food-poverty-744048

"John Lewis Christmas advert 2020 will ‘be like no other’ as retailer lends support to food poverty charity"

Did the focus puller sneeze at 11 seconds in? What a god awful, wiggle/re-frame for no apparent logical reason...

The problem with christmas adverts, in my opinion, is that despite the fact that they are more watchable than most adverts and make the advert breaks between I’m a Celebrity much more enjoyable, they don’t necessarily encourage me to buy their products. You only know who the advert is for right at the end. Just because the John Lewis advert last year had a cute dinosaur, doesn’t mean I’m going to do my Christmas shopping there.

Pretty much a perfect advert there - the only issue is that it doesn't have a massive amount to do with Argos, but it's great in every other respect.

Here's what the WWF have done.


Also, Dreams now sponsor 'Festive entertainment' on Channel 4, and Sunday Brunch has gone all Christmassy, like this: