John Lewis Christmas advert

John Lewis Christmas advert

1. When we focus on the message behind the images of the 2015 ad, we can clearly see the distance between the Earth and the Moon as a metaphor for the gap between the generations. The little girl’s attempts at sending a gift to the moon could be seen as attempts to get closer to this poor lonely old man. And for Christmas, magic happens and she finally succeeds in reaching him. And for the global meaning of this advertisement, the slogan is quite evocative: “show someone they’re loved this Christmas” can also be understood as “Christmas can keep us all together”. Every year, John Lewis partners with someone. Last year, he worked with Age UK, which is an organization that helps millions of elderly people who tend to isolate themselves in a bubble of loneliness without speaking to anyone.
2. Many people live their lives surrounded by friends and family, but a lot of elderly people can find the Christmas period more depressing and lonely than enjoyable. They do not live as far as the moon but it is as if they did, which is the message that last year’s John Lewis Christmas ad conveyed, his last year advertisement was about a young boy and his penguin discovering love. The slogan of the 2014 ad was “Give someone the Christmas they’ve been dreaming of”. The British department store chain worked in collaboration with Age UK for last year’s advert, in an effort to denounce and fight the loneliness of older people. John Lewis’ Christmas adverts always ask their viewers to give someone else a little bit of love on Christmas day. The AGE UK is born from the fusion of “Help the AGE” and “AGE for concern”.
3. “Every year, John Lewis releases an advert in the period before Christmas, and in each of them, they try to leave a message to the world: “show someone a little affection and love this year”. John Lewis is a chain of upmarket department stores operating in Great Britain. Their first advert was in 2007, and it has since become some kind of an annual tradition with the adverts becoming more and more popular throughout the years: now, they are known all around the world. The 2015 advert is the most recent one and tells the story of a young girl trying to contact an old man living alone on the moon. She tries to contact him in many ways but her attempts to catch his attention fail. On Christmas day, the little girl receives a special present and sends it all the way up to the moon thanks to balloons. The old man finally gets to see Earth on Christmas Eve with the help of the telescope that the girl sent him, which makes him cry with joy. This advert just wanted to show that no one should be forgotten for Christmas.
4. The John Lewis adverts have become iconic to the UK because it’s something that the inhabitant are used to see every year, it’s some kind of signal or countdown to Christmas day. Moreover it’s sound known to everybody because of the songs that are used in the ads for instance Ellie Goulding or Lily Allen. 

Noéllie Delande, Adèle Deuxant and Jonathan Gislain