"Unexpected Guest"

4 November 2021

2 mins

E.T. does it

John Lewis have caught us on the hop by releasing their Christmas commercial a couple of weeks earlier than we would normally expect. DAVID – like Logan Roy – doesn't always have time to read all of his emails, and missed today's 6.54 am PR dispatch from John Lewis HQ announcing this year's addition to the canon, finding out instead via Twitter. Such is modern life.

As John Lewis is the yardstick by which all other Christmas campaigns measure themselves, their ad is always keenly awaited and they've become quite adept at hanging fire until other brands have shown their hand, and then dominating Christmas messaging for a few days, so it's interesting that they've broken that pattern this year.

Surely it's not because they have just been slapped across the wrist for their insurance commercial, and are now shouting: "oh, look... a squirrel!"

If so, then what of this squirrel?

Well, it's very much in the recent John Lewis Christmas template. Languid version of well-known hit from yesteryear? Check. Lonely child forging emotional connection to someone or something outside the family? Check. Said child somehow explaining Christmas to said outsider? Check.

In this particular incarnation of this idea, adam&eveDDB appear to have been inspired by the movie E.T. and, we strongly suspect, that the more edifying component of the annual social media backlash will focus on the similarity between this commercial and Steven Spielberg's 1982 classic.

In truth, E.T. isn't the only movie that has been mined here, and the familiar vignettes combine to create something that looks more like a movie trailer than a commercial. And, because of that, it lacks the emotional punch of the best films in the ten years since this tradition was started by Dougal Wilson's 'The Long Wait'.

The great thing, as far as John Lewis is concerned, is that it doesn't really matter. Their Christmas commercial is still considered the big one, and – DAVID strongly suspects – that's why adam&eveDDB will keep operating within this broad template, no matter how challenging it is to come up with something that matches the past.

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