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Louis Dor
Nov 13, 2016
Picture:
Waitrose/YouTube
It's early-to-mid-November you excitable manchildren. Get a bloody grip.
If your Christmas excitement starts before you could open an advent calendar window, you need to have a serious think about what you're doing with the other 11 months of the year.
But anyway, 'tis the season for companies to start harking back to some timeless, faux-sentimentalist semi-detached Oxfordshire vision of 25 December.
It's always a high production value advert in which some off-the-focus-group-charts-adorable kid makes a generous gesture to his family, before the corporate watermark shows up, to make you feel fuzzy enough in-store to shill out for a stocking filler that won't see the light of January.
They usually work pretty well.
Here's our ranking of this year's efforts with a bit of help from Twitter:
1. Marks and Spencer
The clear winner. They got the cutest kid, and the off-beat-but-slick-but-folksy charm, just right.
The plot is that Mrs. Claus receives a letter from a brother who often fights with his sister, asking for just the right Christmas gift. Mrs Claus goes out of her way.
It's suitably feel-good.
Twitter agrees:
Mrs Claus in a helicopter - #marksandspencers have just produced the best Christmas ad in YEARS.— Amy Rose Harte (@Amy Rose Harte) 1478985101
Why is no one appreciating the #MarksAndSpencers Christmas advert? 😍 It's better than John Lewis' by a mile!— leah fiske (@leah fiske) 1478983410
Here's the full advert:
One pet-peeve - it's Father Christmas, not Santa Claus, and this advert is advancing the Americanism horribly.
2. Waitrose
This one is the boldest attempt to turn you into a gibbering wreck.
It follows the perilous journey of a robin across the country returning to a plinth upon which a girl has placed a mince pie (we assume she does this every year).
Along the way, Waitrose plays havok with a innocent child's (yours) emotions as the robin escapes the clutches of predators and storms alike, to return home.
Your mum's going to love it, your Dad's gonna pretend to be hard-hearted about it, but you'll catch him bawling in the kitchen searching desperately for a scapegoat onion to chop.
Twitter also loves the Waitrose offering:
This is good! Is it the best? Waitrose Christmas advert 'better than John Lewis and M&S' https://t.co/LsSysQdpUH— Alan Spencer (@Alan Spencer) 1479032238
The Waitrose Christmas advert is beautiful 😭— Jessie Herbert (@Jessie Herbert) 1479032529
It's early and I'm up shedding a tear at the Waitrose Christmas advert— Charlie (@Charlie) 1479031376
3. John Lewis
The plot is essentially a man makes a trampoline for his daughter in the backgarden for Christmas day.
The dog watches two foxes, a badger and a hedgehog enjoy it at night. In the morning, the dog beats the girl to be the first one to enjoy the trampoline.
A real misfire. Makes viewers crack a slight smile, but doesn't tug at heartstrings at all. People also managed to turn it into an unfortunate metaphor for Donald Trump beating Hillary Clinton to the White House.
I will be taking my kitchen equipment purtchases elsewhere this year.
You can watch the full video below:
So, which was best?
Vote for your favourite in the poll below:
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