It’s nowhere near Christmas, but that hasn’t stopped UK retailer John Lewis from prepping its holiday ads just in case you didn’t know ’tis almost the season for “‘Tis the Season”. You’ve got to give it the department store chain this year, though: their initial ad knocks it out of the park with with a spot that’s heavy on penguin love and fantasy.
The newest John Lewis ad was released on Thursday and it will give you all of the feels. Each and every last one of the feels. Right now, you may be thinking, “Oh, but a John Lewis ad? Really?” To which, we reply, “Yes, really. A John Lewis ad. With penguins. In the last five seconds, you’ll find it has become quite dusty in the general vicinity of your computer.”
Ads from John Lewis are something of a yearly event, somewhat like the Coke Polar Bears except with fewer global warming and diabetes implications. Previous ads from the retailer have centered on such sweet topics as wandering snowmen and children that turn to the dark arts in order to speed up the arrival of Christmas.
No, really, a kid tries to use his wizard powers to make time go faster so that Christmas is here sooner.
As much as the topics and imagery might vary, there’s one constant to John Lewis’ Christmas spots: after about two minutes, they inevitably go right for the heartstrings. If you can watch five in a row with a dry eye, one can only assume that you’ve sold your soul to one of the minor dark deities. And that’s cool — it’s just that one wonders why in that case you’d be watching Christmas advertisements anyway, John Lewis or not.
In any case, we’re just past Halloween and the Day of the Dead, and that means we’re fully into Skip Over Thanksgiving and Start Focusing on Christmas Season. It’s the most wonderful one-sixth of the year and there’s no way that having the new Christmas ads from retailers like John Lewis debut weeks before anyone even stuffs a turkey is in any way indicative of the runaway commercialization of a religious holiday.
If you’re one of those Scrooges, though, you can rest assured knowing that even this heartstring-yanker of a Christmas ad was only on the interwebs for a few hours before someone uploaded a parody of it. John Lewis’ ad might scratch the saccharine itch if you’ve got one of those, but for the more jaded among us, this Stupid Penguin recut is just salty enough to get us through the beginning of the Christmastime onslaught.
