What the 2019 John Lewis, Sainsburys and Robert Dyas Christmas ads get right/wrong

Tags

Adverts, Blog, Christmas, John Lewis, Sainsburys

Ah, it’s nearly Christmas. Ish. Well it’s not but the ads are out. So here’s a one-off return of the ‘Yule blog’…

Of all the starting-pistols of Christmas (Buble on in-store playlists, mince pies on shelves), the arrival of the John Lewis ad is probably the most recent. I mean, all of these are shop-based. Ever since Selfridge’s and Harrod’s raced each other to put the Christmas window displays up first, Christmas creep has been fully down to the department stores. We looked at the history behind some of this on this other previous Yule blog.

This year’s John Lewis ad once again has a delightful fictitious character in a snowy scene (despite the fact that it never snows at Christmas – you’re nearly more likely to get a White Easter). This time they’ve gone historical. It’s sweet, and it’s here…

As a self-professed historian of Christmas, a Santalogist, an Xmas Xpert, and a lover of traditions, this ad warms a few cockles. Firstly, the flames. Fire’s been part of winter festivals since long before Jesus – light of the world, heralded by a star amid darkness. Back in days of Norse Yule, wheels of fire would be rolled into the sea to show defiance of the sun’s apparent vanishing act. The Yule log would be burned (not eaten – it wasn’t a cake, thank you French people) and generally fire was blimin’ everywhere. So that flaming Christmas pudding? All down to that. And the very idea of fire amid frost, that this ad’s based on, goes right back to then.

The olde-wolde Dickensian(?) scene ticks another Christmas box (don’t get me started on Christmas boxes). Poverty and the noble celebration – that was what Christmas looked like through medieval days. The family part of it was more a Dickensian trope, and the gift-giving part – so crucial for a department store ad – has origins in St Nicholas, in nuns putting oranges in orphans’ socks, in the Magi bringing gifts, and in Roman New Year celebrations when gifts would be given up and down the social order (ie. for bosses, not for family). Christmas became a time for giving after the revival of St Nick/Sinterklaas/Santa in the early 19^thcentury, thanks to American Santa savers like Washington Irving (who also gave us Gotham City and the word ‘knickers’).

The ice-skating part we can in part thank Prince Albert for – he helped popularise it by being so darn good at it. Snowmen of course back aeons, but the whole idea of the snowy Christmas is a bit Dickensian too – Charles Dickens’ first eight Christmases were white ones, so he wrote that into A Christmas Carol, despite releasing the book in one of the mildest Decembers on record. When his readers read of old snowy Christmases, it helped freeze this idea that an nostalgic Christmas is a white Christmas for all eternity. Like the ones we used to know…

But like Messrs Selfridge and Harrod, other shops have put their commercials out in the week before John Lewis. As soon as Halloween’s out of the way, it’s open season.

The Sainsbury’s ad has also gone Dickensian, and while it’s again nicely done, it slightly rankles with me as it tries to reinvent tradition. See it here…

Giving St Nick a new origin story? I can’t say I approve. I’d much rather a video that highlights the real St Nick, or at least his possibly-real legends. There’s so much to choose from! This guy lobbed pressies through an open window into fireside stockings, to help a widower and his three daughters! He restored cut-up children who’d been jarred and pickled by an evil innkeeper! St Nick as a baby even fasted from the boob two days a week, like a good priest-baby, and only took milk from the right breast, because he was so linked with God’s right hand. Slightly more believably, he punched a heretic at the Council of Nicaea, where they picked the date for Easter (that worked out well – when is it exactly?).

Lastly, seen the Robert Dyas ad? It’s bonkers. But funny. I think. Is it?

Either way I love how it just lets John Lewis and Sainsbury and M&S and Harrod’s do all the fancy-pants adverts with a budget and a snowy set, and instead just gets some store employees to badly deliver a right-on message. Because nothing says 2019 Christmas like trying to be politically correct. So I’d like to wish a very Happy Non-Sectarian Festive Ad Watch to all my readers, regardless of race, gender, sexuality and whatever shop you shop in.

Paul Kerensa’s book Hark! The Biography of Christmas is available from all good bookshops, many bad ones, and after Paul’s gigs.

From Macy’s to #MozTheMonster: How John Lewis conquered Christmas creep

Tags

#MozTheMonster, book, Christmas, John Lewis, Macys, Selfridges, Shopping

I woke this morning to find that Christmas had started. One of those markers in the sand had been reached. We’ve crossed the Rubicon. No going back. The John Lewis Christmas ad is here (#MozTheMonster). (I feel I have to add the hashtag after saying that, like some kind of compulsory religious honorific. Like the sentence doesn’t carry the full weight unless you had the Moz bit.) If you’ve not seen it yet, well you know can – which according to some pals, means we can now play Christmas music, eat Terry’s Chocolate Orange till we turn orange, and generally claim now as Christmas.

John Lewis’ 2017 Christmas ad #MozTheMonster pic.twitter.com/c7qPyD9ICE

— @johnlewisretail November 10, 2017

I disagree. Much as I love Christmas enough to write a book about all things Christmas past, for me, Christmas music starts December 1st. And even then, you need to be gradual before going full Christmas. Festive jumpers only a fortnight before (if then – and it should always be worn ironically). Be sparing in your chocolate orange.

The stuff of nightmares. Or dreams. TBC.

Moz is the latest incarnation of several years of John Lewis riding high. How have we reached this point where we’re stopping work to click on Youtube to watch an advert – and not only that, but before the advert, we might even be made to watch another advert? And how is it that a fluffy character in commercial is somehow waving the starting-pistol for the Christmas season? (I wouldn’t trust #MozTheMonster with a starting-pistol – oh my, I’m falling for it…)

I trace it back to Rowland Macy and to the invention of plate glass. Macy started one of the first department stores, called, coincidentally, Macy’s. What started as farm goods and supplies quickly grew, into a store so big that it needed different departments (hence the name). Meanwhile the arrival (and cheapness) of plate glass meant we could finally see in shop windows, rather than have to go in or know in advance what would be stocked. This was of course vital for a shop that sold so much, that you wouldn’t know that on the 3rd floor there was something you never knew you wanted… unless you could see it in the window. So he accidentally – or deliberately – invented window-shopping.

One of the first Christmas window displays. They weren’t just queuing up to see a naked mannequin for the first time.

Rowland Hussey Macy created the first ever festive window display, based on scenes from the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It was a hit. Rival stores picked up on the idea too. When Gordon Selfridge set up his store in London, he took the idea too, and then Harrod’s down the road muscled in on it too. Before you know it, you have Christmas creep – each store trying to get their festive window display up and ready before their neighbours.

Because they were huge hits. People would travel into the city after a hard day of work, just to see the window displays – and thanks to electricity they could be powered and brilliant well into the dark evenings. Often they couldn’t afford anything in the shop – but this was free festive entertainment. But that was okay by Macy and co – window-shopping meant aspiration, and aspiration meant a hunger for buying things, so those who could would spend more and more on what they could afford in-store.

‘Christmas creep’ was definitely a thing: displays gradually went up earlier, lights were switched on earlier. Oxford Street’s famed lights were turned on a full three weeks earlier in the 1990s than in the 1950s. Getting one over on the rivals it what causes Tesco’s to stock mince pies in the summer (allegedly – for my Christmas book launch I promised mince pies in September, and couldn’t find a pack anywhere… thankfully my wife makes excellent mince pies).

Father Christmas is here. NOT Santa. Must be London then.

Shop-owners tried all sorts to win over customers – even hiring in Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali to create window displays. Some of their ideas became legacies still with us today. Macy himself was one of the first to offer a money-back guarantee in January, and added the first in-store Santa from 1862. He didn’t have a grotto yet though – just roamed the store wild. The first grotto appeared in East London in 1888, in J. P. Robert’s store, before even Selfridge’s appeared. When he did set up shop, Selfridge coined the phrase “only X shopping days till Christmas” (though he had the BRILLIANT idea to replace X with a series of steadily decreasing numbers).

Stores not blessed by world-renowned artists benefitted from technological advancements: mechanical characters, rising platforms, and frosted snow scenes were mainstays of stores in London, New York, and Chicago. In the 1950s, Woodward & Lothrop’s of Washington D.C. even featured live penguins in their window.

Which brings us back to John Lewis, and their fluffy animal fix. From penguins to #MozTheMonster (I’ve got Compulsive Hashtag Disorder), they’ve tapped into the family Christmas – which lest we forget, has only been family-oriented since St Nicholas became Santa Claus in the 1820s (that’s for another blog) – like no one else. In Britain at least. I’m British. We might need an American blog to tell us Walmart’s equivalent.

But over here, the starting pistol has been fired. While we’re watching cute characters get Christmassy on Youtube (once the ads before the ads have stopped playing), the shops are hoping we’ll turn that into sales. And I’m sure we will – Christmas creep has now crept in new days into our festive calendar. Alongside Advent Sunday and Stir-Up Sunday, we now have Black Friday, Cyber Monday, even Take-Back Tuesday (a true legacy of Macy’s money-back guarantee)… but also ‘Buy Nothing Day’, organised by counter-commercial Christmas fans.

Whatever we’re buying, it looks like John Lewis has decided that the Christmas season may now commence. So, Merry ChristMoz. Ugh. I’ve done it again.

The new book Hark! The Biography of Christmas is available on the highlighted link, just there. It’s all about sales, people (that’s Moz’s unheard catchphrase).