John Lewis shows us how not to do Christmas marketing

Some people still insist that there is no such thing as bad publicity. They'd say that when an ad triggers a lot of social media activity, it counts as a win -- even if it's 99% negative. You might think that it's impossible for an ad to be that bad, but John Lewis has already proven you wrong with its 2026 Christmas commercial.

For those of you who -- like me -- had never heard of John Lewis, I'll explain what I was able to infer from the video itself and some of the many critique videos that I watched: John Lewis is major department store brand in the UK, and its annual Christmas ads get a lot of attention. A parallel might be the Super Bowl ads that certain big brands invest in. People pay that much attention to them and usually applaud their creative vision.

As I'm an American, it's not something that was on my radar, but I follow some accounts based in the UK who shared X posts about it like this one:

                     

And this one with its embedded video review: 

               

My own take is somewhat different. 

Deck the Halls with Jane Austen
by Totally_Jane_Austen

The magic ex machina solution doesn't work

Yes, the rude and ungracious grandchildren who seem intent on trashing their grandmother's home are irritating, and one wishes the parents did show more involvement. Sad to say, this is utterly realistic. I recently saw just that style behavior when some kids pretty close to the age of the kids featured in the advert were dragged along with their parents on a tour. 

I don't have a problem with realism or even representation that might not be completely realistic, so long as it is still feasible. What I do have a problem with is a completely disjoined narrative that mixes wishful thinking, cluelessness, and magic into the realism in an incomprehensible way. 

These are the issues in order of appearance:

1. When told by her daughter that the children need something to do, the grandmother goes to fetch a box of toys that includes her favorite, a pull-toy dog named Pickles. What would make a grandmother who is not yet at the stage of senility think that a toddler toy would appeal to her grandchildren who appear to be about 7? Is it because it talks to her? Had she revealed that, they would likely have at least tried to test out its conversational ability. But she seems to keep its magical ability a secret. Why? 

2. Pickles is the one who tells the grandmother not to put the cash (that the children end up looking for) into their cards but to find the right gift that will arouse the same reaction in them that receiving Pickles had aroused in her. In fact, kids of that age don't typically look for cash in cards, as they still expect to receive the actual gift they want. That is particularly true if they are there in-person on Christmas and not just getting the card in the mail. 

3. The grandmother listens to Pickles and takes him along to stores -- that are amazingly all still open on what should be the night of Christmas. She picks up a few things, drops one and breaks it, but doesn't find anything that will appeal to her grandchildren. Defeated, she summons a taxi to take her home. This is not a normal taxi but something made of purple light. While riding in it, the grandmother takes in the lights on the streets. We are meant to infer that this is her inspiration.

In additional to the magical dog that grandmother possesses, she must have some kind of time machine that allows her to slip out of her home, get to the shops, get her purple light taxi back to set up that room, and then get back into the living room as if she's never been away. 

4. The advert cuts to the grandmother placidly sitting in her living room while handing over the cards to her grandchildren. They rudely shake them out, looking for the cash. She smiles while she holds up a large key then leads them to a whimsically decked-out room. Supposedly, this truly enchants these kids,  and they frolic and dance about, even reaching out to hold their grandmother's hands. 

THIS WOULD NEVER HAPPEN IN REAL LIFE.

If the grandmother had that time machine that gave her those hours to set up the room that way, it's possible the children would ooh and ah over it for a minute. But they would quickly lose interest and look for another video, game, while also asking where their presents are. Kids today are not content to lose themselves in a holiday display for an hour and consider that experience their Christmas gift. 

Never believe a talking toy dog, especially one devised by a retailer who claims you can buy that holiday feeling you remember having as a kid and recreate it for a kid today by just buying the right accessories in some moments out of time. 

That is not in the least bit believable. I know that the retailer has aimed for magical in the past with wholly animated spots that people found charming. That can work because you create a certain world with its own way of working. Interposing that magic on this world with its jaded kids doesn't. And that's the real reason why this marketing approach fails. 

Get your Chanukah (Hannukah) celebration going!
by L'Chaim Celebrations

>P.S. I call is Christmas and not holiday because that's how it is in the UK where most people probably don't even know what Chanukah is, and where they certainly feel no obligation to acknowledge it in their marketing.

Related

Major Marketing Missteps from Adidas, M&M's and Coke

Don't insult the intelligence of your target market

Do you shop for your household's groceries? If you do, what do you think about this ad? 

I have nothing against the brand at all or even the messaging of how much a day's vitamin serving costs.

That's fine.
What's not fine is jacking up the retail prices on all the other items with costs per container rather than serving.

The text of the ad reads:
"She went out for pickles. And mint chip. And salt & vinegar chips. (And lemons, don't ask.)

Then she looked at the receipt.
Dill pickles: $4.99
Mint chip ice cream: $6.49
Salt + vinegar chips: $4.29
Lemons: $2.50
Her prenatal for the day: $0.57
The thing doing the most work for her baby was the cheapest thing on the list.
That's Mighty Mini Prenatal + DHA:
19 critical nutrients + 100 mg DHA
One tiny softgel a day, small enough to actually swallow
$17.21 for a full month
No horse pills. No $60 bottle. No half-finished prenatal sitting in the cabinet because you couldn't face it.
Feed the cravings. We've got the rest."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now let's look at the inflated price claims in this ad. 

Lemons are typically priced at 50 cents a piece, bringing 2 to $ -- not $2.50, though, again, if we're comparing individual amounts, the individual lemon is cheaper than the individual serving of vitamin.

Ben & Jerry's ice cream is under $5 a pint at Aldi's, $5 even at Dollar General $5.19 at Target.


Vlasic Pickles are typically priced at $3 at a cheaper store like Walmart and $4 at a more expensive store like Walgreens.

Likewise, Lay's potato chips sell for about $1 less per bag than the price shown here.

I've done some ad design for both B2C and B2B ads. One thing I never do in any form of marketing is insult my audience's intelligence. That's why I took issue with this ad that was served to me on FB.

Related: 

Why I passed on an opportunity

Major Marketing Missteps from Adidas, M&M's and Coke

The Introvert Cheat Sheet

Why I passed on an opportunity

Photo credit: https://unsplash.com/@brett_jordan

 

Today I turned down an offer for a job.

It wasn't because I didn't have time to do it.
It wasn't because I didn't want to work for the person who asked me.

The reason I declined was that I realized, while I could certainly wing it and not mess up altogether, there are better people out there for the particular goal this person had in mind with a very specific target audience. 

Specifically, the person who contacted me is one of my LinkedIn contacts with whom I've exchanged messages. She said she liked my writing style, which is why she thought of asking me for an editing job.

The problem is that it's to edit a book aimed at tweens. I've certainly read my share of such books in the past, but it's not at all my area of focus. 

I could do what others do and just say, "Sure I'm up for anything from anyone willing to pay me." But I'm burdened by something called integrity that prevents me from doing that.

I know that for her book to be a commercial success, she has to work with an editor who really

know the market well. Editing a book is not just a question of catching errors but of making sure

it will resonate with its target audience.

I don't know the ins and outs of that particular segment of

the population well enough to serve the author as well as she deserves to be served. That's why I declined.

If you think that's not the way to do business, then we will never be on the same page. On the other hand, if you appreciate a marketing consultant that will not betray your trust, then we can talk. 

You can send me a message via the contact form on my site.

 

Practical Problem Solving and Project Management

 
I'm a big proponent of smart thinking that increases efficiency and eliminates wasteful practices.

That's why I don't just write and edit for businesses and organization. I think of efficient solutions for their processes. I then use the tools at my disposal to implement them at no or very low cost.

Managing checks more efficiently with Trello style project management in real life 

Pictured above is  an example of project management and design thinking that saves both time and money.

A nonprofit requires two signatures on checks that must be scanned before they are dispatched. Checks with only one signature or no signature and fully signed one had all been put in one basket. That caused some checks of one type to be hidden by those of another and not get signed or scanned as quickly as they should.

One afternoon, using nothing beyond the basic supplies that  the office already had on hand, I devised a system of using two baskets and signs designed with ChatGPT to make it absolutely clear what goes in which basket, so that the person who needs to sign and the person who needs to scan knows where to look to do their part.  

ROI: Cost: $0. Return: 50% better efficiency ever after

It's not the basket but the design thinking that improves efficiency

After I introduced the two baskets for checks, the director at the nonprofit thought that was such a great idea that he  bought a set of desk boxes. He intended them to house the folders holding individual papers for each person who sent in a reservation for for a key revenue-raising event in one of four categories.  

Actual photo of the folders in the set of boxes

The thing is that the idea behind what I did with the checks was not about containing the papers but about understanding the process and streamlining it. Encasing the folders holding a ream of paper in matching boxes doesn't help anyone when they are still stuck in the last century.

For years, they've been printing out individual emails for each person's request and then manually sorting them into four folders that each had to be arranged alphabetically. That had been the practice of the nonprofit -- to not just waste a ream of paper in printing out each individual person's reservation but to then photocopy it to keep one copy in the office while the other was taken off the premises and typically returned with the painstaking alphabetization all messed up. 

I solved that on a Monday morning.

I went into the list of submissions on the SaaS and whittled the biggest group down by category.

Then I directed it to arrange the submissions in alphabetical order by last name instead of in order of submissions.

Next, I eliminated some of the unnecessary columns that were the result of the poor design of the form. All that extraneous data creates clutter and diffuses focus.

Finally, I employed free generative AI tools to label the essential columns to make the key information clear. I found that ChatGPT failed to deliver because it misapplied the labels, though Google Gemini did just what I wanted it to do.

I also directed Google Gemini to transform the spreadsheet from Excel into an easily shared Google sheet. The  that can also be printed out on just a few sheets of paper if they still wish to work off paper copies, though they are not necessary for anyone who understands the purpose of the data and how to put the labels on the digital  spreadsheet.

ROI: Cost: $0 in material or specialized tools 

Return: Embracing digital transformation allows the nonprofit to get more value out of the SaaS it already pays for. Plus it saves the cost of printing out 2 reams of paper and a couple of hours of manual labor for sorting through and alphabetizing hundreds of  individual sheets of paper. It also eliminates the need for people to come in to the office to pick up physical folders and return them. Reducing use of paper and travel is not just economical but helpful for the environment.