So this is Christmas, and what have we done? Festive TV ad round-up
It's that time of year when treetops glisten and children listen for the sound of seasonal telly ad blockbusters from the UK's big retail chains. Here's a festive W2O round-up of what Santa has brought for the high street shops.
Guide to W2O ratings:
***** Nintendo sixty Foooour! OH MY GOD!!
**** Just what I wanted, thanks.
*** It's a dodgy pattern but at least it'll keep you warm.
** An orange and some string.
* A piece of coal, because this year you have been bad.
Marks & Spencer. M&S has staked out its turf in this area: ads so big and spectacular that people look forward to them as a sign that Christmas is coming, the way that in my house we used to look forward to the bumper Christmas double issue of the TV Times. M&S ads have come to define what retail Christmas TV ads look like and this spot is what you would expect: an all-singing, all-dancing, Strictly Come X-Factor Glee Night Fever extravaganza. Other than the fact that it looks like an M&S Christmas ad, it's hard to see what the relevance of these hoofing celebs is to the Anniversary of the Birth of Our Lord (the clumsy 'don't put a foot wrong this Christmas' line contrives to make that link) but it's all classily done, the Twiggy/Peter Kay business is amusing, the usual M&S young ladies in underwear (why is it never men in pants?) will keep dad happy and I'm sure lots of the other people in the ad who I don't recognise are well-known and much loved by viewers. Not a miracle, but far from a nightmare before christmas.
Rating: ****
Tesco. Oh dear, Tesco. Where did it all go wrong? This strange tale of sibling class rivalry is about as lame and old-fashioned as an episode of 'Man about the House'. The laboured Belcher / Belle Cher gag, to which we are subjected twice, is nicked straight from Hyacinth Bucket / Bouquet. And the message itself, which seems to suggest that Tesco is sort of turning into Argos, isn't clear. Not nice – naughty.
Rating: *
Waitrose. This is a rather dreary promo for pudding-headed Heston Blumenthal's plum duff. As we all know, Heston is brilliant but a bit scary and mental, more like Dr Evil than Santa, so Waitrose's agency has tried to increase the overall warmth and friendliness by cutting away to Normal People Smiling as they watch Heston on TV. So we're watching an ad in which people watch the ad we're watching. Rather than this weird Inception-like Christmas metaverse, they should have added interest by getting Heston to add a few of his trademark bizarre ingredients – mice, gravel, quarks, etc. Then he could have covered the whole thing in larks' spittle, stapled it to the internet and finished it off in a high-energy particle accelerator. Now THAT''s Christmas!
Rating: **
Matalan. Full disclosure: we pitched for Matalan a couple of months ago and lost to BBH. I was gutted when we lost. Seeing this doesn't make me feel any better. We're not getting any distinctive new point of view or positioning for Matalan here.
Rating: **
TK Maxx. Matalan aren't the only ones with a magic red box. TK Maxx has got one too. But this is a particularly cheap and nasty red box. TK Maxx's elves clearly didn't have the budget M&S's little helpers had to work with but, rather than using what they had to do something different, they decided to make a really, really bad, low budget M&S ad. This is like Avatar remade by the Carry On team.
Rating: *
John Lewis. Simple, nicely done. Just about manages not to make me want to kick a hole in the telly. I don't quite believe in the people and their performances, but the focus on giving rather than getting makes it involving if not quite moving, as it aspires to be. I may be reacting badly to this one because of the music. These folky singer-songwriter updates of old pop standards make me grind my teeth. It's familiar, but it's new. So it appeals to everyone! It's acoustic and plinky-plonky – so we're nice and authentic, not evil and artificial! Grrr.
Rating: ****
Littlewoods. A gang of WAGs gatecrashes the magical Littlewoods mansion and, presumably after getting smashed on champagne and Bacardi Breezers, they ransack the place for presents. For their Christmas Littlewoods clearly wanted an M&S ad, but by the time dad got to the shops all the good ideas (and all the proper celebs) appear to have already been taken.
Rating: **
Argos. The beatboxing Bing is an idea, it's true. But, as the agency must have known, it's an idea already done better by VW with their 'Singing in the Rain' ad. And it's a rent-a-gag with no connection to Argos.
Rating: **
Morrisons. This hasn't got 'bedraggled mouse' Richard Hammond in it, which is a massive leap forward. It's OK, I suppose. But the dull story and focus on sprouts make this about as exciting as a Christmas dinner consisting entirely of… sprouts. 'Miniature cabbages' is not comedy gold.
Rating: ***
Asda. Morrison's focuses on sprouts, Asda goes for beef. This is a rubbish version of the ads Waitrose used to do so well featuring their suppliers. Adrian's beef may be tender but his performance is so wooden that we are compelled to believe he is indeed A Real Farmer. He must be the only person in Perthshire called Adrian. However, kudos to Asda for disrupting the category and refusing to include anything even vaguely festive in this ad. (Beef for Christmas? Surely some mistake?)
Rating: **
Boots. Boots wisely continues its 'here come the girls' campaign which means, unlike most of these, there's no danger of getting confused about who this ad is for. The execution is based on the recognisable truth that when women say 'we're not doing gifts this year', they may not really mean it. (I've been caught out by believing it when my wife said the same thing. It was lonely that Christmas. Lonely and cold.) Boots gets away with its 'sex in the city comes to the UK' scenario by virtue of believable characters. The performances here seem much more credible than in, say, the John Lewis ad.
Rating: ****
There's also this one. Which doesn't work so well.
So, there you have it. Not many crackers. A few turkeys.
Merry Christmas everyone.
