Just Emote: Retailers are shunning product advertising at Christmas.

The first signs of the festive period don’t come from the Christmas lights being turned on, present lists being drawn up or even a tree being chosen. The starting gun to Christmas came this year from a two minute film about a child’s relationship with an imaginary penguin. You would be forgiven for thinking that a sensible retailer looking to shift product off their shelves in the festive period are little silly to waste expensive ad space talking about a fictional penguin. The John Lewis Christmas ad is now an event in and of its self. In the last 4 years we have seen the retailer tell stories devoid of any product messaging. Slowly but surely other retailers have started to fall into line. Marketing directors from M&S, Waitrose and Boots have all made the decision to show minimal product, and instead make a desperate land grab for the nation’s heart strings.

On Wednesday we saw the arrival of Sainsbury’s Christmas offering; the ad cinematically depicts the famous Christmas ceasefire in WW1 between British and German forces. The best product shot we get throughout 3:20 ad is of a 1914 bar of chocolate (it is unclear as to whether Sainsbury’s will be selling replicas, I wouldn’t count it out). Above and beyond the lack of product shots in current Christmas ads, we also see no branding. You would be forgiven for thinking that the ad was not some trailer for an upcoming film as Sainsbury’s is not mentioned until 3:15. The end line “Christmas is for sharing” does a valiant job of shoehorning trench warfare into the narrative of Christmas shopping.

The case for an emotive ad, stripped bare of product or branding, is strong when the formula is original (as it was with John Lewis ads in 2011). However, we are now faced with a situation where at the start of November Christmas ads are anything but original. The recipe is as follows: 1. emotive soundtrack (normally a piano cover of a classic) 2. A story in which no one has any idea of what is going on until the last 5 seconds (this is also the part in which the brand must fit into the narrative, however obscure). 3. And finally, but most importantly, never ever show any product.

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