Creative Director's Cut: 'Snapper: The Perfect Tree' by John Lewis

Making a Christmas advert has become a bucket list item for all creatives in the UK.

It wasn’t always the case. Back when you might get three or four big TV campaigns away every year, each with a seven figure budget, making a Christmas advert was just another brief. Today though, with diminishing TV audiences, brand campaigns and big boy budgets, getting the Christmas brief is the holy grail.

There’s no bigger instigator of this phenomenon than John Lewis. 

For years we watched adam&eveDDB hit and rarely miss. With the account switched to Saatchi & Saatchi this year, its latest campaign has had more scrutiny than probably ever before, if only from an industry point of view.

When it was ‘leaked’ that Megaforce was taking the reins, then you knew it was going to be visually striking with a healthy dose of absurdity. With its grand unveiling last week, that expectation has been met with joyful glee. The Little Shop of Horrors inspired ‘Snapper’ has hit our screens and the switch to Saatchi’s seems to have paid off.

The craft is impeccable. The story simultaneously tugs at your heartstrings whilst shaking you wildly with the frenetic excitement of Christmas being just around the corner. 

The cherry on the top, though, is the music. 

Specially written for the advert by Le Feste Antonacchi and sung by Andrea Bocelli, it reiterates to all in this business that how a film sounds is as important as how it looks and what it says. It’s also a break from the John Lewis tradition of re-recording a song with another artist—which might just be a new tradition that grows for the brand.