An early Christmas surprise from John Lewis

4 mins read

High-end department store, John Lewis has dropped their advertisement for Christmas two weeks prior. Perhaps, this is meant to serve as a reminder for shoppers to get their Christmas shopping done early.

Content of the ad

From what has been gathered, an important aspect of John Lewis’ advertisements is the story and the storytelling of the ad. From a personal point of view, these are quite akin and reminiscent of Enid Blyton’s books.

For this time, in 2021, a young boy during Christmas time spots a magical rainbow-like beam crashing into the forest. Curious, he checks it out and discovers an alien-nymph creature. Terrified of what he has discovered, he runs away home.

Despite the terrifying experience, his curiosity hadn’t been satiated and he finds himself in the forest once again. The alien-nymph being catches him looking for it. Being equally intrigued by him, it chooses to understand him more.

The duo spends more and more time during Christmas. At last, the day arrives comes when the nymph needs to leave Earth for good. The boy gifts her the lights he had when it had first found him in the forest. With a goodbye kiss, the alien-nymph being leaves for good.

The reaction

Despite the ad’s benevolent message, some on Twitter argued that this advertisement unnecessarily marginalised folks by masquerading as a woke advertisement.

The alien being white in colour was taken as a symbolism of the white majority of the UK being alienated. Furthermore, this was seen as a deliberate move on behalf of John Lewis and henceforth all proclamations of rage and boycott were declared.

 

Others, of course, took the ad at more at face value and were pleased with it.

Another unexpected but surprising occurrence that got tied with this ad. Several people spotted a possibly manufactured crashed sight with the hashtag #UnexpectedGuest. Since this is the hashtag John Lewis had used to share their ad on Twitter; some were speculating if both of these occurrences were connected or not and were at the very least; confused.