John Lewis rests Christmas hopes on Monty The Penguin

Well here we go: the annual John Lewis Christmas spectacular from adam&eveDDB (cue the sharpening of knives).

To some it will be a bucket of goo, to others a charming tale of a small boy and his search for a friend for Monty The Penguin. Being a modern sort of penguin Monty has his own Twitter feed – #montythepenguin.

As ever, the music is key and this time it’s John Lennon’s ‘Real Love,’ which is a new/old one for me, sung nicely by Tom Odell. And the casting, pacing and direction by Dougal Wilson of Blink are spot on too.

Hardly the ‘Bear and Hare’ animated spectacular we had last year, which was a real high wire act.

But client and agency have succeeded, once again, in not dropping the ball.

Better put those knives away for another year.

Update

Strangely it’s just occurred to me why these things work. Christmas is actually quite a lonely time for kids, wondering what may be in store (or not). And the JL ads reflect this.

No happy families gathered round the tree, just the feeling that this annual ordeal hasn’t turned out too badly. Which is brave of both client and agency.