Ad measurer System1 has pronounced that this year’s eagerly-awaited ad from John Lewis has earned the retailer’s highest effectiveness score in ten years: 4.6 (which is nothing to write home about by System1 standards as the top ones get 5.9.) This is the best score since 2019’s ‘Excitable Edgar’ (a dragon.)
This year’s ‘The Gifting Hour’ from Saatchi & Saatchi features an angst-ridden search for a present for sister, and a JL store for just about the first time. Former agency adam&eveDDB eschewed them.
System1 CMO Jon Evans says: “From Elton John to Excitable Edgar, thoughtful gifting has been the common thread in a decade of John Lewis ads. It’s what makes ‘The Gifting Hour’ such a great Christmas ad too. The lifetime bond between the sisters means love, family and gifts are among the strongest associations viewers have with the ad. John Lewis continues to make Christmas ads like nobody else, and the people have spoken – it’s one of their best.”
Well maybe. System1 uses its Test Your Ad platform of consumers to score ads. Such consumers though don’t always get the wider context. They often prefer a simple story.
As Laurence Green remarked here in his the Ten villains of creative effectiveness beware the “false god of precision. Broad is good. ‘Wastage’ may be brand fame, future demand in disguise.”
John Lewis ads used to position to store chain as the home of Christmas and the warm, cuzzy feelings associated with it. They did much more than direct people to the store (shoppers complain now that the stores have insufficient stock, frustrating to make a special store visit and then be directed online.)
Does this year’s Saatchi effort nurture brand fame, the fabled “future demand in disguise?” It might do but it’s a bit early to tell.
