John Lewis Christmas 2023...featuring...a new Andrea Bocelli song
What's the verdict on the most anticipated Christmas ad of 2023?
Little shop...little shop of horrors...
Frankly this song from the 1986-movie Little Shop of Horrors is all we could think about while watching the newest John Lewis Christmas ad entitled. 'Snapper'.
Boy goes to a market, finds a growable Christmas tree, which turns out to be a Venus flytrap.
Predictably the plant grow quickly, develops a fractious personality, demands increasing amount of food from a family growing in concern for the long-term sustainability of this arrangement and eventually get turfed into the garden where it must exist in the cold, snowy Christmas conditions.
Ad is lovely, production values are top-notch, the music...yes, it's Andrea Bocelli BTW singing a song created just for the ad called Festa.
For many the song is stronger than the ad; ourselves being part of the chorus that side towards that sentiment.
It's not that the ad is bad, but just that all of the pieces of it don't seem to quite fit.
The story, the plant, the song, the brand, the occasion; all just seem to be slightly misaligned, which then leaves the viewer (many of whom have whipped themselves up into a bubbling froth of anticipation for this John Lewis ad) a tad deflated.
Perhaps the link between this ad and the plant that originally inspired it should have been made a little stronger. Whatever it is...it still needs work.