John Lewis Christmas advert will make you wonder in more ways than one – Scotsman comment

The John Lewis Christmas advertising campaign has become something of an eagerly anticipated fixture in the UK’s seasonal calendar.

And its latest offering could elevate this employee-owned business to the status of a ‘national institution’, if it's not there already. Somehow, it has managed to pull off the extraordinary marketing coup of making pretty much everybody stop being cynical about what is, after all, still just an advert.

In recent years, they have used a bear and a hare, a penguin, a lonely old man on the moon and a host of other characters to win us over. Their new offering, entitled The Beginner, features a man attempting to learn how to skateboard, with predictably painful results, set to a cover version of Blink 182's song All the Small Things.

The 90-second film was created by an ad agency, but with help from two charities, Who Cares? Scotland and Action for Children. It features only two brief glimpses of the Lewis Bear toy, so this is the subtlest of marketing. Some of the proceeds from sales of the bear and other selected items will go to the charities.

We will leave you to wonder about the not-so-small reason why the man is risking life and limb on a skateboard despite being well past the normal age at which people take up such things, but it is a heart-warming one.

And perhaps we can all wonder about different kinds of companies and the good that they can do, if they want to.