The John Lewis Christmas advert has become a British institution, but this year's offering left me feeling rather cold. As the criticism makes national headlines, what does the reaction mean for the retailer's reputation, and could it realistically affect Christmas sales?
Every year, there is a moment when Christmas suddenly starts to feel as though it's approaching. The decorations appear in shop windows, M&S somehow performs its annual witchcraft by dreaming up the most deliciously delightful Christmas treats imaginable, seemingly inventing something new every year (they really are the Willy Wonkas of Christmas food), and, somewhere among it all, John Lewis releases its Christmas advert. For many of us, it's become something we genuinely look forward to, which is quite an achievement when you consider that we're talking about an advertisement for a department store.
John Lewis has spent twenty years turning its Christmas campaigns into something resembling a national tradition. People voluntarily seek them out, discuss them with friends, compare them with previous years and occasionally find themselves crying over a fictional penguin. Most retailers would be delighted if customers paid this much attention to their advertising, but John Lewis has reached the point where the release of its Christmas advert is itself a news event.
One of my faves from John Lewis (2013)
Having watched this year's offering, Gloria and Pickles, I have to admit that I didn't think it was particularly good. It didn't give me the familiar Christmas warmth that I've come to associate with John Lewis, and I didn't find it especially moving. Instead, I found myself feeling rather sorry for the grandmother at the centre of the story.
The advert has already attracted considerable criticism, with national newspapers questioning everything from its portrayal of family life to whether its rather affluent setting reflects the mood of the country. But from a public relations perspective, the reaction is arguably more interesting than the advert itself. When a retailer can generate national headlines simply because people don't like its Christmas advertising, it says an enormous amount about the expectations that business has created.
The question is whether those expectations have become a problem for John Lewis, or whether the attention is simply another demonstration of its extraordinary brand recognition.
This years ad:
Why I didn't particularly enjoy this year's advert
The 2026 campaign stars Dame Kristin Scott Thomas as Gloria, a grandmother preparing her beautiful London home for Christmas. Her daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren arrive, and the children quickly become restless, making a mess of her immaculate study and showing little interest in an old wooden toy dog she retrieves from the attic.
Gloria, unsure what to buy them for Christmas, decides to put money into their Christmas cards. At that point, the toy dog, Pickles, comes to life. Voiced by Paul Whitehouse, he tells her that she can do better than giving cash and takes her on a magical shopping adventure through London. Eventually, Gloria transforms her study into a colourful room filled with lights, music and decorations, where she and her grandchildren can spend time together.
John Lewis has introduced the campaign with the words….
Meet Gloria and Pickles, discovering the joy of finding a gift that brings you closer, don't give up on giving.
I think I understand what the creative team was trying to achieve. There's a genuine generational disconnect when it comes to technology, interests and the way children experience the world today. Grandparents who grew up with entirely different toys and traditions can understandably find it difficult to relate to grandchildren whose lives revolve around screens, games and technology they may not fully understand. I suspect John Lewis wanted older viewers, particularly those watching the advert on television, to recognise something of themselves in Gloria. That feeling of wanting to make a child happy but no longer being entirely sure how to do it is both relatable and rather touching.
It's a good starting point for a Christmas story, and in the hands of John Lewis, a brand that has historically been so good at making us feel something, it could have been wonderful. But I found the way it was portrayed surprisingly depressing. Instead of feeling moved by a grandmother trying to bridge the generational divide, I felt rather sad watching a woman who had already gone to considerable trouble to make Christmas special being made to feel that she wasn't doing enough.
Here is a grandmother who has prepared her beautiful home, welcomed her family and tried to share something meaningful from her own childhood. The children are largely uninterested, and the solution, apparently, is for her to make an even greater effort. I know they're fictional children, and perhaps I'm being unfair, but my immediate reaction was to wonder what ungrateful little shits they were. It wasn't the reaction I expected to have to a John Lewis Christmas advert, but there we are.
What I find particularly strange is the tagline, Don't give up on giving. I understand the intended reassurance. John Lewis wants grandparents to feel confident that they can still find gifts that bring them closer to their grandchildren, even when their interests seem worlds apart. But the wording feels oddly dispiriting for a Christmas campaign. Giving is supposed to be something joyful and generous, yet the phrase almost makes it sound like an exhausting responsibility that people are on the verge of abandoning.
And when you consider the story being told, it becomes even stranger. Gloria hasn't given up on giving. She's already prepared Christmas for her family and is planning to give her grandchildren money, which is a perfectly thoughtful present in its own right. Yet the advert introduces a magical character who effectively tells her that this isn't good enough. Rather than celebrating the generosity already in front of us, the story seems to suggest that the grandmother needs to find a more impressive way to earn her grandchildren's enthusiasm.
What's particularly interesting is that John Lewis has said it deliberately wanted this year's campaign to feel more joyful. Speaking to The Guardian, the retailer's marketing director, Rosie Hanley, explained that the decision was partly influenced by the financial pressures facing British families. I can understand that intention, but it makes my reaction to the advert all the more curious. Rather than finding it uplifting, I found it rather sad.
The company identified a genuine anxiety among grandparents, with its research suggesting that 52% give cash because they aren't sure what their grandchildren want. Yet instead of reassuring those grandparents that their generosity is already meaningful, the story seems to suggest that giving money is something they should try to improve upon. I wonder how many grandparents watching at home will recognise themselves in Gloria, only to feel that they, too, ought to be making more of an effort.
Perhaps that wouldn't matter quite so much in an ordinary Christmas advert, but John Lewis has spent years establishing an expectation of warmth, innocence and nostalgia. Think of Monty the Penguin, The Bear and the Hare or The Man on the Moon. Those campaigns managed to take relatively simple stories and make them feel genuinely lovely. They reminded us of childhood, companionship and the small acts of kindness that make Christmas special. Even when the subject matter was sad, there was a warmth to the storytelling that left you feeling better for having watched it.
I didn't get that feeling from Gloria and Pickles. I understood the message, appreciated the intention and could see the effort that had gone into producing it, but I finished watching it feeling rather miserable. Instead of reminding me of the magic of Christmas, it reminded me of how much the world has changed, how difficult it can be for different generations to understand one another and how easily ordinary gestures of love can be overlooked.
From an advertising perspective, that's a fascinating distinction. A brand can research its audience, identify a genuinely relatable problem and construct an entire campaign around solving it, but it still has to make people feel something positive about the solution. John Lewis appears to have identified a real anxiety among grandparents, yet for me, the advert reinforced that anxiety rather than reassuring me that the joy of Christmas can still be found in the simplest things.
Have we lost some of the magic of Christmas?
I don't know whether this is simply a consequence of being in my mid-thirties, but I've found myself becoming increasingly nostalgic for Christmas in the 1990s. Everything seemed so colourful, wonderfully tacky and exciting. The decorations were enormous, the shops were full of things you didn't know you wanted, and there was something rather lovely about the effort that went into Christmas.
I recently rewatched Jingle All the Way, the 1996 Christmas film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, and found myself feeling strangely sentimental about something as mundane as having to physically go shopping for presents.
I found myself missing the idea of having to go somewhere to find a present. Walking around shops, seeing the Christmas displays, coming across something unexpected and thinking of someone who might love it. Even the slightly chaotic shopping centres and the endless queues feel rather nostalgic when I think about them now.
Of course, online shopping has made our lives enormously easier. I use it as much as anyone else, and I certainly wouldn't suggest that Christmas was objectively better simply because people had to queue in shops. But I do wonder whether we've lost something in making everything so convenient.
I remember Christmas being about the excitement of discovering things. Looking through toy catalogues, seeing something in a shop window and wondering whether Father Christmas might somehow manage to bring it. Now, so much of that discovery happens on a screen. Children can watch endless videos of the things they want, compare them, send links to their parents and know exactly what they're getting.
I'm sure children today will have their own wonderful Christmas memories, just as we did. But I do feel a little sad that they'll never experience quite the same version of Christmas that I remember. The colourful decorations, the novelty toys, the excitement of finding something you hadn't even known existed and that wonderfully tacky, almost excessive version of Christmas that seemed to be everywhere in the 1990s.
Perhaps I'm romanticising it. I'm sure my parents would remember the expense, the queues and the stress rather differently. But I miss it, and I think that's partly why this year's John Lewis advert left me feeling so cold.
There's a detail in the campaign that makes this feeling particularly poignant. Pickles is based on the Fisher-Price Little Snoopy pull-along toy, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary. John Lewis has deliberately chosen something that older generations may remember from their own childhoods, presumably hoping to create a connection between the Christmases they experienced and the Christmases their grandchildren are growing up with.
Yet the children in the advert barely give the toy a second glance. Something that might once have been a treasured Christmas present is now an object of little interest, and the grandmother is left searching for something more exciting.
I appreciate that this is precisely the generational divide the advert is trying to explore, but it made me feel rather sad. Instead of celebrating the lovely simplicity of childhood Christmases, the story seems to suggest that those things are no longer enough.
Perhaps that's part of the difficulty for John Lewis. The retailer has built an extraordinary reputation for making people nostalgic for Christmas, but nostalgia can work against a brand when an advert reminds viewers of something they feel they've lost rather than something they still have.
Why is the John Lewis Christmas advert making national news?
The reaction to this year's campaign has already attracted considerable media attention 5 hours in. The Guardian has examined the advert and its commercial ambitions, while The Sun has reported criticism from viewers who found it disappointing, depressing or lacking the emotional warmth of previous years.
Other coverage has focused on the advert's rather affluent setting. Gloria lives in an impressive London home, wears expensive clothing and has enough space to transform an entire room into an elaborate Christmas surprise. At a time when many families are struggling with the cost of living, it's understandable that some viewers might find that world difficult to relate to.
And, of course, it wouldn't be the internet without some thoroughly unpleasant commentary. I've seen some vile remarks about the casting of a mixed-race family, with people complaining that the advert is somehow too 'woke'. I find that sort of reaction utterly repulsive, particularly when we're talking about a Christmas advert featuring an entirely ordinary family. There are plenty of perfectly reasonable things to criticise about the storytelling, as I've just demonstrated, but the ethnicity of the people appearing in it is certainly not one of them.
I also think it's important not to mistake the loudest voices online for the views of the wider public. Social media has a remarkable ability to amplify a relatively small number of unpleasant people, particularly when their comments are provocative enough to attract attention. Their outrage may generate headlines, but that doesn't mean it represents any meaningful shift in public attitudes towards John Lewis.
What's more interesting to me is that an advertisement can generate this level of national scrutiny at all. How many retailers could release a Christmas campaign in the morning and find themselves the subject of newspaper reviews, social media arguments and discussions about the state of modern Christmas before lunchtime?
John Lewis has managed to create an advertising tradition that people feel genuinely invested in. The public doesn't simply watch the advert and decide whether to visit the shop. It judges the storytelling, the soundtrack, the casting, the message and whether the campaign has lived up to the emotional standards established by previous years.
That's an extraordinary commercial achievement, but it also places a remarkable amount of pressure on the people responsible for producing it.
John Lewis is competing with its own history
For twenty years, John Lewis has built an emotional relationship with the British public through its Christmas advertising. Think of Monty the Penguin, The Man on the Moon, The Bear and the Hare or Buster the Boxer. These weren't simply successful advertisements. They became part of people's Christmas memories, with music, characters and stories that stayed with viewers long after the campaigns had finished.
The retailer became exceptionally good at understanding the emotions people associate with Christmas, particularly kindness, loneliness, companionship, generosity and family. Over time, those associations became part of the brand itself.
This is where John Lewis faces an unusual challenge. Most retailers release Christmas advertising in the hope that people will notice it. John Lewis releases Christmas advertising knowing that people will compare it with twenty years of previous campaigns.
The public isn't simply asking whether the new advert is good. It's asking whether it makes them feel the way the old ones did, and nostalgia is an exceptionally difficult competitor. An advert that someone remembers watching with their family ten years ago has an emotional advantage that a new campaign cannot easily replicate.
From a branding perspective, this is both an enormous asset and a considerable responsibility. John Lewis has created something that people associate with the beginning of Christmas, but it has also created an expectation that every new campaign should deliver a particular emotional experience.
The company is effectively competing with its own history, and that is a difficult position for any creative team. If it continues producing sentimental stories about lonely animals and unlikely friendships, it risks becoming predictable. If it experiments with something different, viewers complain that it no longer feels like John Lewis.
Will the criticism actually affect John Lewis sales?
From a commercial perspective, I think the likelihood of this particular advert having a meaningful negative effect on Christmas sales is relatively low, although it's far too early to make any definitive assessment.
People don't generally choose where to buy a television, a sofa or their Christmas presents based entirely on whether they enjoyed a particular advertisement. Purchasing decisions are influenced by price, availability, convenience, product quality, customer service and numerous other considerations.
Someone might dislike the John Lewis Christmas advert and still spend hundreds of pounds in the department store. Equally, someone might love the advert and never purchase anything from John Lewis.
Emotional engagement and commercial behaviour are connected, but they are not interchangeable.
It's worth remembering the considerable commercial investment behind the campaign. John Lewis has confirmed that it increased its advertising spend this year, while its marketing director has expressed confidence in achieving a strong return. According to figures from the Advertising Association and WARC, festive advertising expenditure across the UK is expected to reach £14 billion in 2026, an increase of 8.2% on last year.
Against that backdrop, John Lewis is competing for far more than a favourable review. It wants customers visiting its stores, browsing its website and choosing the retailer when they come to spend their Christmas budgets.
Hanley has already said that spending on Christmas-related products at John Lewis is running ahead of last year, although those figures predate the advert's release. This is why I would be cautious about describing the negative reaction as commercially damaging. A retailer can produce an advert that disappoints some viewers while still achieving its broader marketing objectives.
There may be individuals who decide not to shop at John Lewis because of their objections to the family's casting. Some of those making hostile comments online may genuinely take their business elsewhere, although there's no reliable evidence at present to establish how many would do so, or whether they were regular John Lewis customers in the first place.
I doubt that would represent a significant commercial loss for the retailer, and I certainly wouldn't advise any brand to alter its representation of ordinary family life in an attempt to appease people making racist objections.
A more relevant question is whether the wider audience feels less emotionally connected to John Lewis because of the campaign. That is something the retailer should monitor, but one disappointing advert is unlikely to undo twenty years of brand-building.
There is also the possibility that the criticism will encourage more people to watch the advert for themselves. Someone who wouldn't ordinarily seek out a Christmas campaign may become curious after seeing headlines describing it as disappointing or controversial.
That additional attention has commercial value, even if the response isn't universally positive. But it would be a mistake to assume that attention alone makes a campaign successful.
Is this bad PR for John Lewis?
I wouldn't describe the reaction to this year's advert as bad PR, certainly not in the traditional sense. John Lewis hasn't done anything particularly wrong, and there's nothing inherently offensive or objectionable about the campaign itself. What we're seeing is disappointment rather than outrage, at least among those criticising the advert for its storytelling rather than making unpleasant remarks about the casting. People aren't suddenly questioning whether John Lewis is a trustworthy retailer or reconsidering their relationship with the business. They're simply disappointed that an advert they've come to look forward to hasn't quite lived up to their expectations.
And I think the wider mood of the country has quite a lot to do with that. It's been a strange and, at times, rather exhausting year. Between the cost of living, the relentless news cycle and everything else people are trying to navigate, I suspect many of us were rather looking forward to sitting in front of the television and enjoying a few minutes of lovely, nostalgic Christmas escapism. Something innocent, perhaps a little sentimental, that reminds us of the Christmases we remember from childhood. John Lewis has historically been exceptionally good at providing exactly that, which is why I think the disappointment feels more pronounced this year.
Instead, the advert presents us with another rather depressing reality of modern life: a grandmother struggling to connect with children who seem largely uninterested in the things she remembers and the effort she's making. It's a relatable situation, certainly, but I'm not sure it's one people particularly wanted to be reminded of at Christmas. There's very little escapism in the story. Even the eventual happy ending feels like a solution to a problem that didn't really need to exist in the first place. Sometimes people don't want advertising to reflect the difficulties of everyday life quite so accurately. They want it to offer a brief escape from them.
And this is where John Lewis has, rather hilariously, become a victim of its own success. The retailer has done such a brilliant job with its Christmas advertising over the years that people now approach each new campaign with extraordinarily high expectations. They've become accustomed to beautiful storytelling, memorable characters and that slightly ridiculous experience of finding themselves emotional over a department store advert. When the latest campaign doesn't quite deliver, people aren't necessarily angry with John Lewis. They're sad that it hasn't made them feel the way they hoped it would.
From a reputation management perspective, that's an important distinction. Negative publicity becomes a more serious concern when it begins to undermine the qualities people associate with a business, such as trust, integrity or reliability. I don't see evidence of that happening here. John Lewis hasn't suddenly become a less credible retailer because some viewers found its Christmas advert depressing. Its reputation has been built over decades, through customer experiences, product quality, service and a great deal of successful marketing. One disappointing creative campaign is unlikely to undo all of that.
That doesn't mean the criticism is worthless. John Lewis should absolutely be interested in why the campaign hasn't resonated with some viewers, particularly when the company deliberately set out to make this year's advert more joyful. If people are coming away feeling sad rather than uplifted, there's a useful lesson in that for future campaigns. But listening to an audience and treating its disappointment as a reputational emergency are two very different things.
I also think there's something quite remarkable about the fact that we're discussing this at all. Most retailers would be thrilled if people cared enough about their advertising to feel genuinely disappointed when it wasn't as good as previous years. John Lewis has created a level of emotional investment that very few brands could hope to achieve. The public feels almost a sense of ownership over its Christmas adverts, as though they're part of a shared British tradition rather than a commercial exercise designed to sell products.
Ultimately, I don't think John Lewis has a reputation problem. It has an expectations problem, and one largely of its own making. People wanted a little Christmas magic, and some of us didn't feel we got it. That's disappointing, but it's hardly a crisis. If anything, the strength of the reaction demonstrates just how much affection people still have for the brand, and how much they want it to get Christmas right.
There's also the old saying that there's no such thing as bad publicity, which I don't necessarily agree with, particularly when it comes to reputational damage. But in this instance, I can see the argument. John Lewis has managed to secure national newspaper coverage, television discussion and considerable online attention for what is, ultimately, a Christmas advertisement. Even if the coverage isn't universally complimentary, the retailer's name is appearing in front of millions of people at precisely the time of year when it wants to be at the forefront of their minds. Someone reading a critical review might decide to watch the advert for themselves, visit the John Lewis website or simply be reminded that they still have Christmas presents to buy. That doesn't automatically make the campaign a commercial success, but it's certainly not the worst outcome for a retailer heading into its busiest trading period. While the creative team might understandably prefer glowing reviews, I suspect the marketing department won't be entirely disappointed to see John Lewis dominating the conversation as Christmas shopping gets underway.
How should John Lewis respond to the criticism?
If I were advising John Lewis, my recommendation would be to do very little. There is no crisis to manage here, and I don't think the company has anything to apologise for. Some people haven't enjoyed the advert, myself included, but that's hardly a reason for a retailer to start issuing statements or defending its creative decisions. Not every negative headline requires a response, and sometimes the most sensible PR advice is simply to leave things alone.
I certainly wouldn't recommend attempting to explain the advert to people who didn't enjoy it. John Lewis has already communicated what it wanted the campaign to achieve, and viewers are perfectly entitled to interpret it differently. Trying to persuade people that they should have found something heartwarming when they didn't would be a rather pointless exercise. If anything, it risks drawing more attention to the criticism and making the company appear unnecessarily defensive.
Instead, I'd be inclined to let the campaign run its course. John Lewis has invested considerably in this year's Christmas advertising, and the coverage is keeping the retailer in the national conversation at an enormously important time commercially. Even the less flattering reviews are reminding people that Christmas is approaching and that John Lewis is somewhere they might consider shopping. There's little to be gained from interrupting that momentum simply because the creative reception hasn't been universally enthusiastic.
Behind the scenes, however, I would absolutely be paying attention. The company should be monitoring the reaction, looking at which elements of the advert people are responding to and, more importantly, whether any of that criticism is influencing customer behaviour. If the advert is attracting considerable attention, driving people to the website and encouraging shoppers to consider John Lewis for Christmas presents, then the campaign may still prove commercially successful despite disappointing some viewers. Equally, if the research later suggests that audiences are becoming less emotionally connected to the brand's Christmas advertising, that's worth understanding before planning next year's campaign.
I'd also distinguish between people who simply dislike the story and those making racist comments about the casting. The former are expressing perfectly reasonable opinions about an advertisement, while the latter are not an audience John Lewis needs to appease. I wouldn't advise changing the campaign or engaging in arguments with people objecting to the presence of a mixed-race family. The retailer can maintain its position without allowing those voices to dictate the conversation.
Ultimately, I think John Lewis should carry on doing what it does best: selling Christmas. Continue promoting the products, the gift ideas and the wider festive experience, and allow people to make up their own minds about Gloria and Pickles. There's no need to manufacture a response to a controversy that, for most viewers, amounts to little more than finding this year's advert a bit disappointing.
And perhaps the most important thing is not to overreact to the very expectations John Lewis has spent twenty years creating. People care about these adverts because the retailer has given them a reason to. That affection hasn't suddenly disappeared because one campaign hasn't quite delivered the Christmas magic some of us were hoping for. I'd take the feedback on board, learn from it and concentrate on making next year's advert something people genuinely look forward to again.
Has John Lewis become a victim of its own success?
I think John Lewis has, to some extent, become a victim of its own success. The company has spent twenty years creating something that people genuinely look forward to, and that's a remarkable achievement for a retailer. But it also means the expectations are almost impossibly high. We're no longer judging these adverts simply on whether they're entertaining or whether they make us want to buy something. We're comparing them with years of Christmas memories, favourite songs and stories that have become strangely sentimental to us. That's a difficult standard for any creative team to meet, however talented they might be.
And I do think it's worth giving John Lewis credit for what it has achieved. Kristin Scott Thomas is wonderful, the production is beautifully done, and I can appreciate the thinking behind the story. The research into grandparents feeling disconnected from younger generations is genuinely interesting, and there's certainly a lovely Christmas advert to be made about that subject. I just don't think this was quite it. For me, the children were difficult to warm to, the grandmother was already making a perfectly lovely effort, and the eventual surprise didn't provide the emotional satisfaction I've come to associate with the best John Lewis campaigns.
Perhaps that's the problem with advertising that relies so heavily on emotion. You can spend millions on a campaign, employ brilliant people and research exactly what your audience is worried about, but you can't guarantee that the finished product will make people feel what you intended. John Lewis wanted this year's advert to be more joyful, yet I finished watching it feeling rather sad. I understood the story and appreciated the message, but neither of those things made me enjoy it.
From a business perspective, though, I don't think John Lewis has an awful lot to worry about. The retailer has decades of customer relationships, a recognisable identity and a reputation that extends far beyond its Christmas advertising. One disappointing campaign is unlikely to change where people do their shopping, particularly when the criticism is largely about personal taste rather than anything the company has done wrong. And, as we've already established, the advert has managed to generate national attention just as the Christmas shopping season gets underway. There are certainly worse commercial outcomes.
If anything, I think the disappointment demonstrates how much affection people still have for John Lewis. Nobody would be particularly bothered if a retailer they didn't care about released an underwhelming Christmas advert. The reason people have such strong opinions is because John Lewis has given them years of wonderful campaigns, and they genuinely want the next one to be just as good. There's something rather lovely about that, even if it must be frustrating for the people responsible for producing them.
Personally, I think I'll be watching Jingle All the Way again this Christmas, reminiscing about those wonderfully chaotic Christmases of the 1990s, when finding the perfect present involved traipsing around shops, looking through catalogues and hoping that whatever you desperately wanted hadn't sold out. I'm sure I'm remembering it through rather rose-tinted glasses, but there's something about that version of Christmas that I still miss.
And perhaps that's all I really wanted from John Lewis this year. Not a more expensive present, an elaborate surprise or a grandmother having to prove that she understands modern children. Just a few minutes of that lovely, slightly ridiculous Christmas magic that the company has been so good at giving us over the years.
Gloria and Pickles didn't quite manage it for me, but I suspect I'll still be looking forward to next year's advert. And I imagine plenty of other people will be too.