British department store John Lewis has become infamous for its Christmas ads in recent years. They're usually mawkish, overly sentimental, and calculated to make people already emotional at Christmas get a bit misty eyed at an attempt to sell them stuff, but this year's version is notable for actually being quite nice — even if it does blatantly rip off viral videos.
The ad stars a dog, a fox, and a trampoline, as well as a menagerie of the UK's woodland creatures. John Lewis has gone mightily high concept before in its Christmas commercials, but this one has a simple message: jumping on trampolines is fun, even if you're a fox (and also, buy a trampoline). On a day like today, that kind of message may be exactly what you need. Unless, that is, your name is also John Lewis and you own the @johnlewis Twitter account, in which case you're in for another year of abuse and praise from strangers.
It beats last year's John Lewis ad, anyway, which marooned a lonely old man on the moon and set the whole thing to a mopey, breathy indie cover version of an Oasis song. But even that had nothing on the Christmas 2015 ad by German chain Edeka, which featured an elderly psychopath faking his own death in a sick bid to force his children to visit him. Christmas: it's a time for manipulation and emotional blackmail.
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