John Lewis launches 'Buster the Boxer' Christmas campaign

John Lewis has launched its anticipated festive campaign with a TV advert featuring “Buster the Boxer” bouncing on a trampoline that it hopes “will make people smile”, as it steps away from the “sadvertising” of the past.

Set to air November 10 on ITV at around 9.15pm, the hotly anticipated advert tells the story of Buster the Boxer dog, a young girl called Bridget and her family at Christmas, featuring real and CGI animals, and centres on Bridget’s obsession with bouncing on beds, a space hopper and sofas.

In the two-minute-long film, you see Bridget’s parents setting up her trampoline for Christmas and hiding it in the garden to surprise her on Christmas Day, which then sees all sort of wildlife including foxes, a badger, a squirrel and a hedgehog jumping on it, while Buster looks on through the window. On Christmas morning, before Bridget can enjoy her present, Buster bounds past her and starts bouncing on her trampoline as she watches him.

The advert is set to a cover of Randy Crawford’s song ‘One Day I’ll Fly Away’ recorded by the British band Vaults, and ends with the tagline, “Gifts that everyone will love”.

“2016 has certainly been quite a year, so we hope our advert will make people smile,” said Craig Inglis, customer director at John Lewis. “It really embraces a sense of fun and magic, reminding everyone what it feels to give the perfect gift at Christmas.”

The 7 million pound campaign moves away from the “sadvertising” of last year’s ‘Man on the Moon’, which some John Lewis customers considered too melancholy as it featured a lonely man on the moon who is sent presents via a bunch of hot air balloons by a little girl, Lily, who is watching him from earth on her telescope.

The campaign was once again created by advertising agency adam&eveDDB and directed by Dougal Wilson, who was also behind 2011’s The Long Wait, 2012’s The Journey, and 2014’s Monty’s Christmas.

The campaign also has a charity angle, last year the retailer teamed up with Age UK, this year it has chosen The Wildlife Trusts as its Christmas campaign charity partner. As part of the partnership, John Lewis will make a donation to The Wildlife Trusts from the sale of soft toys of the characters feature in the advert. In addition, the retailer has also worked with the charity on a number educational tools which will be available online.

Inglis, said: “Each year we work with a charity which fits our ad, and we hope this year’s campaign will encourage more children to discover a love of British wildlife and encourage support of The Wildlife Trusts.”

John Lewis teams up with Snapchat and Twitter to launch Christmas campaign

The retailer is also bringing the campaign to life in its Oxford Street flagship store where shoppers can enter the world of Buster and his friends via a virtual reality experience using Oculus Rift. There’s also a 360-film available using Google Cardboard in the same space, and accessible on johnlewis.com and YouTube.

In addition, until midnight tonight, John Lewis is also sponsoring a bespoke Snapchat lens on the social media platform, which will transform users into Buster, while snow falls around them and hedgehogs and squirrels dart across the screen when they raise their eyebrows. The retailer will also be using Snapchat’s geolocation tool, enabling customers visiting any of its 48 stores to add a themed filter to their pictures while in store.

John Lewis has also teamed up with Twitter to launch bespoke Twitter stickers so users can personalise their own photos with Buster and his friends, until November 13.

The advert is launching on ITV, however, John Lewis has partnered with Sky so its 12 million customers can access a ‘making of the ad’ film and bespoke content about British Wildlife presented by Wildlife TV presenter Patrick Aryee exclusively available via the Sky On Demand homepage and Sky Go.

Images: John Lewis