Did you know there was a new advert for a shop? Yes, the annual new Christmas ad for John Lewis is now an ‘event’ worthy of reporting by the media.

Surely you must have seen it already, so here’s some spurious facts about the coverage it has generated:

1. It cost a lot

£1 million for an animated 2 minute advert – that’s £8,333 per second.  To put that in context, Toy Story 3 cost around $200m for 103 minutes – a mere £20,000 per second and they won 2 Oscars for that.

Buzz

‘To Christmas…and beyond’

2. It has a lot of You Tube views

Over 4.5 million in the first four days, more than their 2012 ad managed in total.   But it’s not trending as fast as this cover of Daft Punk’s ‘Get Lucky’ by the Russian police.

3. They stole the idea from a book anyway

Of course they deny it, but as everyone who has read ‘Bear Stays up for Christmas‘ knows, the plot has been stolen.

bear

4. There’s a lot of Tweeting about it

In the 24 hours after it was launched the ad was mentioned in 49,152 tweets, according to econsultancy.

Awww...sweet!

Awww…sweet!

5. If you use social networks, there’s no avoiding it

58% of UK Twitter users and 9% of Facebook users had seen a mention of John Lewis in the first two days, according to YouGov.

5. The characters in the ad have their own Twitter accounts

Should you be so inclined you can follow the hare and the bear on Twitter.  Seriously.

Hare has over 5000 followers...

Hare has over 5000 followers…

6. The ad cost a lot to put on telly

John Lewis paid £750,000 for the two-minute slot during X Factor. Twitter users complained that the ad was better than the programme itself.

7. The Tesco Christmas ad is much more emotionally manipulative

…and therefore better.  Decide for yourself:

9. John Lewis from Blacksburg, Virginia is not a shop

Despite this, he regularly gets tagged thanking him for his creativity…

john_lewis

 

By Iain Martin