John Lewis Unveil Animated Christmas Campaign
The new animated Christmas advert for John Lewis should be gracing a TV screen near you. The £7 million campaign feature hand drawn woodland critters frolicking in a winter wonderland.
The two minute animation follows good friends Bear and Hare as they join the rest of there friends gathering and getting ready for christmas, as the first snow flake falls, Bears natural instinct to hibernate kicks in and he slinks away to his winter cave. Sad that his friend will miss out on all the festive fun, Hare follows him leaving a gift, when christmas rolls around, the creatures are gathered around the tree opening presents, the wistful hare looks on glumly. Bear meanwhile is awoken by ringing from his friends helpful gift of alarm clock. The two are reunited once again under the tree in a scene that should fill everyone with the kind of Christmassy delight only a huge chain of store can provide.
The animation itself brings together a massive array of talent including supervising animator Aaron Blaise, who’s work includes Disney classics Pocahontas and The Lion King as well as directing Brother Bear, which may account for the similarity. The music is acoustic version of the classic Kean track ‘Somewhere Only We Know’ recorded by Lilly Allen. John Lewis chief executive Andy Street said the campaign “pays tribute to all of our most memorable childhood Christmases” and was a move by the retailer to “position itself as owning Christmas in the UK”.
This commercial follows on from John Lewis’s hugely successful 2012 christmas advert the journey which followed a snow man traveling across country in order to find a gift for snow lady friend, which has since gone on to reached well over 1 million views on youtube. John Lewis is quickly becoming known for its unique and massively ambitious advertising videos which also includes the 5million ‘what matters most’ house insurance campaign.
The advert has already caused massive amount of excitement form online viewers across the net. John Lewis has bought an entire ad break of air time during the X-factor in order to gain the most amount of coverage. As well as this they plan to releases the song as a single on iTunes as well as a host of toys and gifts featuring the charecters ready for christmas, clever John Lewis! there is event a twitter feed for both the bear (@JohnLewis_Bear) and the Hare (@JohnLewis_Hare) so you can follow the characters through out christmas, as far as we know the bear is still mostly sleeping.
UPDATE 11/11/2013 – A ‘making of’ video detailing the incredible production process has been unveiled. Have a watch below to learn more: