Vanessa on displaying integrity via woodland creatures

I’ve always been a total sucker for advertising, especially beauty and perfume ads. The most recent example was Herbal Essence honey shampoo. I was convinced that if I used it I’d end up looking like Nicole Scherzinger. Sadly that didn’t happen, but I was still happy with my little fantasy and so felt like I got my money’s worth.

But really great ad campaigns seem to be a thing of the past (stand fast Guinness), with TV advertising losing its value to the internet, and anyone being able to cobble together an info-rich and irritating advert that pops up on your screen when you’re trying to stream a TV show. Whenever I’m interrupted by a pop-up ad or a pre-video ad on YouTube I screw my eyes tight shut and say to the screen, “I will never buy your product. Ever.” And I don’t. I avoid brands that ‘force’ me to watch their ads even if it’s a brand that I have always used, like Detol who recently tried to explain to me how they kill 99.9% of bacteria right in the middle of C.J Cregg singing ‘The Jackal’ on The West Wing. Don’t they know you must never interrupt a girl while she’s lip-syncing to Ronny Jordan?
Which is why it was so refreshing to see the new John Lewis Hare and Bear ad campaign over Christmas. I get emotional about the strangest things. Schindler’s List didn’t make me cry, but Armageddon had me in tears at three separate points throughout the film. Dancer In The Dark didn’t do it, but the John Lewis Hare and Bear ad has me welling up every time the Hare’s ears fall in disappointment and then the sun rises and the Bear is there! He came! For Christmas! For truth! And Beauty! And the music swells and Lily Allen’s sweet, trainer-and-ball-dress-wearing voice rises with that silly, brilliant Keane song. Not to mention that I deeply identify with the Bear’s desire to sleep through the winter.

“I get emotional about the strangest things. Schindler’s List didn’t make me cry, but Armageddon had me in tears”

What was so great about the ad (I know there are cynical haters out there who will disagree) is that it gave the viewer something; an enjoyable 2.5 minutes. It doesn’t sell John Lewis in any way, and by not selling John Lewis, it sure as hell sells John Lewis with journalists reporting a 10% profit spike (at time of writing) on last year since its release.

To me it’s great because it’s retained artistic integrity. I really hate 3D and CGI which, for all its three dimensionalness looks totally flat. I love sets, I love seeing depth through the screen, I appreciate an authentic, crafted experience. And yes, it’s more expensive to produce, and it’s time-consuming and the crafts-people are becoming few and far between, but, as Where The Wild Things Are proved, the results are astonishing in terms of cinematography and the pathos that investing time, money and energy into a project produces. The audience feels that, and they appreciate a retailer, who ultimately wants your money, saying, “here’s something for you”. It says a lot about their values. I miss the days of great ad campaigns. I really hope that John Lewis has started a trend… I wish more ad and marketing people would wake up and realise that we can see through their press releases and sponsored tweets and we want more. An alarm clock, for example.

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