Sunday 4 December 2011

4th December – reality vs the ads

Just as I sat down to pen (ok, key) this blog entry, the John Lewis Christmas ad appeared on the TV. I’d already started looking for more background on this – is the JL ad the measure of the times? There’s a ‘Making of..’ video on the JL website – the ad cost £5m. The good thing about the JL ad is that it’s all about giving, not receiving. There’s an interesting commentary about this and other Christmas ads on the Guardian web site.


As an aside: it’s interesting that the anti-capitalist protests don’t seem to worry about retailers – that bit of capitalism is ok?


Stephen Cottrell thinks the ads are far from reality – families don’t behave like this. I think I’m very lucky that our gang are not at all dysfunctional. We’re not like the JL ads but family get-togethers are fairly stress-free. One Grandson’s suggestion to occupy himself and his mother when his school was closed last week was that they go together to have lunch at Da Vinci’s, the local Italian restaurant!


The book also refers to snowy ads asking ‘why is it always snowing on the adverts? Can anyone remember the last time it snowed at Christmas?’ I can: 2010, 2009. I hope this isn’t a portent of a white Christmas for 2011!





But back to connecting with the real story of Christmas. Carolyn’s story this morning was really relevant: we’re so busily inundated with info these days that we don’t stop.

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