The old advice to save the best until last has rarely felt more appropriate than it does with this year’s Christmas advertising lineup.
Marks & Spencer is the final department store to unveil its festive campaign and, unlike the offering from its biggest rival, John Lewis, the result is both controversy-free and remarkably well judged.
The contest for the season’s best commercial may have been decided months ago, however, when someone on the M&S creative team presumably suggested: ‘What about a bare-chested James Norton playing Santa Claus?’ It is difficult to imagine a better pitch.
The complete three-minute advert, released today, begins with actress Lucy Punch, best known for playing super-snob Amanda Hughes in the BBC sitcom Amandaland, as Mrs Claus.
She is sitting up in bed in an especially stylish pair of pink, striped sateen pyjamas—the same £35 set that husbands across Britain may well be buying for their wives this Christmas.
At the North Pole, her weather-beaten husband, Santa, played by James Norton, is tending to his trademark bushy beard.
Marks & Spencer has won over female viewers with a bare-chested James Norton in its Christmas campaign
In the advert, Norton—aka Santa Claus—shaves off his beard at his wife’s suggestion
‘I wonder, my love, have you ever considered losing the beard? They say it takes years off you,’ Mrs Claus asks.
‘No! It’s my thing!’ he protests.
Keen to keep his wife happy, though, he agrees to shave it off—and emerges looking like a James Bond-style heart-throb.
Wrapped in a skimpy bath towel, with his hairy chest and rippling torso on full display, he asks Mrs Claus for her verdict. ‘Saint Nicholas!’ she cries, leaping from bed in excitement.
Now almost unrecognisable, Santa takes the opportunity to experience Christmas as ordinary people do. He heads to London in a new leather jacket and red scarf.
He stops at a school concert, where singer Katherine Jenkins performs a sparkling, sequinned-dress version of ‘Heaven Is a Place on Earth’—a guaranteed £45 sellout and the soundtrack to the entire advert. The song is also being released as a single.
Lucy Punch, best known as super-snob Amanda Hughes in BBC sitcom Amandaland, plays Mrs Claus
Norton later heads to London in his new M&S leather jacket and red scarf
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What do you think makes a Christmas advert truly memorable—heartwarming family moments or a star-studded spectacle?
Santa samples a buffet of M&S party food—the irresistible ‘picky bits’ that threaten to bankrupt us all by the end of December. He is invited to a neighbourhood gathering before finishing his outing with a visit to an M&S store.
‘Wow, what is this place?’ he asks in amazement before filling his basket with treats.
When he returns to the North Pole and tells Mrs Claus about his discovery, she admits: ‘Oh darling, I’ve been going for years.’
Still delighted by her husband’s transformation, she tells him the beard is staying off permanently and gives him a £22.50 Autograph shaving kit—the sort of present many dads may find beneath the tree on December 25.
In previous years, M&S has created separate Christmas campaigns for its different departments.
This year, it has united the entire retailer—food, fashion, beauty and homeware—with almost everything visible inside the Clauses’ cabin, from baubles to bath towels, available to buy. I admit I was searching for those pyjamas online within minutes of seeing the advert.
The campaign is built around M&S’s ambition to become ‘the home of Christmas’, embracing the idea that festive magic comes from sharing the season with the people we love.
The advert draws on M&S customer research showing that 81 per cent want to spend special time with those closest to them. I suspect, meanwhile, that 100 per cent of female shoppers would be happy to see a shirtless James Norton on their screens.
There are no badly behaved children wrecking houses, no damp-eyed modern parents and no grandmothers being emotionally manipulated.
Instead, it is a feelgood triumph that should leave viewers—with the possible exception of a few John Lewis executives—with a smile on their faces and a warm glow inside.
