John Lewis: An amazing decade

IPA Effectiveness Awards Case Study 2020

John Lewis ads are almost synonymous with UK Christmas advertising. This paper covers the creative and media principles and learnings drawn from the brand’s Christmas campaigns from 2010 to 2019. It estimates that in the period Christmas TV advertising, increasingly supported by other touch points, helped the group grow 4.4 times faster than the average across the non-food retail category. Modelling calculates advertising drove £1.2bn incremental sales and £411m net profit, with a profit ROI of up to £10 per £1 invested. The paper details the client and agency partnership and creative choices behind the brand’s distinctive and effective emotional storytelling.

We couldn’t be prouder of what we’ve achieved together over the last decade with our agency partners adam&eveDDB; and Manning Gottlieb OMD. Everything we’ve achieved with this campaign is testament to the power of that partnership. Being part of the John Lewis Partnership means everyone who works here owns the business. So it’s essential that we treat every pound as our own, and that every pound spent on advertising is paid back several times over. And every year for 10 years the campaign has done exactly this – every year it works harder and harder for us commercially. The fact that we’re a Partnership also means we have a very distinctive culture driven by a strong belief in doing right by our customers. Which means that just as important as the campaign's commercial results, is the way those results are achieved. And we’re hugely proud of how those commercial results are achieved. The ads reflect and reinforce the esteem in which the John Lewis & Partners brand is held. They give every Partner an enormous sense of pride in the Partnership. They mirror the way we go about retailing – always respecting the customer, never resorting to hard sell, everything made to the highest possible standards. We relish the challenge we face each year to bring new 'creative magic' to this important moment in our marketing calendar, and the way it has evolved for us over the years is something we simply could never have foreseen when it started a decade ago. Becoming part of the signalling of the start of Christmas is a privilege we hold very dearly. Seeing the happy faces of children clutching a new Monty, Buster or Edgar toy in our stores, is just the icing on the cake.

Emma Wood, Senior Marketing Manager
John Lewis & Partners