The “through the decades” TV advert is the first in a three-part campaign for the all-important retail ‘golden quarter’, which will culminate with the department store’s highly anticipated Christmas spot.
The first ad features archive footage and focuses on a single store window changing over a century as it is dressed and redressed with products such as fashions of the roaring 1920s and a toaster so innovative that that it took centre stage in 1925.
Scenes are also shown during the outbreak of the Second World War, when the retailer’s Oxford Street store – the first John Lewis – provided a temporary war bunker and was hit during the Blitz on September 18, 84 years ago.
(Image: John Lewis/PA Wire)
The window recreates the swinging 60s and the 1980s Lycra fitness craze before arriving in the present day with high-tech LED anti-ageing face masks.
The end of the ad features the Never Knowingly Undersold pledge, which began in 1925, reinstated on the shop window.
The ad’s soundtrack, a version of Paul Simon’s I Know What I Know, is sung by Laura Mvula, while Bafta-winning actress Samantha Morton provides the voiceover.
John Lewis brought back the pledge on September 9 in a major U-turn after ditching the commitment two years ago over concerns it was less relevant to shoppers.
The retailer said sales had “increased significantly” since the pledge’s re-launch, and organic visits to johnlewis.com – or those that are unpaid via search engines – had increased by more than 50,000 a day.
John Lewis customer director Charlotte Lock said: “We’ve looked to our heritage to inform our refreshed value promise to customers, making it relevant for today by matching not only high street retailers but also online competitors – and we are backing it with the biggest marketing campaign in our history.
“We have drawn on our archives and are literally depicting a window on Britain, showing the changing trends and events over the past century.”
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