JOHN LEWIS & PARTNERS | The Boy and the Piano | 2019
At the end of a life rewound, there's grandma's piano / JOHN LEWIS & PARTNERS "The Boy and the Piano"
It shows a legendary star's life rewinding from the present day all the way back to childhood. The star himself, Elton John, plays the lead, and the song is his own "Your Song." This is how far a Christmas ad can go.
The problem
John Lewis's Christmas ad has become such a fixture of the British holiday season that "what will they do this year" makes news on its own. Made year after year with longtime partner agency adam&eveDDB, the slot has usually featured made-up characters as its stars.
The insight
This was the year John Lewis stepped away from its usual formula of heartwarming stories built around kids and animals, and put a real superstar front and center. What they wanted to say was that a gift isn't just a thing. They took that abstract theme and gave it shape through a concrete story about one piano that changed a life, told by tracing time backward.
The idea
From a Las Vegas concert in the 2000s all the way back to a television appearance in 1971, multiple actors play Elton at different ages, each one playing "Your Song" on the piano. The costumes are carefully recreated for each era, and the timeline keeps going back until it reaches a point before the song even existed. We see a young man playing for his family, a child performing at a school recital, and finally arrive at a boy whose eyes light up as he's given a piano. The story opens with the elderly star looking back on his life at the piano, and traces back to a childhood memory of him playing for his late mother.
What happened
At the flagship store in London, the sets from the ad were actually recreated, with a walk-through exhibition featuring a dressing room, a recording studio, and a living room, making it the brand's largest rollout yet. It won a Gold Lion at Cannes Lions.
Afterthought
Using a star's real life as your material is actually one of the riskiest bets you can make. Dress it up too much and it feels fake; hold back too much and it falls flat. They walked that tightrope with just one idea: playing the song backward. The moment the boy opens his eyes, you stop caring what the brand name even is.
Awards
- Cannes Lions Gold 2019
