After watching John Lewis & Partners Christmas ad for 2025, ‘Where Love Lives’, I felt emotional.
I remembered my father and how our relationship has always been. I remembered the first watch I bought him with my first salary; it cost me half of it back in 2011. I never said “I love you, Dad,” but he knew, with or without the watch. ‘Where Love Lives’ made me nostalgic and jealous, and in a minute I’ll tell you why.
When you watch the ad, you feel it. You really feel it. It makes you think of your loved ones and the gift you want to give to make them happy and show your love, all without seeing the brand itself. John Lewis doesn’t appear until the last frame, yet you know it from the beginning, because this is what the brand has taught you to feel; it is what their ads have always shown.
It made me jealous because I’ve always wanted to make people feel through the emotion of the ad I’m creating, not through a logo or a product forced into every frame.
I wanted to live by my advertising motto: “make them laugh or make them cry, just make them feel something.”
But no marketer in the region signed it off. On a burger shoot, I wanted the audience to feel how good it is, not just see how good it looks. I asked the talent to hold the burger the way he would in real life. I knew the client would not approve. As expected, we were told to switch to the ‘classic claw’ (the neat crab-claw grip with fingers tucked under the lower bun) so the shape and styled ingredients showed perfectly.
There are huge brands out there that built their reputation through iconic ads, yet they are still afraid to go without the logo or the product in every couple of frames. I don’t need to see someone holding a bottle, with the label facing the camera and not a single finger covering the name, to know the brand.
Show me the magic; show me happiness. I don’t want to see credit cards; make me feel priceless, premium, fancy, VIP, or whatever your promise is. Also, no bag of chips in the world looks like the ones we see on TV.
If you want the brand in every frame, it is better to write a PR article and drop your name every two lines, with a big logo on the letterhead.
The audience will remember you because you made them feel something. They will stay loyal because of those feelings, not because you made your logo bigger.
In my opinion, the relationship between brands and customers is like the one between me and my father, and like the boy and his father in the John Lewis film.
Customers know brands “love” them; of course they do, because brands need their loyalty and their money. Customers are not dumb. They just need to feel that love before they give you both.
By Adham Abdullah, Creative Director, Liwa Content.Driven
