Waitrose has focused on community spirit for its festive ad with the story of villagers who find themselves snowed in at the highest pub in Britain for Christmas lunch.
The grocer’s Christmas campaign is set at the remote 17th century Tan Hill Inn near Richmond in the Yorkshire Dales, where drinkers have been snowed in at 1,732 feet some 50 times since 2005.
The ad shows a snowstorm hitting the area as locals gather for a drink on Christmas morning, forcing them to rally together to unexpectedly share lunch.
(Waitrose/PA)
The 90 second piece, filmed in black and white, is once again created by adam&eveDDB, the same agency behind John Lewis’s Moz the Monster campaign, and “aims to reconnect people with the emotions of Christmas”.
Waitrose customer director Martin George said: “Food plays an essential role in bringing people together.
“As our ad depicts, eating together is a way to share not just food but friendship and community spirit.”
The ad screens for the first time on Sunday during X Factor on ITV1 and on waitrose.com.
(Waitrose/PA)
The ad’s soundtrack is Carol Of The Bells by composer Mykola Leontovych, and the track was rearranged by musician and composer Guy Farley.
Author Anne Fine, who wrote Madame Doubtfire, the story that inspired the film Mrs Doubtfire, has written a children’s book to accompany the ad called Let It Snow, a tale about two animal families who become unlikely companions over a festive meal.
For every book sold in Waitrose, a donation of 50p will be made to The Trussell Trust charity, which runs a network of more than 400 food banks.
The supermarket’s 2016 campaign featuring an epic tale of a robin’s homecoming to a UK garden was widely considered to be the best of last year’s Christmas ads.