Adverse advent adverts
Aggressive Christmas marketing turns me into Jack Torrance
Long time Ledgeheads will know that, more than almost anything else, two things make me flip my lid: stupid adverts and this time of year. As a December born, I resent Jesus Christ’s birthday and the rabid capitalist shitbags who scavenge off the back of it. I’ll take all the blood-red booze and stinky cheeses and delicious marzipan that you’d care to throw my way, but get out of my face with all the fucking sleighbells in November, you sociopaths.
I don’t mind the three or four days of warm good cheer, but the build up literally causes me mental anguish. It is relentless and unforgiving. And I’m not being paranoid; it’s definitely getting earlier every year. Poppygeddon still had our high streets in a kimura lock when Christmas reared its head this year.
When I run this stinking rock, Christmas will be legally constrained to December and December only1 . Anybody who flouts this rule and goes early will have what they enjoy the most about Christmas taken from them.
“The Muse, you have been found guilty of putting the decorations up on the 28th of November. You shall not watch Love Actually while enjoying white wine and party food with your mate Laura this year. Send her down.”
The worst people for going early are, of course, the advertisers. Spurred on by money grubbing execs fixated on their final quarters (I’ll final your quarter in a minute, sunshine), the advertisers hit November like a horde of undead when the barricades fail. They are unrelenting in their single-minded purpose: bludgeoning the consumer into submission.
“No, peasant, you shall not enjoy the gentle autumnal notes of November. Christmas is coming and even though you have no family and are desperately alone, you must think of chocolate and turkeys and stupid fucking tat for the next 30 days. Look at me when I’m talking to you, peon - Christmas is coming. Do not ignore your Festive Gods. Spend. Spend. Spend.”
It’s the polar opposite of the subliminal messaging in They Live; you don’t need a pair of magic sunglasses to get the message, it is etched on the head of a sledgehammer and smashed repeatedly into your fucking face.
Because any semblance of effort left the advertising industry about 20 years ago, the goal of any and all Christmas adverts is not to be good; it’s just to be so irritating that you talk about it. The methodology doesn’t matter. Silly, saccharine, mawkish, manipulative, anything-but-funny. Just remember it for 30 seconds while you’re dragging your sorry arse across the finish line for the year, and drop some of your hard-earned coin as a result. Preferably more than you can afford, yeah? We’ve got shareholders who need another ensuite.
And they’re relentless. Once the first one is out of the traps they’re all off, stinking out our TVs like Boxing Day stilton. The rictus grins on all involved becoming more and more pronounced, their dead eyes staring deeper into your soul. They don’t want to be here either, of course. But the shareholders aren’t the only ones who need another hole to shit into, are they?
Let’s line them up against the wall right now. I watched every single one of these as research for this, so even if you think I’m a grumpy fucker, show some love for my commitment to my cause. The runners and riders in the 2025 Enforced Fun Derby. Which one’s your favourite?2
John Lewis
Here we go, the jumped up little draper is back to tell us that Christmas is here. Much like in 2015 when they treated us to that dirty old man on the moon, this year’s effort is a concerted push to tug at our heartstrings. A father and son, bonding over music through the years.
Except, come on now. I know a dozen men just like Jeremy here (looks like one, doesn’t he?), and none of them look fondly at their kids while pining for their misspent youth. These two things definitely happen, but they do not go together. I don’t doubt all the parents out there love their kids, but don’t tell me you don’t resent them a teensy weensy bit when you think back to those lost wasted years?
As soon as Where Love Lives dropped, Jezza’s family ceased to exist. Right in that moment, he doesn’t want that hug off his son - he wants a huge bearhug off a sweaty stranger, both of them off their tits on disco biscuits. Merry Christmas, Jeremy.
Asda
Hands down the most annoying is Asda, who have some gonk doing Jim Carrey’s Grinch, sashaying around Asda, forcing out a mangled version of Let It Snow like he’s forcing out a Boxing Day shit, and realising that - gasp! - he actually quite likes Christmas after all! Because he’s tight and Asda is cheap. Get it?!
The irritation is compounded by so many factors. It’s death by a thousand cuts. If you’re going to shove a Grinch down my throat then it must look and sound exactly like a Grinch. Don’t fob me off with some mockney cosplay dipshit from Putney - I’m not a child. Also, musicals suck, so don’t think this gurning simpleton is going to convert me just because he can carry a tune.
Most insultingly of all, it’s deeply patronising to the true Scrooges out there. Listen up, Asda, we actively enjoy thumbing our noses at you festive idiots, we’re not going to be won round by some frozen chicken on a stick.
Debenhams
What the fuck are you lot playing at? I thought you went bust. The Debenhams on my High Street has stood as a monument to failure for over a year now. Maybe if you didn’t spunk cash at garbage like this, I’d still have a handy local option for soft furnishings, you pricks.
And they most certainly are pricks, friends, because they wheel out Olivia Attwood, Judi Love and Peter Crouch in quick succession. All three of them, resplendent in a tacky CGI parade down a residential street, forcibly restraining you and shoving a mince pie in your gob. I have no idea who Olivia Attwood is3, I don’t mind Judi Love and Crouchy seems a good lad (although he needs to stop shilling absolutely anything and everything, the lanky slut), but what I don’t need is all three of them renditioning me into season’s cheer.
“Too soon?” smirks Attwood like a sinister festive Handmaid. Yes, by a clear fucking month. Back, foul creature! Back, I say! I cast thee back to the reality TV pit from from whence you came!
Argos
They’ve been lowkey passive aggressive about their schtick all year: they don’t just sell toys. They’re so much more than toys, okay? Just love them for who they are and stop talking about toys, alright?
For Christmas, the fully sentient toys (fully sentient toys are something that Argos do not sell, so already their protestations ring hollow) up their game. Rather than kidnapping any old Joe Schmoe, they kidnap Simon Bird off the telly. The poor lad is 41-years-old, but it’s never too late to wheel out that Will from Inbetweeners schtick is it? Especially while being held hostage by a couple of plastic wankers who’d give Chucky from Child’s Play a run for his money.
The message of goodwill here is simple: if you kidnap a successful actor you can achieve anything. And buy your fucking toys somewhere else, we do plastic garden furniture too, you know.
Coca-Cola
This mob are nearly as bad as John Lewis for thinking they own Christmas. They copped some flak for augmenting last year’s effort with AI, and in a fit of pique akin to Dirty Den serving Angie her divorce papers on Christmas Day, they’ve flipped the entire world the finger and made the whole thing out of AI.
How’s that for listening to the punters? If you’re going to drink some sugary piss this Christmas, make it Pepsi.
Aldi
And now we get onto the universe builders. The brands who aren’t content with just shoving visual powdered sugar in our faces, they want us to remember year-long narratives. Just who do you think you are, fucking Marvel or something?
Aldi bring back Kevin the Carrot like we’re supposed to root4 for him instead of drowning him in maple and cumin, roasting him till crisp, and then cutting him into delicious pieces. Bad enough that they channel Love Actually, they then send a fucking carrot off on a stag do. It plays out like some sort of fever dream where even PETA would go “Nah, wind it in, he’s only a carrot.” Stop putting a fucking face on my Christmas dinner. It’s a carrot, it doesn’t have a face!
One of the things this time of year that brings me genuine simple pleasure is all the food, and now I’ve got this poor twat’s widow on my conscience when I tuck in. Fuck it, I’ll eat her and all their delicious little baby carrots5 too. Then there’ll be no one left behind. The bloodline ends with me and my conscience is clear.
Waitrose
Casting Joe Wilkinson as ‘Phil’ in a trite Agatha Christie riff in 2024 should’ve been a one and done, yet they have inexplicably brought him back. And by calling him Phil last year they’ve painted themselves into a corner this year, because he’s now head over heels in love with ‘Keira’, who they literally tell us is the actual Keira Knightley.
Just look at that thumbnail. Doesn’t it make you want to throw a Christmas pud at the fucking wall? And yet, it’s the least of their crimes. We all know that Phil is Joe Wilkinson, we saw him and Joe Marler being exemplary Joes on Celebrity Traitors about three weeks ago. He is undeniably playing a character here. So why is Keira Knightly, Keira? Make her fucking Fiona or something. Even before we get to the knock off Richard Curtis bullshit (and if any five words screamed the absolute nadir of culture, its those five) the whole universe of the advert is flawed, cracked along a fault line of nonsense. “Please tell me you haven’t got cue cards!” pleads Keira (if that actually is her real name). Keira, mate, cue cards are the only thing that would make sense here.
“Calm down Lew, it’s only an advert. Don’t take it so seriously.” To which I respond: I’m not the jumped up fuckwit who started empire building just so they could hawk some mince pies.
M&S
And we reach our end. The seventh circle of hell. The continued sad, irreversible spiral of Dawn French at the hands of a posh corner shop. This shit has been going on since 2021 and it’s got to stop. Jennifer Saunders, Ade Edmondson and the rest of the Comic Strip mob need to step in and stage an intervention.
For the first two years, it was just a fairy voiced by Dawn French. Fine, perfectly cromulent. Last year, the little fairy was revealed to be a separate being from the actual Dawn French, who existed in the same world as the fairy being voiced by Dawn French. They conversed and everything. The only logical conclusion is that Dawn French’s psyche has split in two; the fairy is an incessant, Christmassy Tyler Durden, bent on destroying French’s cosy life. Not to save her from consumerism, but to envelop her in it.
This year, Dawn and her alter ego are stuck in a traffic jam when they spy an M&S truck. Spurred on by the little pixie prick, ‘Frenchie’ sets off at a run (because she used to be fat! Fat people are always hungry you see, they never truly stop being fat!) and breaks into a cache of the most wanky finger food in Christendom. She tries to keep it all to herself (hahaha, fat people are greedy!) before being persuaded to throw a little party in the back of the van, although she’s undeniably grouchy when all her new friends insist on sharing her beige buffet (FAT!).
The punchline sees dear delulu Dawn torpedoing her own flash mob shindig by climbing on top of a piano (they sell them in M&S, do they?) and delightfully crowing that she’s got something all to herself. The fairy, determined that Frenchie’s new friends don’t love her for too long, flies up and whispers in her ear that it’s not just a terrine, it’s a Tom Kerridge terrine. Half a mile away, stuck in the same eternal traffic jam, the Everyman Chef King himself6 rues the sad state of affairs.
It is an abysmal hellscape of forced jollity, with the marketing team’s bastard bullet points - CHRISTMAS! CANAPES! CRAFTED BY! KERRIDGE! - shoved gracelessly in your face, all soundtracked by Chris piggin’ Rea's shitbag ode, Driving Home for Christmas.
Listen, Dawn French is a national treasure (Kerridge ain’t, he’d hawk duck a la orange flavoured johnnies with his own face on them if the price was right) and she deserves so much better than this public humiliation. Next year let’s just have her standing there, lightly toasting that fucking fairy over an open flame. She looks to camera. “This isn’t any old beige buffet, this is an M&S beige buffet.” Beat, wink. “And everybody loves that.”
Thanks for reading. Only you can break the Grinch Curse: show my fragile ego some love before you scarper. Bang that like button on your way out, or get involved in the comments if this piece landed well with you. If you’re feeling really flush, buy me a Christmas libation and I’ll love you forever. Cheers.
I’ll still suffer personally, but it will be a noble sacrifice to dial down the noise for everyone else.
And by favourite, I mean which one do you want to seal in concrete and deposit into an abyssal trench?
On first viewing I thought it was Amanda Holden and I had a brilliant riff on Quint’s USS Indianapolis speech lined up. “Y’know, the thing about Holden, she’s got lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eyes.“ Had to junk it, which is my greatest personal defeat of 2025.
Get it? Root. Cos he’s a carrot. God, I am unappreciated in my time.
Come on, that baby carrot line is better than ‘rooting for a carrot’ and you know it. Honestly, this must be how Hendrix felt.
Sorry Jamie, but he’s battering you these days.
This is such a great rundown! I’m going to start calling you “John” Lewis Holmes, see if it sticks, with the gravitas of Arthur Conan Doyle.
Lanky slut!!!!!