John Lewis Christmas ad

We have thousands of children across the country needing a family home with foster parents to care for them. It is my job to find homes for the children. There are not enough foster carers. If this encourages some people to consider fostering and to highlight the brilliant care foster carers give then the advert is worth every penny. Children just want love and if it takes a corporate to highlight this then good on them.

It's the only one I've seen so far this year but it will certainly take a lot of beating.

Quite marmite then probably as many againsts as fors

Wetnosewheatie

We have thousands of children across the country needing a family home with foster parents to care for them. It is my job to find homes for the children. There are not enough foster carers. If this encourages some people to consider fostering and to highlight the brilliant care foster carers give then the advert is worth every penny. Children just want love and if it takes a corporate to highlight this then good on them.

I agree but it’s the advert that’s wrong not the message.

Wetnosewheatie

We have thousands of children across the country needing a family home with foster parents to care for them. It is my job to find homes for the children. There are not enough foster carers. If this encourages some people to consider fostering and to highlight the brilliant care foster carers give then the advert is worth every penny. Children just want love and if it takes a corporate to highlight this then good on them.

Well said. And thank you, NotaGran55, for the details of the campaign behind the advert.

In the long term, we're committed to helping young people from care find meaningful careers at John Lewis and Waitrose, or supporting them into higher education with scholarships. We're also asking the government to put fairer policies in place, so that everyone can have a fair start in life. Please help us help young people from care this Christmas and beyond – thank you.

Good on them.

I posted a long positive response to Wetnosewheatie that seems to be lost in space.
Thank you Wetnosewheatie for bringing us to the message J/L attempts to raise. There’s a huge shortage of foster carers. There’s a huge problem in recruitment and retention of social workers. The ad touched me because I was back 40 years, taking a ‘challenging’ 13 year old to the latest in a long line of placements. She’s in her early 50’s now. Has published about her ‘care history’ can be found on the internet (I post with her permission) She attributes the way her life turned round to her foster mum and social worker staying with her, believing in her. I’m not sentimentalising or trying to maximise JL profits. I’m saying thank you. If this ad makes one person decide to commit to supporting children in/at risk if coming into care - it’s done it’s job

Yes makes a big difference, not pushing expensive gift adverts down the throats of poor folk who have nothing.

I didn't get it. How is it charity? I must have missed the John Lewis declaration of their contributing to a care organisation. Just like in all walks of life there are foster carers and there are foster carers.

I really didn’t get it and the advert had to be explained to me. I can see it is a moving ad but I don’t think Foster children always have this kind of welcome or input. I have experience of this. Personally I do like a feel good ad especially at this time of year one that removes me from the worries and concerns of the world and transports me to Enid Blyton land.

Yes it made me cry, I showed it to my twelve year old granddaughter, warning her that it would make her cry, it didn’t, but it made me cry again, but then the combination of Christmas, children and kindness, is always a tearjerker.

I thought it was boring and didn’t understand what it was about. I was more interested in having my breakfast than watching it.

I fully appreciate the warmth and thoughtfulness of the JL ad this year.
I still however smile at Edgar, not just my favourite JL ad but my favourite xmas ad of all time.

As I posted on the other thread asking for your favourite Christmas Ad, it will take a lot to shift me from the Sainsbury's 2014 one. That did make me cry. And I admired their determination they would never air the Christmas ad before 11th November. I think this year they might have??

Pressed post too soon. The JL one is OK but nothing that special. If it does encourage more foster parents that would be great, but somehow I don't see it.

As a creative mentor of children in care working with the charity The Mighty Creatives, I value this championing of foster parents who play a vital role with vulnerable children & YP.

Flin

As a creative mentor of children in care working with the charity The Mighty Creatives, I value this championing of foster parents who play a vital role with vulnerable children & YP.

💖

Neither do we but we have Internet

It will take a lot of beating I think, very moving.

Why Christmas Advert? This is something that should be looked at all year round. I thought it was just about feeling old. It actually wouldn't encourage me to go shopping (not that I could afford to anyway). Put it this way, if it came on TV I would probably put the kettle on and nip to the loo. What I mean is, it didn't 'grab' me. Eg, a totally unrelated ad that would make me drop whatever I was doing and rush to watch it was: The Heycar ad where a car driver lip-synched to Flo-rida's "Good Feeling" (although I didn't buy a car }

I’m impressed with the Co op who’ve decided not to air their advert, instead, are helping a food charity.

www.co-operative.coop/media/news-releases/co-op-switches-off-christmas-tv-advert-to-spotlight-community-led-food

Why Christmas Advert? This is something that should be looked at all year round

effalump my immediate thought was 'Children are for life, not just Christmas'.

The advert makes me somewhat uneasy.
It's sentimental but not true to life.

Foster parents are desperately needed and I suppose if this encourages people to come forward fair enough, but it is a huge commitment.
I felt the JL advert trivialised fostering somewhat.

Flin

As a creative mentor of children in care working with the charity The Mighty Creatives, I value this championing of foster parents who play a vital role with vulnerable children & YP.

Yes and if it encourages more people to foster then it will achieve something.

But it felt rather shallow.

I don’t believe you’re wrong to feel the JL ad ‘trivialised fostering somewhat’. It was wildly inaccurate and sentimental. But it’s Christmas where sentimentality surrounds us. No one would arrive at a planned new foster placement without the foster carers and teenage child having met on neutral ground, lots of discussion and if it looked a possibility, they’d have met for a meal (McDonald’s often) then child to tea at placement.
Children only arrive without preparation in an emergency. Foster carers and child know very little about each other, no time for foster dad to learn to skate board
Still it’s leading to a discussion here. Let’s hope it prompts some one to think about fostering

Yes, I hope it will. It means well.

One thing about this JL Christmas advert is that no-one will make a spoof about it.

My favourite JL spoof advert was the Obama and Trump one with the trampoline.
Unfortunately, it could be another vision for the future 🤔