The John Lewis Christmas advertisement production team were having a brainstorming session, trying to decide on a new bold direction for their annual campaign. After several years of adverts featuring families, stuffed animals, real animals, and plenty of heartstring-tugging emotional denouements, the newly-appointed creative director Crispin Brand wanted to up the stakes a little and produce something “with extra raunch” as he put it. Ungrammatically.
“I want something more sexy, with more funky music, maybe a famous musician from the 80s who will appeal to our demographic in new and exciting ways” said Crispin. The creative team bandied around a few names but he rejected each one:
Kylie Minogue? Too 90s
Madonna? Too expensive
Michael Jackson? Too dead
Elton John? Too 2018
Ozzy Osborne? Too much… in too many ways
Then Chloe, a junior member of the team and resident millennial, suggested Nile Rodgers - the famous guitarist currently enjoying a resurgence in popularity amongst the fifty-something festival glamping set. Crispin was astonished that Chloe even knew who Nile was, until she pointed out that her mum watched Glastonbury on BBC2 every year while wearing glitter make-up and a Jo Whiley wig.
“Brilliant!” said Crispin. “We can combine the sounds of ‘Le Freak’ with a little vignette about Nile discovering his fancy footwork capability and then seamlessly segue into ‘He’s the Greatest Dancer’ for the final few seconds of the advert, while Nile gyrates his hips provocatively. The glampers will love it!”
The team swung into action. They worked up storyboards, hired Mr Rodgers and a film crew, and chose a location in a cobbled street in West Barmsby, Yorkshire, which Strategy & Planning had assured them would appeal to the Werther-bothering triple-locked pension demographic.
Nile was insistent that he wanted to use the latest dance moves which he’d “got off YouTube” and involved twerking his bum around all over the place. No matter, thought Crispin. If people ridiculed the moves but it increased sales for the lead-up to Christmas then he'd live with it. After all, the audience's biggest creative criticism a few years ago had been that John Lewis didn't sell pianos. What do they know.
The ad made its debut on ITV at 9:15pm on 30th November. The reaction was incredible. People loved the advert, the response to the gyrating Nile Rodgers was adulatory, and the team and their clients were looking forward to the second showing the next day.
And at that point they received a call from the Advertising Standards Authority telling them that they were not allowed to air the ad in the remaining 24 days leading up to Christmas.
“But why?” asked Crispin.
“Well you see,” began the ASA “as well as having a watershed for children’s snacks and not allowing nudity, we can't permit adverts in the last month of the year that prominently feature specific 1980s funk band members' bums, I’m afraid.”
While it was not invoked often, this very specific rule was called the...
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Answer: > december chic butt ban <
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