16 November, 2016

By VIVA Team

The Spanish lottery's Christmas advert follows in the recently trodden footsteps of John Lewis.

The Spanish lottery’s Christmas advert follows in the recently trodden footsteps of John Lewis.

The Christmas countdown used to be a slug of tasteless advent calendar chocolates, increasingly panicked shopping and learning to survive at work on three hours’ sleep and a bellyful of mulled wine from the night before.

Now, while that all remains true, you have to add the John Lewis Christmas advert to the mix…

Released usually around the time the last firework from November 5 falls limply to the ground, the John Lewis ad has come to reflect the UK’s increasingly mawkish relationship with Christmas. It’s no longer about giving and receiving, but more about guiltily thinking of your place in the world before you ravenously spend hundreds of pounds on stuff you don’t need.

Which is pretty bold for a retailer, if you think about it. The viral success of John Lewis’ soft-focus ads has not gone unnoticed in Spain, where a notable trend for throat-lumping, goosebump-stirring adverts have descended on Spanish airwaves in their droves over the past couple of years.

And this year’s offering by the Spanish Lottery – Loterias del Estado – aims straight for the tear ducts. In a nutshell, it is all about an elderly lady who mistakenly believes that she has won El Gordo – aka the Fat One – which is the big, multimillion-euro prize on offer every Christmas to Spaniards up and down the land.

But instead of everybody around her letting her down gently, the entire town comes together – police, pets, children, family – to maintain the ruse and let her think, for a short time only, that she’s wealthy beyond her wildest dreams.

It’s a clever, beautifully shot video that maybe strays into the territory of melodrama but manages – just like the grandma – to emerge with dignity intact. It has already garnered many thousands of views on YouTube, and will no doubt trigger an uptick in lottery ticket sales next month – which, lest we forget, is the very reason for the advert’s existence in the first place.

Did somebody say Bah, Humbug? Watch the video here to judge for yourself.