The message is, “When you own something, you care a little more.” A lot of Waitrose customers own a little piece of this ad.

The Waitrose Christmas ad began with a campaign for people to “donate their voices”, at the end of October.

The recorded voices – sung to Dolly Parton’s Try – were put together to create a choir.

That music has now become the soundtrack to an ad about a young girl’s tenacious efforts to make gingerbread cookies for her school fair (which she eventually achieves with help from a Waitrose employee despite very many failures).

The message Waitrose wants to share is, “When you own something, you care a little more. Everyone who works at Waitrose owns Waitrose, so they care a little more.”

Waitrose is part of the John Lewis partnership, in which all employees own shares.

The ad, by BBH, stars a real Waitrose employee and ten year old student, Blaise Allan. As well as the unquestioned enthusiasm of a lot of Waitrose customers, it has also been given all the essential extras:

A thank you video, to all the participants.

A making of video.

And a standout big idea with Christmas spirit in bucketloads.