In September this year, John Lewis released a two-and-a-half minute masterpiece by adam&eveDDB, that introduced the new visual identities for Waitrose & Partners and John Lewis & Partners created by design agency, Pentagram, and highlighted their partnership business model in which all employees have a stake in the business. The film was a children’s performance of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. The biographical film of Freddie Mercury and Queen with the same name was released in the UK four weeks later. The ad was a masterpiece and a masterstroke.

adam&eve/DDB: John Lewis puts its heart into another epic ad

Now it has a sibling. Not by adam&eveDDB and John Lewis. By Wieden + Kennedy London and Sainsbury. The ads are bizarrely similar. Sainsbury’s is a children’s performance to the 1998 New Radicals’ hit, You Get What You Give, and it would have been a masterpiece were it not a twin.

The ad, The Big Night, was directed by Michael Gracey, who also directed the Hugh Jackman musical, The Greatest Showman, which grossed US$400m, and launched on ITV during CoronationStreet.

It heads up Sainsbury’s Christmas campaign, We give all we’ve got for the ones we love, which will include product TVCs, radio, print, digital, social and OOH. There is also a Meet the Kids video running on YouTube:

Credits:

Creative agency: Wieden + Kennedy London

Creatives: Freddy Taylor, Philippa Beaumont & Andrew Bevan

Production Company: Partizan

Director: Michael Gracey