The Sainsbury’s 2019 advert seemed to me to be an advert both celebrating the nature of giving during the Christmas season while also comically scorning those who shoplift. The story revolves around a chimney sweep who witness his boss steal a hat-full of oranges from Mrs Sainsbury, presumably the originator of the Sainsbury’s brand 150 years ago, but then aims to pick up one of the oranges knocked off in a possible attempt to return it. During the attempt at picking up the orange a police officer clamps his hand and parades the chimney sweep throughout the street as the public hurl comical abuse at him with one woman dressed as a witch coming out of a building exclaiming ‘’burn the witch.’’ The characters in this advert seem to be exaggerated parodies of stereotypical Victorian and old English societies. After being banished Nicolas, the chimney sweep, wonders through the snow after Mrs Sainsbury watches him leave the town and witnesses his boss cursing him out for being ‘’rotten to the core,’’ eating the oranges he has just stolen. Mrs Sainsbury finds Nicolas in the cold and wakes him after he was having a bad dream about the situation, he is in. she gifts him a sack of oranges since he was clearly innocent and tells him about the importance of giving on Christmas. This is where Sainsbury’s attempts to tell the viewer they pretty much created Santa Clause. Nicolas decides to go back to his chimney sweep work place as it where and delivers oranges into the socks of the other sweeps and takes the naughty list his boss has and puts coal in his instead. Nicolas escapes through the chimney as the children wake up with ‘’exotic’’ oranges that they now own, the camera changes to Nicolas wearing a red robe and hat that resemble the coca colas rendition of Santa Clause.
Overall as someone who hasn’t kept up with Sainsbury’s adverts since the world war 1 advert in 2014 I would say it’s close in entertainment to it, but lacks some of the heart warmth due to it being based on a fictional character, although it does better in a comical sense as it follows the theme of giving and caring that is a key Christmas feature. It also does well in celebrating Sainsbury’s 150 years as a supermarket company by taking it back to the first owner of the business and talking about the story of how Christmas changed forever when the company began.
Issues with this advert are quite hard to find it doesn’t take itself too seriously and genuinely has a short but intriguing story and great characters it also has some great links and Easter eggs to Christmas tradition through its origin story. If I were to change anything, I may have changed the color of Nicolas’s outfit in the end since the red color was created by coca cola and the attempt of telling the story of the Santa being created by Sainsbury’s may fall flat to the sharper of viewers.