At 7:30 on the morning of November 3, 2026, John Lewis released the 20th of its Christmas ads, "Gloria and Pickles," made by Saatchi & Saatchi and directed by Lucy Forbes.1 The same day the Mirror was reporting a backlash over "absolute brat" grandchildren.2 I haven't watched the ad, so I'm working from John Lewis's own description of it and from the reaction coverage, and I'll flag where that matters. The question I care about is smaller than "is it good." An ad has to name a problem before it can sell the fix, so what is this one's problem, and who gets blamed for it?
What John Lewis says it made
Per the retailer's release: on Christmas Eve, Gloria (Dame Kristin Scott Thomas) is getting her home ready and isn't sure what her grandchildren, Freddie and Maggie, actually want, so she puts cash in their cards. Her old pull-along toy dog, Pickles (voiced by Paul Whitehouse), comes to life and tells her, "You can do better than cash." A TukTuk ride across London ends at John Lewis for a last-minute shop. On Christmas morning the children expect money and find empty envelopes. Gloria hands over a single key instead, and it opens her home office, now the "Gran Cave," with lights, disco balls and music.1 The tagline is "Don't give up on giving," and the soundtrack is a new Sam Fender cover of the Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want."1
Marketing and loyalty director Rosie Hanley gives the brief in her own words: "I've definitely resorted to putting cash in an envelope for fear of getting it wrong," and she hopes the ad "restores the nation's gift-giving confidence."1 The release also lists 15 hero products, from a turntable and a disco ball decoration to a Mulberry tote, plus Scott Thomas's two outfits.1 It gives no prices for any of them and no figure for what the campaign cost, so I can't tell you either.
What people saw in it
The Mirror's roundup is where the quotable anger lives. Kirstie Allsopp: "Not sure I'm such a fan, not giving Granny a hug is not a good start." Sarah Vine, on X: "Spoilt, entitled, rude and overindulged children," and "Useless, weak parents." Piers Morgan called it "possibly the worst advert I've ever seen for anything."23 A Mumsnet user called the grandchildren "absolute brats."2 John Lewis's reply, as reported by the Express: "We are incredibly proud of our ad," and "we love that it's getting people talking."3
It isn't all one way. Kantar's Lynne Deason said the ad "taps into a classic Christmas dilemma and reminds us of the joy of giving," while lacking "the emotive punch of previous years," with branding that "could have been stronger."2 A launch-day OnePulse survey of about 500 UK adults, who watched the ad and rated it on a 1 to 5 scale, scored it 3.8, with 36% saying it made them more likely to shop at John Lewis.4 That is a small consumer-panel sample, and I read it for direction only. A figure about a lopsided YouTube dislike ratio is also circulating, and the only trace of it I found was a single social post, so I'm leaving it out.
The problem the ad picked
Here is my reading, and it is a reading. To make a gift beat cash, a story needs someone for whom cash is a letdown, and in this script that's the children, who expect money and get empty envelopes. The plot may need children who are a little hard to please, because otherwise the toy dog has nothing to correct. I haven't seen how they play it, so I can't tell you whether the critics are reacting to the script or the performance.
The premise itself is fair. Hanley says she has done the cash thing herself, and the OnePulse page says 85% of Brits have given cash because they didn't know what else to buy.14 Gift anxiety is real, and a department store has an honest claim to relieve it. The sharper issue is who takes the blame. The ad's answer to "I don't know what to get" is "You can do better than cash," which I hear as "you aren't trying hard enough," delivered by a talking toy, with the fix shown as a room full of things on sale in the store. One X user told John Lewis to "read the room,"3 and the Mirror noted comment on the ad's appropriateness "at a time when households are struggling to make ends meet."2 That objection is about exactly this, and I think it is more serious than the complaint about hugs.
For comparison, last year's ad ended on the caption "If you can't find the words, find the gift."5 That caption offered a gift as a way around saying the wrong thing, where this year's story casts the cash itself as the problem.
The verdict, broken out
What it looks built to do
- Own the start of the Christmas shopping conversation: a morning launch, then premieres on ITV and Channel 4 the same evening.1
- Turn cash, the easy default, into the problem, and put John Lewis in the role of the cure. (My reading.)
- Keep the yearly-event status the brand has built over 20 editions, with a celebrity cast and a Sam Fender soundtrack.1
What it has drawn so far
- A first-day news cycle about the children's manners and the ad's tone. Piers Morgan said it would "actively dissuade" him from shopping at John Lewis, and an unnamed X user wrote that they were not shopping there this year.23
- A research verdict that praises the dilemma but finds less emotional pull than previous years.2
- Nothing measurable yet. It is day two, there is no sales evidence either way, and anger on social media does not tell you who stays away.
On its own marketing terms, I'd call it unproven. The ad got attention, but "getting people talking" is a result the spokesperson can claim whether the talk is admiring or furious, so it proves nothing. The test is footfall and basket size in December, and neither is public. The ethical question is separate. In the release's telling the children are a script device, so the person being told to do better is the viewer who put cash in a card. That is the line I push back on. Cash from a grandparent on a tight budget is a gift too, and implying otherwise, in a toy dog's voice with a 20-year reputation behind it, is a choice the brand made.