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Sainsbury’s Christmas ad seeks to tell Santa’s origin story



The first Sainsbury’s shop opened in Holborn in 1869, so it’s only fitting the supermarket giant goes back to its roots with this year’s Christmas ad.

Celebrating its 150th year, Sainsbury’s has joined the 2019 Christmas ad race  with a ‘rumoured’ origin story of Santa Clause. Taking place in London in 1869, the Victorian setting sees the first Sainsbury’s store with founders John James and Mary Ann showcasing their finest produce.

A sack of the shop’s clementines entices a young chimney sweep called Nick who is then wrongly accused of stealing the orange. The orphan is banished from the city and sent to the neighbouring Lapland where Mary Ann Sainsbury finds him after realising he had been set up.

Mary Ann gives Nick a sack of clementines, saying: “If you can’t do something special for someone at Christmas, then when can you?”

Nick then drops the clementines into the socks of his chimney sweep comrades before dressing in a red coat and hat and walking into the snow towards the reindeer, the implication of course being he grows up to be Saint Nick, a.k.a Father Christmas.

Laura Boothby, Head of Broadcast Marketing at Sainsbury’s says: “It’s been a special year for Sainsbury’s and we felt it was fitting for our Christmas advert to look back and celebrate the role we’ve played in making Christmas Christmas for the nation for the past 150 years. We’ve always helped to bring a bit of sparkle to everyone’s Christmas, be it through the delicious turkey, Brussel sprouts or even exotic clementines.”

Orphan, Nick, is wrongly accused of stealing a clementine in Sainsbury’s Christmas ad (Sainsbury’s)

Boothby, who has been working on the ad since January, continues: “We wanted to think of how we could tell the origin story of Father Christmas and we wanted to make him like a superhero.

“The more times you watch the ad, you’ll see there are a lot of hidden nods to the Father Christmas story.”

The 90-second ad will premiere on telly tonight (Tuesday November 12) during the Emmerdale episode, but head to the Sainsbury’s YouTube channel to see the extended two and a half minute version.

Sainbury’s join the likes of IKEA and M&S who both released Christmas ads last week – IKEA going a different route with an original grime track and M&S calling in celebrity help with Paddy McGuinness and Emma Willis.



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