Our idea was simple; to create not one, but two interlinked Christmas ads, each showing polar opposite views of the Christmas experience.

The first would launch our ‘feel-good’ story: a little girl looking through her telescope spies on an old man, living on his own on the moon. Her thoughtful Christmas gift is a telescope, sent by balloon, so he can see he’s not really alone. The tagline “Show someone they’re loved this Christmas” paved the way for a national charity partner: Age UK.

For Age UK, John Lewis made a second TV ad, showing the old man on the ‘Man On The Moon’ film set. As filming wraps up, he is left alone and forgotten, to remind us of the problem of loneliness amongst the aged. This would be our call-to-action to activate the nation in support of older people at Christmas.

To ensure anticipation of our first ad, we created unbranded “#OnTheMoon” social accounts delivering a 10” teaser which started trending on Twitter before launch and trended no. 1 on Twitter, globally, only 40 minutes after launch. A joint-PR effort promoted the partnership, raising awareness of loneliness. The second ad was launched online across social and video channels to coincide with the second burst of activity. In the week leading up to Christmas, we broadcast the Age UK spot on TV, culminating in the marquee spot in the finale of Downton Abbey on ITV – the most-watched programme on Christmas Day.

An impactful out-of-home campaign highlighted the scale of the issue and how people could help. John Lewis promoted the partnership across their social channels and in-store – every store ran a comprehensive fund-raising programme and Man On The Moon merchandise was sold with all profits going to Age UK.

Overall, the campaign delivered a huge 38m online views for both ads, with the main ad topping the Google chart for most viewed ad on YouTube UK of 2015. This equates to over 835k hours of brand engagement! We also drove 688k shares and 1,400 press articles, the most ever for a John Lewis campaign.

People started to engage with Age UK too. On launch day, they received a donation every minute. They received an overwhelming 15,000 volunteer phone calls, 6x the number they get in a whole year. The impact has been so great that the UK Prime Minister’s office at Downing Street called to congratulate Age UK on the campaign and hosted a tea party for older people at Number 10!

Finally, the campaign delivered £951m in sales, a 7% YoY increase, helping John Lewis have their biggest ever Christmas.