A cute little girl holds up sign that says: ‘getting dressed by myself’. She then talks naturally about the struggles of getting ready for school but the ease with which she could put on a shirt with elastic sleeves. A super says: easy expandicuff sleeves. M&S #everymilestone

We wanted to find children with natural charm, as we didn’t just want ‘stage school’ kids reading from a script. We wanted authentic and honest opinions from kids so in order to successfully capture this ‘words out of the mouths of babes’ approach we cast nearly 1000 children from the length of the UK. The casting process took many weeks and we finally had a shortlist of loveable kids that had a good balance between not being camera aware and not being camera shy – it was these kids that gave the most enchanting and natural performances. For each ad we cast four children (or eight where there were pairs) and worked with a child psychologist who prepped them in the week leading up to the shoot.