CorpComms Magazine

Like it or loathe it, the John Lewis Christmas advert this year has had a dramatic impact on positive brand sentiment, according to recent research by Precise.

Before the campaign during the period running from the 28 October to the 10 November, positive sentiment towards the brand stood at more than 40 per cent, while ten per cent was unfavourable and 49 per cent was neutral.

After the campaign, which took place between 11 November and 24 November, positive sentiment grew by 19 per cent to 60 per cent. There was just a three per cent rise in unfavourable sentiment during the same period.

The research, called 'The Year of the Perfect Twitter Storm', looks at trends on Twitter. On the day the advert launched, mentions of John Lewis on the microblogging site increased by more than 1,300 per cent on figures from the previous two weeks. On the day after the launch a further 2,800 tweets were posted, which brought the total to almost 16,000.

The commercial has received a lot of positive feedback, but some has been less than complimentary. Guardian columnist Charlie Brooker publicly aired his views on the advert, and said: 'I heard it coming before I saw it: reports reached me of people blubbing in front of their televisions, so moved were they by this simple tale of a fictional boy counting the hours until he can give his parents a gift for Christmas. Given the fuss they were making, the tears they shed, you'd think they were watching footage of shoeless orphans being kicked face-first into a propeller. But no. They were looking at an advert for a shop.'

Precise analysed more than five million tweets relating to some of the biggest stories of the year, and how they were presented in the media, for example with the controversy surrounding Topman's 'sexist' T-shirts.

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