Littlewoods reveal change in direction for this year's Christmas campaign starring brand ambassador Myleene Klass

The 30-second television advert, directed by filmmaker Christian Bevilacqua, opens with Santa landing his sleigh in an enchanted forest as children, dressed as Christmas fairies and tin soldiers, are shown approaching Klass with a list of boys’ and girls’ names and a series of toys and gifts.

Santa then advises his helper on whether each of the children has been naughty or nice. As Klass then touches each gift in turn, they magically transform into beautifully wrapped Christmas gifts to be placed in Santa’s sleigh for delivery.

Klass’ voiceover concludes that “Everyone can get their perfect gift this Christmas with interest-free low weekly payments. That’s the Littlewoods touch.”

The £4.3 million Christmas campaign, developed in conjunction with Littlewoods’ retained creative agency, St Luke’s, is set to launch on the Littlewoods website and social channels from Wednesday 31 October. The adverts will then run for seven weeks from Thursday 1 November across TV, print and digital. The traditional and digital tactical campaigns were planned and booked by Carat and myThings.

This year’s campaign is a marked change in direction from last year’s creative which saw young children singing to thanks their mothers for doing all of the Christmas shopping, implying that Santa didn’t exist.

Gary Kibble, brand director for Littlewoods, commented: “It’s no secret that last year’s Littlewoods Christmas advert caused some controversy among small groups of consumers. That was by no means our intention.

“With that said, we of course listened to all the constructive feedback that we received and incorporated the lessons learned into our planning for this year. We’re delighted that we’ve managed to develop a campaign for 2012 that really brings to life the role Littlewoods plays in delivering magical Christmases to millions of families while remaining true to the story of Santa Claus.”