YOU know the Christmas season has truly begun when the John Lewis Christmas ad hits TV screens and you’re reaching for the tissues. And fans of the eagerly anticipated festive offering thought that this year’s ad was another tear-jerking winner when a heartwarming video about a lonely snowman surfaced on YouTube. The 75-second clip quickly went viral and racked up almost 360,000 views, but it turned out to be a project by an A-level student known only as Nick. The student explained that he’d created the clip in two weeks as a linked production piece to go with an essay he’d written about the success of the annual John Lewis festive marketing campaign. People were so impressed by his efforts, however, that they called on the retailer to offer him a job and even predicted that his offering would turn out to be better than the real thing. Nick’s film starts with a lonely snowman stuck in a snow globe who spots a fellow person made of snow outside the window. Their eyes meet and the snowman starts dreaming of going out to see another snowman and pressing their hands made from branches together. He imagines them exchanging presents, lying together in the snow looking up at the sky and sitting beside each other in a giant heart made from blocks of ice. As the calendar counts down to Christmas he becomes more and more despondent because he can’t escape his snow globe. But then he reminds himself to “appreciate the moments” he feels so happy thinking about, and finds himself smiling again. Once viewers realized it wasn’t the real deal, rather than being disappointed they heaped praise on Nick for his work. “Love it. Prefect for Christmas,” Hannah Quinnell commented. “This should be the Christmas advert 2016.” Cathryn Greenwood said John Lewis would be “daft” not to offer Nick a job and Lisa Johnson agreed saying: “This is beautiful. I hope the real ad is half as good.” Arcturan Megadonkey added, “I’d give you full marks for this if I was your teacher and if I was a production company I’d employ you.”(SD-Agencies) | 