Christmas Shopping Fever 2015: John Lewis and the Retail Race

Maybe you're one of those people who got their Christmas shopping

sorted weeks ago.

Or maybe not.

Britain's biggest retailers certainly can't afford to leave it till

the last minute.

For months and months,

they've been doing everything possible to get us to shop with them.

I'm Cherry Healey, and I'm going behind the scenes inside

John Lewis to see how it fights for our Christmas cash.

Three, two, one. Switch on.

I've never seen that happen before!

Yeah, that is a major cockup!

Christmas shopping fever still means rich pickings for Britain's stores,

but the rules of the game are changing.

How do I feel about it? Petrified.

BELL RINGS

Simon! What you done?!

'We're a lot more savvy and a lot less loyal than we used to be.'

Do you ever go in store, have a look what's there

-and then buy it online a bit cheaper?

-All the time.

Ding! Sorted.

The famous Christmas ad can't be a letdown...

I don't want the last image of him to be potentially quite a sad one,

cos in the end, he's still on his own.

..and don't even mention Black Friday!

There's a nice little queue building, is there, now.

Do you expect people now to rush around that like seagulls

-to a bag of chips?

-Yeah.

This is very John Lewis. Yes. Very orderly.

LAUGHTER

MUSIC: Let It Snow by Dean Martin

# Oh, the weather outside is frightful

# But the fire is so delightful

# And since we've no place to go

# Let it snow, let it snow

# Let it snow

# Man, it doesn't show signs... #

June, and the British public are enjoying summer,

blissfully unaware that retailers are already scheming to capture

the £800 the average household will spend this Christmas.

# Let it snow

# When we finally kiss goodnight... #

I've been invited along to John Lewis's midsummer press show,

where they try to convince journalists to write

glowingly about their Christmas products.

# All the way home I'll be warm... #

'Communications Director Peter Cross is already working the floor.'

Can you explain to me why on earth, on one of the hottest days

of the year, when people are eating ice cream in the park,

are you putting on a Christmas event?

The main issue is the lead times for Christmas.

So, whilst most people, normal people, don't think about Christmas

till November-December,

journalists start thinking about Christmas in July,

and all of the brands that we compete with are doing

exactly the same thing today.

# As long as you love me so

# Let it snow

# Let it snow... #

It's kind of like a big old bazaar,

and everywhere you look, people are selling the Christmas vibe

like their life depends on it.

-Do you want to make a sweet circle?

-Yes, please.

-Do you want to make an orange or a green?

-How do you get it through?

'John Lewis sells over 350,000 products,

'and they're hoping some could be bestsellers this Christmas.'

-So, wireless blue-tooth speakers?

-Do you know what?

I've been thinking all my life,

"I wish I had a bracelet that was a speaker."

'For retailers, this is what makes Christmas so special.'

Smile! Beautiful!

'We're all in the mood for shopping and we're very open to ideas.'

It's a 24.2 megapixel camera.

'I'm told that John Lewis makes 50% of its profits

'in the last three months of the year. So, it all matters.

'Yes, even this sprout.'

It's called Peel The Sprout and it's £8.

-I hope that's a winner for you.

-So do I!

THEY LAUGH

FANFARE

In John Lewis's biggest store in London's Oxford Street,

they're already preparing for their 151st Christmas.

Each of the staff will be hoping it's a lucrative one,

because, as partners, they own the business,

and the success or failure of Christmas will be reflected

in their bonuses next year.

The battle for Christmas won't just be fought

in their 46 branches against high street rivals,

because in the early noughties, everything changed.

-MALE REPORTER:

-By the end of last year, a third of households

were connected to the internet.

-MALE REPORTER:

-Welcome to the world's biggest bookstore.

Amazon.com in Seattle offers 2.5 million titles,

but it never sees its customers.

Now that the likes of Amazon sell and deliver almost everything,

Britain's high street giants have had to rethink the way they do business.

It's one thing getting people to buy all their Christmassy stuff in store,

but I do more and more of my shopping online, as do most people I know,

and for the retailers, that's a completely different game.

Today, John Lewis makes a third of its sales through its website,

and managing director Andy Street has to worry about a new range of rivals.

So, we've got all sorts of competitors, and you might think,

as a department store, it's House of Fraser, Selfridges...

Other big department stores, classically.

Of course. But if you think about what we sell in electricals,

other department stores are not the competitors,

it's obviously the high street electrical retailers,

and increasingly, of course, it's the big online players.

So, Amazon are probably, in one sense, our biggest competitor.

They make the market.

DRILL WHIRS

So, it might seem odd that John Lewis is building more branches.

Here in Birmingham, next to Harvey Nichols,

Selfridges and Debenhams, it's muscling in

with a four-storey monster.

It's a £35-million gamble in an age of online shopping.

What we really believe is that cities where we don't yet have

a shop, there need to be a flagship shop to support the online business.

Most customers now go into a shop, do their research,

go home, order online. They really see one of the roles of the shop,

to inspire them, to give them ideas.

So, when you go into our shop in Birmingham,

hopefully it will be our most inspirational shop yet.

It used to be that shops were just filled with products

stacked on shelves.

Watch your side, Mark.

I've got it.

But in the age when you have to inspire online customers,

it ain't so straightforward.

We're just pulling off a Fiat 500 car.

It's a talking point. It's unique. What it will give us

is customers coming in and saying to their friends,

"Have you seen the car inside John Lewis?"

And that will just attract more people to come and have a look

and enjoy their shopping experience more than other retailers.

Ready? What, you going to lift it with him in it?

-Yep!

-Go.

So, it's a multi-rim system...

While the new partners get their heads round the product range...

It's called a QUALCOMM chip.

..branch manager Lisa Williams is checking that customers will be

satisfied with every inch of the store.

Nice.

One of the days we have your teams in,

we will say everybody should use these toilets.

Just to sort of... Yeah.

Just needs to get volume through, doesn't it? Volume.

So, we've got two weeks and two days to go.

Occupation's going really well,

which is our term for getting stocked up.

Certainly, the anticipation, the excitement's in my stomach already.

You know, you're starting to get the butterfly feeling.

Can you tell me if it's straight?

It's not bad. Just move this way a tiny bit.

There's always a few glitches and always a few things that get

thrown in along the way, but that's all part of the fun, isn't it?

LAUGHTER

-Just need to watch that china.

-Oh, my goodness me!

GLASS SHATTERS

EMPLOYEES CHUCKLE

The big day arrives.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Good morning, John Lewis Birmingham!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

'I've come along to see how this store will work

'for the Amazon generation.'

There's nearly an hour to go before the store opens, and a small

but hardcore group of fans has already started forming.

I don't know about you,

but I'm not entirely sure I'd get out of bed for this.

Is it worth queuing up early in the morning for a store opening?

Absolutely, yes.

I've heard that they look after their staff very, very well,

and because they look after their staff, it projects

into customers, which will then, of course,

allow their customers to spend loads of money.

Meanwhile, inside the store,

Lisa works the 650 staff into a well-managed frenzy.

I think, if I had to describe how I was feeling,

it's great excitement, and great pride.

So, let's make John Lewis proud and be Birmingham.

CHEERING

'With minutes to go till opening time,

'I've got swept along with it all.'

OK, ladies, here we go!

SHOPPING HUBBUB

Need to move back.

Look at the queue! Oh, my days. Whoa!

-CROWD:

-Six, five, four, three, two, one!

CHEERING AND WHISTLING

Look at this.

It's very shiny, and very new,

and perhaps even a little inspirational.

'And yes, it's already a bit Christmassy.'

Aw!

Do you like this shop?

What do you like about this shop?

Erm, this.

-Do you think it's a bit early for Christmas shopping?

-Yeah.

'But Ophelia's mum doesn't think so.'

I'm just double checking, but it is still September, yes?

Yep. It wouldn't be John Lewis

if it didn't have a Christmas section, though, would it?

On par with Marks & Spencer's, probably.

I think it makes Christmas really special to come to John Lewis.

And now we've got it, the department store,

they'll have the Father Christmas, and there'll be queues,

and I think it's going to really make Birmingham.

Does it translate into you coming into the store

and parting with your cash as a result?

Yes, but probably not as much as they'd want me to.

I might spend the whole day here just for the experience

and only come away with one thing.

Oh, dear.

It goes to show, you can make your store all inspirational,

but it might not actually make you much money.

What is to stop someone going into John Lewis, browsing,

enjoying the Christmas atmosphere,

and then going home and ordering it online from somebody else?

The technical answer to your question is absolutely nothing.

Always been the case.

They could go and get wonderful advice from one my selling partners

then go and buy it from somebody else. Ever been the case.

So the answer is, there's a sort of notion of brand loyalty

amongst our customers which says,

"John Lewis has given that for me - I'll follow that up with loyalty."

If it's brand loyalty that helps make it all work,

John Lewis isn't leaving anything to chance.

£35 million may buy a shiny new flagship store -

another £7 million buys a Christmas marketing campaign.

# All my little plans and schemes... #

Ah, the tear-jerking John Lewis ad -

a Christmas tradition as old as...

Well, as old as 2007.

Last year's effort was watched a whopping 26 million times on YouTube.

But other retailers aren't sitting idly by.

Happy Christmas.

Sainsbury's got 18 million views for this heart-wrenching epic.

This year, the ad wars are expected to be even fiercer.

The John Lewis Christmas ad is anticipated hotly.

Are there dangers in that? Has it become too big?

There's a danger that we have to surpass it every year.

How are you ever going to do that?

Well, I have a brilliant marketing director who deals with that.

And that marketing director is Craig Inglis,

the man responsible for nearly all their Christmas ads.

Back in about 2008, we saw that affinity to the John Lewis brand

was based on trust and reliability

as opposed to an emotional connection,

and so it felt like there was an opportunity for us

to connect much more, especially at Christmas,

a very emotional time of the year.

And so that was really the genesis of us trying to create a storyline,

a narrative, that could be naturally more emotional.

As you may know by now,

this year's advert is about a man who lives on the moon.

John Lewis is spending £1 million to make it,

and another £6 million buying advertising space.

Now with two months to go till it's launched,

Craig is visiting the set where it will be shot.

He's joined by head of brand marketing, Rachel Swift.

-So have we got a shoot schedule?

-Yeah.

One last question before cameras start rolling -

how would the man on the moon be dressed?

-We'll just quickly have a look at Jean.

-Hi, Jean.

-Hi, Jean.

-Nice to meet you.

-This is Craig.

-How are you?

-Hi. Lovely to meet you. How are you?

-And Ben.

Hello.

We're just looking at his wardrobe. What we're going to do is,

-dress sparkle on set to camera.

-Yeah.

When he's doing his chores, no vest, just the braces.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

-The pictures that I looked at last night,

-just straight out of the box, I was like, boom, boom, boom.

-Definitely, yeah.

Ben Priest is executive creative director of the ad agency.

When Marlon Brando dies in The Godfather in the garden,

and he's wearing braces and the done-up shirt and the old trousers,

-and I think there's a...

-We can just have this, but we've got... It's up to you.

-Spot-on.

-It looks great.

Looks fantastic.

Again, just like the set, it's that perfect balance.

I think we can mix it up a bit. What are you thinking?

Very good. It's great.

They've done enough preparation

to make a whole movie about the man on the moon.

Oh, I love it!

All the different lights.

-Incredible attention to detail.

-It is unbelievable.

It does make you wonder - this IS just an advert...right?

It's a piece of entertainment. I want them to enjoy it

and enjoy the story and connect with the story.

I think that's the first thing.

And start thinking about the gifts they want to buy,

and obviously we'd quite like them to do that at John Lewis, thank you very much.

It's Monday evening.

In head office, they're crunching numbers.

We know the baseline forecast, we're at 20% plus on last year.

Is that a number we're going public with, or...?

-Erm...

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

-Officially saying that.

John Lewis's leadership spends most of the year

looking forward to Christmas.

But they're also bracing themselves for a far newer tradition.

..up until Black Friday, where we have a pre-Black Friday ad running,

and a Black Friday ad launching, obviously, on the Friday.

Uh-oh. Black Friday.

It's only been established in Britain for three years,

but already it's got a fearsome reputation.

It all started in America.

Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving,

which this year means November 27th.

Last year Britons went wild for it,

spending £1.75 billion.

-Do you know what Black Friday is?

-Yes.

It's when everyone goes to, like, Asda and kills each other.

The day when everyone goes crazy over prices.

SHOUTING

Easy, easy, easy.

Wait!

Wait there a minute!

While Asda has decided to pull out of Black Friday this year,

John Lewis is going for it.

For the company, the danger zone

is likely to be London's Oxford Street.

Standing on the thin line between civilisation and savagery

is operations manager Steve Mann.

A lot of people have said to me that their experience of Black Friday

is that it's barbaric, people elbowing you in the face -

is that what it's like in here?

It's busy, but it's in control.

The safety is always there,

and we have full control of the store at all times.

Phew. That's good to know.

Is Black Friday really that big?

Black Friday last year took five times more

than what we would normally take on an average day.

But for about three hours last year we were taking a very similar amount

on an hourly basis, and actually, we're asking ourselves,

is that because we physically can't take any more money?

So this year we're putting even more tills in place.

-Obviously got a strong promotion on Tassimo at the moment.

-Yes.

-Good stock levels?

-Absolutely.

The worry for all big retailers

is the risk that people will buy a whole heap of stuff

at rock bottom prices in November

instead of buying later at the full festive price.

What impact does black Friday have on John Lewis

in terms of how you prepare for Christmas?

We used to see a steady ascent up the mountain of Christmas,

and the peak week was the few days immediately before Christmas.

What Black Friday has done is changed the shape

of that mountain entirely, and last year the peak

was actually the last week of November, Black Friday week.

So it's changed the shape of Christmas trade.

So bigger than Christmas? That's such a surprise. That's bonkers.

The place which will feel that change more than anywhere else

is the company's largest distribution centre,

Magna Park One, near Milton Keynes.

Hiya, how you doing? You all right? Good?

Its boss, Andy Furr, has spent years managing the Christmas rush.

I love Christmas.

I was born on Christmas Day - of course I'd like Christmas.

Christmas is a fantastic time of year.

We try and inject a bit of spirit and fun for that Christmas rush.

Keeping the team's spirits up is one of the keys to our success.

Gents, how we doing? All right? Gaskill, have you done your make-up?

This £160-million site

plays a crucial role in the company's battle for Christmas sales.

It's here where they store stock

and send it out to branches and online customers.

These boxes are customer orders. Just look at the vast range of products we've got -

that's the breadth of assortment that the Partnership deals with.

So at the moment there's a lot of ladies' shoes coming through,

so a lot of our female customers are going out on the razz.

But coinciding with that there are male shoes in there as well,

so I don't want to be too constrained to one individual.

In September, Magna Park normally processes 2,000 items every hour.

During the week of Black Friday, that more than quadruples.

I know that Black Friday is coming soon.

It is enjoyable because I can see what people are buying.

Sexy things like that.

And I'm going straightaway to the John Lewis website

to buy it for myself.

But not everyone in the Magna Park family

is quite so optimistic about Black Friday.

Morning.

Two to three years ago, it was all quite calm.

What Black Friday has done is completely turn on its head.

The volumes are just frightening.

How do I feel about it? Petrified. Petrified.

-How we doing?

-Yeah, very well.

-All set? Ready to crack the whip?

So Andy is going to stress test the system,

processing a whole day's orders in just two hours.

The ultimate aim of today is to try and replicate,

in a very short period of time,

some resemblance to what Black Friday will look like.

And try and break the kit.

As you can see now, the orders have started coming across the bridge.

As more of us shop online,

getting orders to our homes on time has become a huge test

for all of Britain's stores.

Last Black Friday, Marks & Spencer's distribution centre

was overwhelmed by the challenge,

and their next-day delivery service collapsed.

And already we're experiencing a problem.

You can see a guy there that we've got manually intervening now.

That's a real big tick in the box for us.

That's something that puts a smile on my face,

is that we've found the problem.

Don't rectify it any more, yeah?

Let it build up, get an engineer down now.

Got a crash showing at station 1028

and 1109, if you could take a look for us.

The problems Andy uncovers today

will allow him to know exactly where improvements are needed

before the busy period kicks in.

Are you on your own? Are you on your own?

Is there a problem at that M28?

Simon, what you done?

But the crashes soon start racking up -

perhaps a little faster than Andy expected.

Do you need an engineer up there to take a look at that?

The short-term solution is to rectify the problem

that's in front of us now. Place somebody on a ladder

to stand there for the next ten hours and push the totes through.

Black Friday, there'll be two ladders there with two partners up there, pushing it through.

We won't have the time to fix it. But hopefully,

by finding these issues out now, we don't...

we're not confounded with a number of these issues on Black Friday.

And I've got toes crossed as well. Toes crossed as well. Yeah.

It's the final chance for the leadership

to meet up before Christmas.

They're gathering at John Lewis's country retreat in Berkshire.

The setting may be relaxed, but the pressure is on.

MUSIC: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger by Daft Punk

Right, good morning everybody. My pleasure as ever

to run through the partnership and divisional results.

Managing director Andy Street

is rehearsing his pre-Christmas address.

But the whole point is, I don't want it to be about detailed numbers.

It's much more tonal, this.

We have won lots of awards,

but we've had the challenge,

as, of course, the complaint stats continue to confirm.

65% increase in the complaints to me

in the first half of the year.

As the partners from across the empire start gathering next door,

communications director Peter Cross has a potential crisis on his hands.

It seems that as the business booms online, it's not easy to maintain

John Lewis's traditional reputation for great customer service.

So we're in the middle of launching Christmas,

and I've just been told an article's going to run

in a major national newspaper tomorrow morning

in which an employee of one of our suppliers

is making allegations about service standards

and customer service in one of our contact centres.

So this will send a shudder down the very backbone of the company,

and I've got to tell the boss and tell everybody else

that this thing's about to break.

For now, though, he's got to put on a brave face.

Ladies, gentlemen, fellow partners...

John Lewis is very proud of the service it offers,

believing its staff go the extra mile because they are part owners.

But online orders don't necessarily arrive at your home

care of a John Lewis partner.

Around a third of deliveries are made by a range of outside companies.

And if things go wrong and you call up to complain,

often you'll find yourself talking to someone employed by Capita,

the outsourcing company.

The article suggests that, due to this mix of outside companies,

John Lewis's online customers aren't always receiving

the very best service with their deliveries.

"We continue to receive a steady flow of complaints

"about John Lewis where we used to see none."

With Christmas not far away, how bad is the damage?

Peter gathers his team.

"Has John Lewis lost the plot?" I mean, there's no doubt about it,

it's not ideal, is it? I mean, it's not the kind of thing

you want to wake up to on a Saturday morning, to be quite frank.

You were on call, Emma. Did you get anything else come through?

There was nothing as a result of it.

So it's really just keeping a watch on it,

and keeping in touch with the Capita team.

Shall we share it with the rest of the team?

Yes, let's do that. Great. Good.

In the age of social media,

any complaints are quickly aired very publicly online.

There's another bad one.

"They then told me I would have to wait another week,

"three weeks after I purchased, and I am still waiting for the delivery.

"Terrible service."

"Customer service, dreadful."

"Surprised and disappointed."

I think I might need someone to give me a bit of context on all of this.

-Hi. Nice to meet you.

-Nice to meet you.

Ian Jindal is editor of InternetRetailing.

John Lewis is widely recognised

for having some of the best customer service available.

However, the challenge when you start sending parcels

directly to people's homes, the customers are savagely demanding,

because other retailers like Amazon are teaching them

that perfection is possible.

So if you're used to Amazon delivering

within two hours, half a day...

The customer has no gratitude now.

They don't see the complexity, they don't care about the complexity -

they expect you to deliver according to your brand promise.

If customer service is so important, why do you outsource call centres?

Let's be clear - we do not outsource all of our call centres.

If you ring one of our shops,

you will speak to a John Lewis partner.

If you ring for an online enquiry,

you are likely, but not exclusively,

to speak to an outsourced operation.

The simple fact is that given the scale of demand there,

we were not able to handle all of that ourselves.

How do you react to the bad press?

Pretty badly, actually. When you get something like that,

there'll be part of me that says, "Oh, no, it's only a small group of customers, it's not fair."

But my underlying reaction is,

is this somehow a shot across the bows

that we've got to take much greater care of something

than maybe we have in the last few years?

So as orders surge in the run-up to Christmas,

it'll be more important than ever to get that right.

One, two, one, two.

It's the 1st October.

# Let's hear those sleigh bells ringing

# Ring-ting-ting-a-ling too... #

OK, so we've got five hours to go until the stakeholder...

Steve Mann is inspecting Oxford Street's new Christmas village.

I know this morning we had a slight problem

cos jelly beans are going to come into this area here.

# Let's take the road before us... #

With neighbour Selfridges having opened their Christmas village

in August, the team are playing catch-up.

It's universally known as fluffing.

We call it, in the office, "zhuzhing",

because a tree has to be correctly "zhuzhed"

for it to look attractive enough.

It takes about 45 minutes to fluff the tree to its full capacity

to make it look as good as it can.

There's a snag, though.

We're going to have to clean the windows ready for tonight.

OK, so there is a small issue with those windows.

They're sealed shut. We're going to have to come up with a solution now

-to work around ready for tomorrow morning.

-OK.

It's not going to be an easy job, is it?

And sticky windows aren't their only problem

with creating the Christmas mood.

It all looks lovely, but it's too soon for me.

I think they have it in the shops a bit early.

The sun's shining outside, so definitely too early for me.

That hasn't stopped anyone in the Birmingham branch,

where they're tucking into mince pies,

despite it still being October.

LAUGHTER AND CHATTING

For most of the staff here,

it will be their first Christmas with the company.

OK, so, we've got some real key events that we can capitalise on.

And under the eye of manager Lisa Williams,

they're learning the tricks of festive trade.

And if you think about receiving a John Lewis gift card

on Christmas day, customers spend 73% more

than the value of the gift card.

That is a really powerful figure.

So don't forget we do have a gift card.

Out on the shop floor, the new partners

are getting ready for the Christmas rush.

In the toy department, Laura is just settling in.

I've been working here for about five weeks now.

I have to know all the different toys, different characters.

This is the Millennium Falcon, which is the main ship in Star Wars.

I've had to go home and research all those characters - Chewbacca, R2-D2.

I'm slowly starting to know them all,

but I'm sure it's going to take a bit of time.

Meanwhile, former sports retailer Ray

is trying to master the rest of the range.

OK, so what it does, it moves and it makes a sound.

And it's very popular with young girls.

The new staff will have to get ready fast.

Downstairs in the gift department,

the most organised Christmas shoppers are already on the case.

I have to buy about 85, 90 presents in total,

so I'm hoping to have all of them bought and wrapped by mid-November.

If I'm looking for chocolates, I'll either come here

or I'll go to Thornton's. I quite like Thornton's, or Hotel Chocolat.

I do like to shop around and get a bargain.

I'll just go wherever the prices are better, really.

I'll just go online and look at who's competitive.

In mid-October, Christmas shoppers

are still a rare sighting in the John Lewis stores.

The company's website is already feeling the rush, though.

By now, "Christmas" has become the most searched term on the site.

How we surface those around the home page

is definitely something I think we should look at.

And while the John Lewis team in head office

spruce up their online presence,

their rivals are also jockeying for position

to capture the seasonal market.

Over on Amazon, they start promoting a big discount

on Prime membership to try and woo customers ahead of Black Friday.

Meanwhile, Argos shocks the market

by offering nationwide same-day delivery,

although not long after,

its website crashes.

And beneath it all, there's a secret war raging

over online search results.

How do you get yourself to number one?

The retail battleground has shifted from just the store

into our hands and under our fingers.

So if you take, for example, a query like "Christmas gifts for him"

and just go to Google and say, tell me what the answer is.

So many people must type this into Google every single year,

-I know I do, in a panic.

-Absolutely.

And so the top few are paid ads,

and the first result in a natural search is Not On The High Street -

"Range of Christmas gifts for men, look no further."

Debenhams has a slightly more functional approach -

"perfect gift, more arriving weekly."

It's a battleground in that sort of top ten.

So how do you get to the top?

-Well, if I knew then I'd be on an island somewhere.

-Very rich man!

So the first thing they look for are the words.

Millions and millions and millions of phrases and key words

have to be put into Google months in advance

in order to answer your question.

So each retailer has dedicated teams to try and increase the likelihood

that you'll be one of those top hits?

Absolutely. Then you need real people to say,

"Hey, if you want Christmas gifts, go to John Lewis," or whoever,

and so if you click on it, it must be real,

therefore I'll notch that one up as being more relevant.

So you reaffirm Google's idea that this is a real answer.

It's always listening. That's the new retailing challenge.

I imagine that this is vital for a retailer to get right.

It's fundamental.

If John Lewis wants to be top of people's Christmas internet searches

then the advert will have to win plenty of hearts and minds.

But with just five weeks to go till launch,

Ben's showing an early version to Craig

and there's not a moist eye in the house.

So, erm...

I guess my big question is, er...

I don't think it's having quite the impact

I thought it would have at this point.

So the point was whether you feel emotionally connected to him

if you see him from behind waving at the Earth -

as beautiful a scene as it is, which I completely accept.

We can look at all of the waves we have

and all of the mid-moments that we have where he's happy

but that's not... That was the best...

I just think you want to imagine how he's feeling.

I don't want the last image of him to be potentially quite a sad one,

cos in the end he's still on his own.

It somehow emphasises the fact that he's there,

whereas I love that - you know, he's waving back to Earth.

I'm not saying I don't love that.

It's just, do you need something first,

just to subconsciously reassure you?

I think the viewer will think he's happy.

-He feels happy to me when he's waving.

-I'd like to see it.

-Yeah.

We'll have to agree to disagree on the end point for now,

-but let's just look at it.

-Yeah, course.

-And let's see where we get to.

-Yeah.

-OK, anything else?

-It's in good shape.

-Really good.

-I mean, I know we have these meetings and we go through in great detail.

-I don't want you to feel like I'm not happy.

-Thanks, guys.

-Thank you very much. Thank you.

# It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas... #

With the advert not quite there,

at least the company can fall back on a time-honoured technique

to hint that now might be a good time to start buying presents.

Hold it!

Decorating the stores nationwide is a huge job,

taking 36 days and nights to put up 200 truckloads of decorations.

Wait, wait, wait, wait.

# Toys in every store... #

Boasting almost a million individual lights,

it might even be enough to entice the most jaded of shoppers.

You'd be amazed at how many people don't even see us.

The night of the big switch on arrives.

Is it possible that you can get the key to the canopy

-and I'll meet you on the first floor?

-Yeah, that's received.

Steve and his team in London's Oxford Street

are feeling a heavy sense of responsibility.

Right, guys, got the keys to the canopy.

-You all right to show us out there?

-Yeah, of course.

For London and across the world, Oxford Street turning the lights on is the start of Christmas,

so the magic will come to life tonight when we press the button.

Kylie Minogue will be lighting up the whole of Oxford Street.

Hopefully we switch that on exactly the same time as Kylie,

and the magic of all of Oxford Street

being lit up at the same time.

Fingers crossed it'll all be good,

and the whole wall of lights will light up, and Christmas starts here.

Just to confirm, is everyone by their switches? Over.

Hi, Steve, in place. Over.

'OK, we're now going to do a real test, over.'

Hattie, are you in place?

'I can't get in the room.'

Don't make me panic.

'Does anybody know the code for the room with the switch in?'

With seconds to spare, all the staff finally make it into position.

It looks like John Lewis will light up

at the same time as Oxford Street after all.

So Kylie Minogue has now gone on stage.

So just to confirm, I will do a countdown.

'Hi, Steve. Just checking you can hear me. Over.'

Yeah, I can hear you loud and clear.

'Ten, nine, eight...'

..six, five, four,

three, two, one,

switch on.

I can confirm all the lights across the front are looking fantastic,

so thank you, everyone.

Perfect.

Well, almost...

Yeah, that is a major cockup.

As Kylie pressed the button, our lights switched on,

the same as all the other retailers down the street,

but for whatever reason, Oxford Street on this part

hasn't been switched on.

They're too busy cocktailing with Kylie Minogue,

that's what they're doing.

-I've never seen that happen before.

-HE LAUGHS

Once Oxford Street has got its act together,

I pop down to have a look.

And I'm noticing a new and unfamiliar feeling.

I have to admit,

I think I might be starting to feel a little bit Christmassy.

All the stores on Britain's most famous shopping street

are now in full Christmas mode, competing for our custom.

Some of us don't need much persuading.

Is it like a little twinkling nudge?

-Just like, "Go on, then. Go on, it's Christmas."

-Yeah, "Spend money."

-"Go on, it's Christmas time," even though it's two months away.

-Yeah.

What did you buy? Can I have a snoop in your bag?

-Just a book.

-OK, a book. Who's that for?

-It's for me.

-And what else is there?

Um, make up and a necklace.

-And who's that for?

-For me.

-So all for you!

-All for me.

Is it really Christmas shopping, or is it just shopping?

Christmas shopping for me.

Clearly the effect is working for Selfridges,

but not everyone is feeling that glow.

Can we ask you a question about Christmas? No. No.

Documentary for BBC Two about Christmas... Eurgh.

Do they make you feel Christmassy?

-No, I don't like it at all.

-Why?

-I think it's very commercial.

Are they making you feel Christmassy?

No. It's just not enough Christmas spirit.

Normally all the songs are chiming, all the lights are along the shops.

They're not doing much of an effort.

The front windows of John Lewis are looking a little understated.

At least, until the ad is launched.

Good afternoon.

The next day, and Craig is hoping that Ben and his team

have got the ending right.

I was really worried about the man in the moon appearing lonely at the end of the ad

and there being a sense of sadness, and that's not the feeling we want to leave our viewers with

at the end. You know, it's Christmas and we want them to be happy.

So we spent a lot of time just working through real detail, it's all in the detail.

Right, welcome. We're in the final week

and we wanted to take you through

what hopefully will be the final tweaks, changes and improvements.

Let's have a look and see.

Thanks, guys.

# I would like to leave this city... #

Craig and Rachel must launch the all-important ad in three days' time.

So if Ben hasn't dealt with their concerns

about the man on the moon's psychological state,

it could mean some late nights.

# I don't feel down... #

The plan?

To superimpose some cheery balloons onto the final shot.

What it is is cos it's got that little move on it,

so you do feel like you're concentrating on him,

so that final shot, it's sort of contact, him...

It's just a connection between him and the Earth

so that you don't feel that he's going to be desperately lonely.

And I think it really works.

I was, as you know, very worried about that final scene

and I just think it doesn't cross your mind now.

-Great.

-It's a very subtle thing but it makes a big difference.

Well, I think... I think we might have a signed-off ad.

LAUGHTER

Hallelujah! There will be a Christmas.

I can relax, till Jan 1st and start again.

A full three days to go.

6am in head office.

Before it's shown on TV, the ad is first posted online.

With two hours to go before launch,

the team are stoking the fires of social media

to ensure as much buzz as possible.

Peter begins the day with more traditional media.

-How cool is that? Rachel, did you hear that?

-No, what's that?

"The competition between retailers over their Christmas adverts

"has been described as an arms race."

-Wow.

-How cool is that?

-Quite intense, isn't it?

ETA people, 15 mins.

So are we going to go a little bit early?

I think it would be good if we could.

That'd be about five minutes before.

We all realise that social media is now the new media

and everybody is now a journalist.

So the power of social media to drive brand engagement

is just getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

The ad actually hasn't even launched yet on telly,

and we're all sitting here just watching people responding to it.

The team needs to make sure that the ad drops

on all the big social media platforms at the same time.

-Ready?

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

So we're posting it on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.

I'm getting... I'm getting an error.

You've got an error, you're saying?

-No, it's working now. We're fine.

-Well done.

Within a quarter of an hour,

the advert is the number one trending topic on Twitter in the UK.

Half an hour later, it's number one worldwide.

-Right, I need to post it to my mum.

-Yeah!

# I've been lost, I've been found... #

And that night, it goes out on TV for the first time.

I love it. It's a very cool advert.

It's part of the excitement in the run-up to Christmas. It really is.

But not quite everyone is won over by the balloons.

It just felt like that poor old man is on the moon all on his own.

'Hello, fire service.'

A week later Sainsbury's fights back,

this time with the misadventures of a children's favourite.

And by mid-December,

Mog's YouTube views would nudge ahead of the man on the moon.

As for Aldi...

I like this one...

..one of their ads has a very familiar feel.

Are you vexed or flattered that Aldi did a spoof of your advert?

-Flattered.

-Really?

-Yeah. No, it's really amusing.

-It's funny. They've done a good job.

-Did you like it?

-Yeah, it's great.

It's so moving. I have to say, you got me, again.

-You got me.

-Good. Did it make you cry?

-Why do you want to do that?!

Why is it that every year you want to burrow into my emotions?

Emotional advertising works. It's well proven in science.

The cynical side of me thinks,

"I don't want to be played. I don't want to be manipulated."

We really worry that through the year, as we're going through the process,

and make sure it doesn't get into that cynicism territory.

Cynical or not, the advert is certainly designed to get us

to go out and buy carefully chosen, indulgent gifts.

# In the wee small hours... #

Come the end of November, though,

we're all swept up in a very different mood.

Brace yourselves!

Yeah, you know it is - it's Black Friday,

the annual holiday shopping binge.

Has this become a global phenomenon?

# A little less conversation A little more action, please... #

It's just turned midnight,

and John Lewis has already leapt into action.

Just one competitor's saying 1am launch,

so I'll send you the details.

Yeah, please do.

The company has always promised that it is never knowingly undersold,

and that it will match a high-street competitor

when it has a sale.

On Black Friday, when almost all the shops slash their prices,

John Lewis is a bit trapped.

How do you feel about Black Friday becoming such a huge thing in the UK?

Well, I suppose my truthful answer is, I wish it had never happened.

But if you look at it over the long term,

it is definitely a blessing,

because it is just a wonderful opportunity to prove

that we genuinely will never be beaten on price.

# A little more bite A little less bark

# A little less fight A little more spark

# Close your mouth and open up your heart, and baby, satisfy me. #

Birmingham, 6:45am.

Lisa's team are in early to change the prices

on vast swathes of their products.

I woke up at 3:20, I have to admit.

Massive day, everybody in today.

It almost feels like launch day back on the 24th September.

Andy Street arrives to check that his new store is all ready

for the expected shopping frenzy.

This has been planned for months and months and months.

So what are the deals with our suppliers?

What's the capacity on the website?

What's the flow of product through our distribution centre?

My teams across the country have been literally working on this

since the last one.

You ready, Lisa?

There's a nice little queue building.

Very orderly, though. This is very John Lewis. Yes, very orderly.

11am on Oxford Street in London,

and Christmas is SO last week.

The whole street has gone totally Black Friday on us,

and these guys are no exception.

So imagine my excitement as I head towards near-certain carnage.

Electricals, brace yourself, I'm going in.

And after all that, it's...

Well, it's a busy day in a shop, really.

It is definitely busier.

There's a lot of John Lewis staff up here.

There's so many staff,

there's almost some spare.

-Hi, excuse me. I see you've made a Black-Friday purchase.

-Yes.

Did you have to fight anyone to get that? Break any legs?

-No, luckily I just stood behind the till.

-That was it?

-Yeah, easy.

-Were you ready for a fight?

-I was.

-Yeah?

-Yeah, yeah.

Oh, my gosh, you're giving out sweets.

Yes, to make the customers happy.

-Just in case the queues get too big?

-Yes.

How have you noticed the atmosphere in here?

-Because this is the busiest department.

-It's been very calm. Seriously.

-It has been calm.

-Yes.

-Even though there are so many people.

-But there are a lot of people serving them.

-So there is a lot of help here.

-Yes, yes.

If any of the partners feel like they've got extra time on their hands,

they can head up to the staff canteen,

where someone has set up a sort of market stall to sell iPads to them.

So the best deal we've got today, this particular item here -

they're all £30 or £70 off.

Black Friday price £249.

Price for partners with discount - £219, you'd pay.

-That is amazing. So you save £100?

-As a partner.

We're probably going to sell 100 iPads to partners, off the floor

and not on the floor, if that makes sense.

While Black Friday might be in full swing in the canteen,

so far it looks like the rest of Britain isn't playing ball.

By lunchtime, reports are trickling in from across the country.

They opened early for business in Norwich,

but they needn't have bothered - there wasn't a shopper in sight.

In Cramlington, Northumberland,

this man should have no trouble getting what he came for.

-You're the only man here, aren't you?

-Yeah.

HE LAUGHS

The news story of the day is fast becoming that this year,

Black-Friday shopping has moved online.

Amazon is selling a record 86 items per second.

Ao.com are selling double what they did last year.

And then for the John Lewis website...

it all proves too much.

At just after three o'clock, it goes down for 20 minutes.

Customers aren't impressed.

So how's Black Friday playing out in Magna Park?

Despite the website going down,

online orders are through the roof.

They're having to cope with a whopping 18% increase on last year.

Across the distribution network,

the 3,000 permanent staff have been boosted by 2,000 temps.

And as for Andy...

Hi, guys. You all right?

HE WHISTLES A TUNE

-Hi, ladies. How we doing? You all right, yeah?

-Yes, yes.

We're about two thirds of the way through Black Friday now,

and without tempting fate, we're looking OK at the moment.

How you getting on? All right?

-How many deliveries have we had this morning?

-Too many to count.

-That many?

-Yeah.

-Hello.

-Hello.

Clearly all that preparation has paid off.

By 4pm, with all of the next-day deliveries well on their way

to being fulfilled, Andy's gone all Oscars acceptance speech on us.

I stand in front of you today the proudest man on the planet.

We've had 360-odd days of intricate planning

to get us into this position today,

and it's all revolved around the team.

There's no one individual within Magna Park that can stand above everyone else

to say they've done anything differently or anything better than anybody else.

Every single partner, every single agency -

it's been a phenomenal effort.

Stunning performance today. Stunning.

That's all the sexy stuff done, cos I'm going for a cup of tea now.

It's not over on the shop floor.

At 5pm in Oxford Street, the price matching goes on.

Actually, this was one that our customer informed us of.

So we've got a great deal on one of our coffee machines.

We put it down to £49,

another competitor put it down to £29.95.

So we've quickly reacted, got it now on the system and created a ticket.

-So a customer alerted you to this?

-65% off.

-Here we go, Mandy.

-Thank you.

-Which one is it?

-This one here.

-So from 99.

-So that's 99 to 29?

-Yep.

I think it was Argos that put this particular one down.

So you really are reacting to whoever is competing with you?

-Absolutely.

-Do you expect people now to rush around that

-like seagulls to a bag of chips?

-Yeah. I mean, look, I've literally just put that ticket out...

And there's already people checking it out.

We've got customers, one's checking it out, one's already picked up. So fully expect that.

I'm getting sucked into this whole price slashing thing.

I badly need some perspective before I buy yet another juicer.

Gone are the days of schlepping from store to store to compare prices.

These days, there's a running commentary online.

In the offices of Money Saving Expert,

they've been live blogging their analysis

of which deals are worth going for.

Is Black Friday really a thing?

Are there some genuinely great deals to be had, or is it all hype?

There is a lot of hype, but there are some deals to be had.

50% off at Gap, which was the biggest of the year.

M&S have done 30-40% off.

So there have been some real strong codes and vouchers out there.

People like Asda have said they're pulling out.

They've been offering one-litre bottles of Baileys for £10,

which is a real stonking deal.

So some retailers are really getting stuck in to Black Friday.

They are, and online it's been really mega.

Amazon have been pumping out deals every ten minutes,

and the same with eBay. The two of them have actually...

It's not a Black Friday as such - now it's a Black Week.

How has John Lewis been on their price matching this year?

We've been impressed by John Lewis this year.

They have been pumping out a lot of really strong deals in their own right.

But not only that, they've been really hot on their price matching.

So even though the prices were good on Amazon, they were matched?

Yeah, I think that's it. Obviously traditionally people like John Lewis

wouldn't match an online-only retailer like Amazon,

but I think everybody was really upping their game today.

But today's problems with the website haven't gone unnoticed.

Their servers went down about 3pm, which was really bad.

Will that have hurt them financially?

It's not going to be great. And obviously it's a company

that's built on its reputation as well, so having a website that goes down

isn't going to do them too many favours. When you think a real kind of established company

like John Lewis, its servers can't handle a bit of traffic,

that's not going to look great.

MUSIC: Driving Home For Christmas by Chris Rea

It's the morning after the night before

and, in head office, they're trying to get back into the Christmas mood.

# Driving home for Christmas... #

But Peter's still very much in the middle of Black Friday.

A lot of papers have picked up on the website collapse,

with speculation that it may have cost them as much as £2.8 million.

During the course of the day, several retailers were mentioned

as having sites that just weren't working as well as they should have.

So Argos was mentioned, Boots was mentioned,

and we were also in that list. It's... You know, it's not great.

Because you just don't want to be in that list.

This will be seen as a year

when the John Lewis machine wasn't quite 100% perfect.

CHATTER

On the 11th floor, it's the weekly sales meeting.

I know this is a very, very, very important meeting.

Congratulations to everybody.

Despite the website crash, it's been the biggest Black Friday yet,

with total sales of over £187 million for the week.

Traffic, 18.2 million hits, up 1.2% year-on-year.

That's obviously a really cracking week for online, so well done.

That's remarkable.

The big story was how a drop in footfall in stores

was more than made up for by a massive increase in online spending.

Nearly half of John Lewis's sales were made online.

We had unprecedented price matching activity...

Although they've had a record week for sales,

it's not clear how great all that discounting has been for profit.

40% of all sales were not at full price.

Now, clearly, that has a margin of great impact.

Wherever we will price matching, the customers absolutely found it.

Definitely seen that customers have not quite

got their heads into the Christmas spirit just yet.

All this at what should be the most profitable time in the year.

So we really need to see momentum in shops this week

for the high-margin Christmas product,

and that's what it's all about.

But we go into it in great form, so thank you all very much.

Good.

# You'd better watch out

# You'd better not cry

# You'd better not pout, I'm telling you why... #

'December is finally upon us and it's my last trip to Birmingham.'

# He's making a list... #

My daughter would love those.

'I'm surrounded I what I'm guessing are high-margin Christmas products.'

£8.

'Along with the kind of shoppers who are ready to splash out

'on whatever happens to take their fancy.'

-Do you have a list?

-No.

These are nice kind of non-descript presents, aren't they?

-Do you have a list? BOTH:

-No.

-Picked up a jam tree.

-It just looks nice.

-A jam tree?!

-Exactly.

It's just jam in a triangle box!

But it's Christmas, so...

-At no other time of year would you even look at that.

-No.

Although the Christmas tree itself is drawing me in now,

cos I want to know what's in it.

Bucks fizz marmalade, port wine jelly, brandy butter.

-I think those are more useful.

-Yeah.

'Whether you go for a Christmas tree or a jam tree...'

That's nice.

'..it seems people are intent

'on showing someone they are loved this Christmas.'

What have you got so far? You've got a big tin of biscuits.

-Who is that for?

-When's this going out?

-Just before Christmas.

-Not telling you, then.

-The day before. Oh!

-I'm not telling you, then!

-In case they watch it.

-Oh, that's perfect.

What is your thought process behind these presents?

That's cos it's a couple, so one each.

Yeah, there's two mugs and mulled wine.

I don't know if they want it, but they're having it.

-But it's gift-y.

-Yeah.

'But, even among the warm glow of goodies,

'you can't escape the ghosts of a possible Christmas future.'

Do you ever go in store, have a look what's there

-and then buy it online a bit cheaper?

-All the time.

So I'll come, have a play, ask a lot of questions

and then go online to buy it. So I'm not loyal.

So, for a Christmas retailer,

you are the vision of the 21st-century shopper.

Do you ever see a time

-when you do ALL of your Christmas shopping online?

-Yeah, definitely.

We've done the Amazon list last night.

-Somebody's got a Christmas list.

-A Christmas list? Yes!

This year, she just put it all on Amazon.

She didn't even write it out.

Just sent me the link and I went, "Oh, great."

-Ding! Press a button.

-Christmas.

# Santa Claus is coming

# To town. #

'And, with that, my time with John Lewis is drawing to an end.

'It looks like it will be a successful Christmas for them

'but I can't help wondering whether things will always be so rosy.'

When I was in Birmingham, I met a mother and a daughter,

and the daughter now doesn't write a list to Santa.

She writes a list to Amazon,

sends it to her mother, and the mother just presses "Order".

How can you compete with something like that, a change in habits?

-How sad.

-Do you accept that or do you resist it?

I regret it, because some of the mystique, the innocence of childhood

at Christmas is probably gone in that, but you've got to accept it.

We are competing with that.

For us, the magic is the shops and online.

We are offering that mix of bricks and clicks together.

So, if you look the last few years,

our share of the market has increased every year.

And, although there is still plenty of this year still to go,

we are on target to do that again.

Footfall is down, online shopping is up.

You have so many physical stores

AND you want your online service to be one of the best,

-and it's available 24/7.

-Yes.

Surely that's just too much?

Er, I don't agree. I'm not saying it's easy. Crikey almighty,

no-one in the changing retail world would say it's easy at the moment.

Shopping has changed hugely.

Who even thought, 10 or 15 years ago,

of johnlewis.com doing nearly half of our trade?

The job for any retail is to anticipate those changes well.

That's the excitement.

MUSIC: Merry Christmas Everyone by Shakin' Stevens

So there you have it.

And...

there's always the excitement of unwrapping a jam tree this Christmas.

# Snow is falling

# All around me

# Children playing

# Having fun

# It's the season

# Love and understanding

# Merry Christmas, everyone

# Time for parties

# And celebrations... #