M&S Takes Aim at John Lewis Christmas Ad Crown With Topless Santa

For years, the Christmas advert season has belonged to John Lewis, whose piano-led tearjerkers gave the 160-year-old department store a cultural head start in the race for festive spending. This year Marks & Spencer is fighting back with an attention-grabbing weapon: a topless Santa Claus played by screen heart-throb James Norton.

The upbeat M&S commercial has inevitably been measured against the John Lewis offering, launched this week, in which Kristin Scott Thomas plays a glamorous grandmother transforming one room of her large townhouse into a fun 'gran cave'. The John Lewis portrayal of wealth, from the sprawling property to ungrateful grandchildren, drew criticism for being out of step with the wider mood of the nation.

In the M&S film, Norton and Lucy Punch star as a youthful Mr and Mrs Claus, and shots of Norton wearing nothing but an M&S white cotton towel have spread rapidly online. Men's Health magazine dubbed him a 'shredded Santa', remarking that his Saint Nick 'leaves the traditional mince-pie physique looking a little dated'. Gurjit Degun, creativity and cultural editor at advertising and marketing magazine Campaign, described the spot as 'playful and tongue in cheek without being silly'.

The campaign folds M&S's fashion, food, beauty and homeware strands into a single advert, a strategy the retailer last used in 2017. Norton's Santa shaves off his beard to go undercover and experience the buildup to Christmas incognito, while Punch plays a snobbish Mrs Claus reminiscent of her character in Amandaland. The pair gatecrash a dinner party, swing by a children's carol service and discover 'picky bits'.

The takeaway from M&S is that Christmas is about shared moments rather than just big gifts, though the advert is still very much about shopping. Every element on screen, from Punch's pyjamas to that towel and the prawn cones Norton said he saw 'hundreds' of during filming, is available to buy. The John Lewis campaign, by contrast, urges viewers to give physical presents rather than cold, hard cash.

Norton said he was drawn to the 'playful, funny and reverent script' and to director Shannon Murphy, whose credits include Killing Eve and Babyteeth. 'I trusted that Shannon would deliver on the tone,' he said. 'She's such a cool cat.' Although usually 'a sucker for a traditional tearjerker', he said the film still captures festive emotion thanks to family-and-friends moments that speak to 'connection and joy'.

Punch said she welcomed the deliberately humorous script. 'I don't want any more Christmas tearjerkers,' she said. 'I want fun and joy. Life is enough of a tearjerker, it's fun to have something festive with a bit of a wink.'

There is plenty riding on the adverts in a tough consumer market. M&S is still trying to bounce back from a 2025 cyber hack that forced it to close its website for more than six weeks at a cost of over £100m, while John Lewis is working to revive interest as it grapples with higher costs and a decline in consumer confidence.

Jonathan De Mello, founder of JDM Retail consulting, called the John Lewis strategy smart, saying the casting of Scott Thomas reflects the customer it wants to reach. 'They are targeting a group that is fairly affluent,' he said. 'They have a decent chunk of disposable income because they have paid off their mortgages.' But he cautioned that the approach could 'alienate the mass market', because for a younger generation 'it portrays a type of lifestyle that for many is unattainable'.

De Mello said the M&S advert mirrors the retailer's successful turnaround. 'Before, there was a dichotomy between the food and the fashion, and now they are very much aligned. M&S now taps into the younger consumer psyche and this advert reflects this.'