High profile ads a feature of consumer calendar

The John Lewis Christmas campaign has become a fixture of the consumer festive calendar, with this year’s Excitable Edgar following in the footsteps of characters ranging from a lovelorn snowman to a trampolining dog.

Here is a rundown of the ads over the years.

• 2014: Monty The Penguin Monty, who hopes for love, is the imaginary character created by a boy whose favourite toy is a stuffed penguin. A female penguin toy happily arrives under the tree for Monty on Christmas Day. The ad features a Tom Odell cover of John Lennon’s Real Love.

• 2015: Man On The Moon

The biggest tearjerker of them all shows a young girl who spots a lonely old man on the moon and decides to send him a telescope to give him a connection to Earth. The partnership with Age UK had the tagline: “Show someone they’re loved this Christmas.” Norwegian artist Aurora provided the soundtrack with a cover of Half The World Away by Oasis.

• 2016: Buster The Boxer The story of Buster, who makes a break for the new Christmas trampoline after having to suffer watching foxes, a badger, squirrels and a hedgehog trying it out first, was accompanied by a cover of Randy Crawford’s One Day I’ll Fly Away by electronic trio Vaults.

• 2017: Moz The Monster A friendship develops between Joe and his imaginary monster under the bed, Moz. Moz eventually realises that their late nights must end when he sees the toll they are taking on Joe. Joe wakes on Christmas morning to find a present of a night light under the tree. The ad was set to a cover of Beatles song Golden Slumbers by Manchester band Elbow.

• 2018: The Boy And The Piano The campaign makes Sir Elton John the star of the ad, with his performance of Your Song the soundtrack to a festive-tinged retrospective of his life and career. The ad opens with the star tapping out the opening notes to Your Song, his first major hit, and ends with the four-year-old Elton running down the stairs on Christmas morning and unwrapping his grandmother’s gift of her piano.