Fooled you? Fake John Lewis festive ad by student Nick, 18
TELLING the story of a snowman trapped in a globe while counting down the days to Christmas in a computer-generated animation, it looks like the latest John Lewis advert.
But the video is in fact an A-Level student’s coursework, uploaded to YouTube at the insistence of his mother and girlfriend.
Inspired by John Lewis’ Snowmen Love Story from 2012, Nick Jablonka’s video shows Frosty the snowman trapped in a snow globe unable to see his partner Evie.
It became a massive success on YouTube, with viewers saying it was as a good as anything the professionals could so and Mr Jablonka should be offered a job.
Benjamin Hughes wrote: ‘Bravo. Let’s hope they use this “officially”, while Nicole Booth added: ‘Amazing, this person should be getting paid for it.’
Mr Jablonka, 18, from Gillingham, Kent, had to create an advert with a story for a household brand as part of his sixth form media coursework. The student, who is now studying software engineering at Bournemouth University, said: ‘I decided that I wanted to focus on John Lewis and its Christmas adverts.
‘I did it in about two weeks’
I had been inspired by the 2012 advert they had created featuring the snowmen. I did the entire project in about two weeks, as I had left it to the last minute, which is pretty difficult since the film is entirely CGI animation.
‘I wanted to show Frosty the snowman and his partner Evie, separated and counting down the days until Christmas.
‘My animation shows Frosty is upset he’s unable to see the woman he cares about and I wanted to create a message that people should appreciate and relish the time they are able to spend around their loved ones. After Frosty got to spend the day with Evie, he was trapped back in his snow globe again.’
He added: ‘I never had any intention of putting it out there, until my mum and girlfriend saw it. I was pretty critical of my film despite getting full marks in the project.’
John Lewis was yet to comment on Mr Jablonka’s advert last night. The retailer, which will reveal its new Christmas advert on Thursday, has said it will be more upbeat this year after 2015’s Man on the Moon advert was criticised for being too melancholy. It began Christmas adverts in 2007 with the short film ‘Shadows’ which showed a group of employees placing products in a carefully assembled pile. The advert ends with all the items together creating a shadow that looks like a woman walking her dog through the snow.
Last year’s advert cost £1million to make, and a further £6million was spent buying slots on television, the internet and marketing.