Budget supermarket Lidl has chosen a sweet storyline for its Christmas advert this year. As a raccoon looks out from it's tree to see a family decorating their living room for the festive season, it sees the family dog accidentally break the son's favourite tree decoration. Later, the mum picks up a toy monkey at Lidl to help cheer him up. The raccoon notices it has been dropped and so travels through the city with the toy monkey to get it back to the little boy. It also marks the return of the Lidl Toy Bank, a nationwide drive that saw over 80,000 toys donated last year.
While this advert warmed our heart, it didn't quite have the pull of other Christmas adverts. The raccoon is cute and the tree is twinkling, but the message gets a little lost. The toy monkey doesn't have a link to the festive season (like Monty the Penguin for John Lewis in 2014, for example) and there are plenty of presents under the tree already without the toy that the little boy didn't know about previously. It's sweet, but lukewarm hot chocolate for us.
Ranking: 6/10