Christmas beckons. To some the season of peace and goodwill. To others the axle-grease oiling the wheels of the turbo consumer juggernaut.

Personally, I think this year the naysayers have it, Peace and goodwill are, after all,  in pretty short supply.

Not that the drivers of this HGV of capitalism are taking any chances. Pedal to the metal, the festive advertising campaigns are already bearing down on an unsuspecting public.

Leading the convoy is John Lewis. No mere advert, there’s is a promotional “event”. Conservatively priced at £5m, the loveable and altruistic child counting down the hours till he can, (spoiler alert), give his parents their own Christmas present, is already paying his way in ‘free’ copy.

“What makes it so powerful?”, asks the Guardian. The fact your commissioning pieces like this, one is tempted to respond. “The whole country seems to be talking about it”, reports the Mail. Yes. And perhaps that’s because you’ve just devoted an entire spread to “The little boy every mother wants for Christmas.”

Unfestive cynicism aside though, there’s no doubt John Lewis has struck advertising gold. And in doing so they’ve captured a social, and by extension political, snapshot of a nation.

Yes, it contains a number of advertising staples that Don Draper would recognise. It features a classic nuclear family. White, of course. The theme is unashamedly sentimental, following the old adage that if you tug their heart strings their purse strings will follow. And the climax is so mawkish that if Ed Ball’s really wept at Antiques Roadshow and Captain Von Trapp’s return from Vienna he’ll need to have his shoelaces and belt removed before being allowed to watch it.

But in many other ways it is time stamped December, 2012. And Ed Miliband, for one, will welcome it. Though his - or to be more precise former shadow health secretary John Healey’s - description ‘the squeezed middle’ has just been declared the Oxford English Dictionaries phrase of the year, Labour’s leader has struggled to crystallise the concept in the public consciousness. In the space of ninety seconds John Lewis has done the job for him.

The Lewis family are the squeezed middle. Their modest semi says aspiration, but not affluence. They are good people; Mr Lewis, a white collar worker, reads a broadsheet, not one of those unscrupulous, Hugh Grant harassing tabloids.

But they are struggling. As the lyrics accompanying the ad, (appropriated to the wrath of Morrissey fans everywhere), hauntingly inform us, the luck they’ve had can make even a good man bad. And the Lewis’s haven’t had a dream in what seems a long, long time.

Who they blame for this state of affairs is unclear. We don’t see Mr Lewis raging against Gordon Brown’s profligacy, or berating George Osborne for his lack of a Plan B.

But nor is there a sense that we and the Lewis family are in this together. Empathise though we may, the poor Lewis’s seem worryingly alone.
It’s fashionable to decry the focus group oriented, image driven culture of modern politics. As it is the greed and irresponsibility of the corporate sector. But it’s interesting that it’s a high street retailer, rather than a politician or party, that has been able to so deftly place their finger on the pulse of the country.

Ed Miliband’s efforts to introduce himself to the nation in a series of party political broadcasts during last year’s local elections were memorable only for his attempt to recast his father, described on his Wikepdia page as “one of the best known academic Marxists of his generation", as a removal man. David Cameron, after some brief initial success on a Norwegian glacier, has similarly struggled to encapsulate the public mood on screen. Though in fairness to Miliband, at least he has discovered a resonant theme. The Big Society, in contrast, stubbornly continues to defy analysis.

But David Cameron will also draw some comfort from the phenomenon that is the Lewis family. At its heart is an essentially conservative narrative. Parochial. Even insular. The Lewis’s world is their own small corner of little England. And it’s difficult to picture either Mr or Mrs Lewis camped out on the steps of St. Paul’s, or sitting on the floor of Top Shop.

There is no doubt John Lewis are set to walk away with the prize of campaign of the year. But in doing so they have created a prize of their own.
The Lewis’s are the new C2s. The replacement for Mondeo man. Over the next three and half years David Cameron, Ed Milband and Nick Clegg will all be beating a path to their door.

And whoever can succeed in getting a red, blue or yellow poster in the upstairs window of that modest semi between now, and polling day 2015, will be well on course for Downing Street.

Tags: C2, Christmas, David Cameron, Ed Miliband, John Lewis