Sainsbury’s Christmas ad casually features a same-sex couple for a second year in a row
Sainsbury’s supermarket has explained why it included a same-sex couple in its 2016 Christmas advert.
The Greatest Gift, by Sainsbury’s, is this year’s seasonal offering, featuring a main character who wants to be able to spend more time with his family.
It features stop-motion animation of the town of Bisby, and shows Dave, voiced by James Corden.
After he comes up with an ingenious way to be in more than one place at once, the ad features a number of diverse families.
A spokesman for the supermarket giant has said they wanted to represent “modern Britain” in the advert.
Head of Broadcast Comms at Sainsbury’s Sarah Kilmartin said at a press conference: “We wanted to reflect a modern Britain and a diverse Britain.
“That’s what we feel like we’ve done throughout the whole piece of work. We’ve made sure we’ve got a true reflection of what we see out there every day.”
As well as representing “modern Britain”, profits from the Greatest Gift ad campaign will go to Great Ormond Street Hospital.
Kilmartin added of Corden’s involvement: “We thought a lot about who we wanted to reach out to to sing the song and James Corden felt like a really good fit to us, because he’s a British performer but not somebody who was stereotypically a singer.
“When we started to talk to James and his agent, we found out how much he enjoyed Christmas himself, he was really excited about the opportunity to work with Great Ormond Street Hospital and also Bret McKenzie.”
Sainsbury’s new Christmas ad will premiere tonight on ITV.
But in the mean time you can check it out below:
The chain’s last Christmas advert won praise from viewers for its casual inclusion of a same-sex couple at Christmas.
But earlier this year the brand came under fire as a gay couple said they were told to stop holding hands by a security guard in one of its stores.
Hundreds of protesters staged a ‘kiss-in’ in Sainsbury’s Hackney branch in August after Thomas Rees and boyfriend Josh said they were accused of “immoral” behaviour by the security guard for holding hands.
