What would Santa like for Christmas more than absolutely anything else in the world? Turns out, it’s probably a pair of Boots Travel Fresh flight socks.
What? Yep, you heard that right. That’s the premise of the Boots Christmas ad this year. We start with a mother and daughter shopping on the high street, when the little girl has an epiphany: who gives Father Christmas his presents?
Well, mum has an answer to that: it’s them, silly. Packing their bag full of goodies from Boots (where else), the pair set off on an odyssey which takes them from the rainy high street to the frozen North Pole, soundtracked by Val Doonican's I’m Going To Get There Somehow, not, mercifully, reworked by the latest anodyne singer-songwriter.
Along the way, they take every opportunity to give service workers items from their shopping bag of wonders – some more thoughtful than others. The man driving the repair lorry for their car is gifted a bottle of No 7 Damage Reversal serum (the cheeky little blighters), while the gothy station attendant wearing black lipstick gets some Bad Gal Bang black mascara.
It gets better. The funnier moments come when the lusciously-locked pilot of the plane they’re flying in (presumably to the Arctic Circle) is seen wielding a multi-styling hair wand, or the explorer they encounter in the frozen wilds is gifted a set of soaps. As they leave, he lifts an arm and cautiously sniffs; yep, fair. How he’s going to use that Soap & Glory shower gel without freezing to death is left to our imagination.
Finally, they make it to the North Pole, in order to gift the big man himself that precious compression footwear. The only gift for the man who rides a flying sleigh.
Building on the longstanding Boots Christmas theme of ‘giving joy’ (last year’s ad featured a pair of spectacles that showed you others' heart’s desires, handy when you're struggling for a present for Auntie Dot), this is a serviceable entry to the Boots Christmas canon, one which is always hamstrung by the fact that, well, they don't sell festive hams, but they do sell festively packed toothbrushes. Hard to make sexy.
The relationship between mum and daughter is touching - and the fact that most of the gift come in at under £10 during a cost of living crisis is surely something to shout about. I might have those flight socks after all.
