How has Barbour become one of the most hotly-anticipated adverts in my personal Christmas calendar? The answer is simple: Aardman.
The brand has collaborated with Shaun the Sheep for a good few years now (I confess myself a massive fan of all their previous ads). For this edition, though, they’ve taken things one step further and brought in the OGs.
Yes, kids, Shaun the Sheep is actually a Wallace and Gromit spinoff. Whether this will fly with a generation of kids raised on Shaun’s TV programmes is another question, but hey – they’re not the ones with disposable income, and given that I love Gromit with the heat of a thousand burning suns, it’s a very welcome development.
The ad is short but sweet. While Gromit gets to work loyally wrapping his presents by hand, Wallace has invented a Gift-O-Matic for the big day, which naturally comes in a Barbour-y shade of tartan (Winterberry, apparently, which is exclusive to this year).
You’d think he’d have learned by now not to create semi-sentient robots, given the events of the Wrong Trousers and last year’s Vengeance Most Fowl, in which Wallace’s robotic garden gnome turned satanic and started busting people out of jail. But where would the fun be in that?
Soon enough, the machine is causing a benign sort of chaos by blowing out the wall of the house and pulling very explosive crackers with Gromit. I especially enjoyed its four settings – Gift, Wrap, Unwrap and Cracker. Honestly, what more could you wanted? Doubtless every adult who watches this will secretly be hoping for one in their stocking too.
It’s all good fun, and if the sight of the pair gifting each other matching Barbour scarves doesn’t quite hit the same emotional heights as a flock of sheep banding together to make Farmer a new jacket, well, maybe I’m just a cynic.
It’s cute, it’s not a cost of living supermarket advert (hooray!) and there are some welcome dabs of humour in there when Wallace gets stripped in front of a gaggle of carol singers. All the Wallace and Gromit highlights are in there, and it’s pleasingly chuckle-worthy. Hooray for Barbour.
