An Australian Christmas ad

Apparently Australian retailers promote Christmas, too. Who would have guessed? Of course we all did, but for no particular reason I just haven’t shared many Australian ads before. Maybe it’s because most of their retailers are here, too, so their ads are our ads. Except when they’re not, like these ads.

The ad up top is from upmarket Australian department store chain, David Jones, which was founded in 1838, making it the world’s oldest department store chain to still be trading under its original name (although, of course, the chain is no longer Australian-owned).

The chain opened its first New Zealand location—and its first outside of Australia—in Wellington in 2016, after the company acquired the name and site of the former Wellington department store Kirkaldie & Stains, which went out of business. The Wellington store was relatively small, but in February this year the company announced plans to build a large store as part of new “mega mall” in Auckland’s Newmarket, though it won’t be open until around this time next year. Which means, there’s no point in the company running TV ads in New Zealand.

Most of the Australian retailers who might make Christmas ads haven’t posted them online yet. For that matter, no other New Zealand Christmas ads have started running yet, let alone being posted online. This year’s series is starting a little more slowly than I’d expected. So, I’m looking a little farther than I have in previous years.

So, for now, here’s another short ad from David Jones: