The John Lewis ad has become iconic around Christmas time, signalling the beginning of the festive season for many. Over the years, brands have tried to compete by creating their own festive adverts, with successes and failures sparking much debate.

This year, however, many brands seem to have taken a different approach. Instead of trying to compete with new and different ideas, we're now seeing an array of parody ads on our screens, from Aldi's 'Kevin the Carrot', who is excitedly waiting for the John Lewis advert to air, to Robert Dyas' 'not my trampoline' advert.

By aligning themselves so closely with John Lewis, who leads the Christmas advert realm, these other brands are able to pique the interest of a much wider audience than they might have otherwise.

This certainly isn't a bad tactic to have used, considering that between 7am and 9am on the morning of the John Lewis advert launch, there were 30,683 mentions of it on Twitter, as well as 25,603 mentions of #BusterTheBoxer, according to data analytics company Brandwatch.