Marks & Spencer has brought food, fashion, home and beauty together in a single Christmas campaign for the first time since 2017, fronted by a festive film starring actor James Norton as an undercover Santa.
Amandaland star Lucy Punch plays Mrs Claus, who persuades Santa to shave off his beard, swap his red suit for a Christmas jumper and leave the North Pole to experience the season without being recognised. His journey takes in getting dressed up, preparing the Christmas table, buying gifts and decorating the home, giving each category a part in the story.
The film follows Santa as he discovers how Christmas is celebrated in homes across the country, with the story shifting the source of Christmas magic from the North Pole to the traditions and moments people share around tables and under trees.
“It’s not every day you get asked to play Santa, let alone a Santa who immediately shaves off his beard! M&S has been such a familiar part of Christmas for as long as I can remember, so getting to be part of its Christmas campaign feels really special,” said Norton.
“I loved that this story takes such an iconic character and lets us see him differently. He gets to experience Christmas like the rest of us, discovering that the real magic is in the food, traditions and moments we share with the people we love. It’s warm, funny and full of Christmas spirit, and I’m very happy to have been briefly trusted with the red suit.”
Katherine Jenkins also makes an appearance and provides the soundtrack: a reworked version of Belinda Carlisle’s Heaven Is a Place on Earth. She collaborated with producer Fraser T Smith and composer Tom Howe on the recording, which accompanies Santa’s journey and is officially released alongside the campaign today.
Sharry Cramond, Marketing Director at Marks & Spencer, said: “Customers don’t think about Christmas as one meal, one gift or one outfit. They think about all the moments that make the season special.
“As the only retailer with a truly cross-category offer spanning food, fashion, beauty, gifting and home, M&S plays a unique role in helping customers create Christmas from start to finish. Bringing those categories together allows us to tell one connected Christmas story and celebrate all the ways our customers make the season their own.”
M&S highlighted its non-food festive sales to support this positioning. The retailer said it sells 1,800 Christmas jumpers every day during the festive season and a pair of pyjamas every four seconds in the run-up to Christmas. Last Christmas, customers also bought 125,000 sparkle tees and crew knits.
The campaign will run across TV, video on demand, cinema, outdoor, social media, radio, digital display and print. Its physical centrepiece will be the Pantheon store on Oxford Street, which will be transformed into a “Home of Christmas”, bringing the retailer’s full festive offer under one roof.
M&S completed the transformation of the almost 100,000 sq ft flagship store in July, bringing food, fashion, home and beauty together across four floors. In its interim results on Wednesday, the retailer said sales across the store’s fashion, home and beauty floors were up 27% since reopening, compared with 2024/25.
On social and digital channels, the Friends of M&S will also publish curated M&S Love That Lists featuring the presents, food, fashion, beauty and homeware they want for Christmas. The format extends the Love That platform, which fronted the retailer’s autumn/winter campaign with Gillian Anderson in September. Dedicated partywear, gifting and hosting edits will also run alongside the lists.