Has John Lewis tweeted too early?

The UK retailer launches its 2013 Christmas campaign to a mixture of hibernating bar-humbuggers and die-hard fans.

Earlier this week John Lewis launched its Christmas campaign The Bear & The Hare with a massive heart wrenching film. It features the story of two animals friends. Upon discovering his friend has been in hibernation during Christmases past, the hare sets out to show the bear how special a present filled Christmas can be.

Reportedly costing £7m for the TV spot alone, the production is beautifully crafted and works well across different mediums. The connection moment between campaign and

retailer is completed by a range of Bear & Hare products (available now at all John Lewis stores).

But it is the social media profiles for the two characters that has caused some backlash from fans. According to some, the fact that the characters are already set up with Twitter profiles and tweeting is just not Christmas.

But looking at the amount of online conversation being driven not only around the ad but around all the content elements of the story (Lily Allen’s cover of Keane track Somewhere Only We Know is now hotly tipped to be the UK’s Christmas No. 1 chart single) suggests that knowing that consumers now act as judge and jury on Twitter before they go in-store will probably bode well for John Lewis at the register.

According to industry reports and agency We Are Social, 80% of the tweets praised the ad, describing it as “cute” and “sweet”, while 5% of tweeters claimed the ad had reduced them to tears. Only 1% of tweets were outright negative about the ad and John Lewis.

Follow the conversation with at #bearandhare on Twitter or for more behind the scenes action check out this very good insiders look.