Some Christmas adverts feel familiar before their story has properly started. A cat peers into trouble, a snowman takes to the sky, or a giant reaches down towards a tiny human companion. For readers, the recognition may begin on a bookshelf.
The route from book to advert is not always straightforward. A campaign might create a new adventure for an established character. It might parody a television adaptation. Or it might take a story’s central idea and recast everyone as fruit and vegetables.
Mog, The Snowman and the BFG offer three particularly useful examples. Add Aldi’s Scrooge story, and you have a small Christmas reading list as well as a guide to what those adverts are actually borrowing.
The books and adverts at a glance
| Literary starting point | Christmas campaign | How they connect |
|---|---|---|
| Judith Kerr’s Mog stories, beginning with Mog the Forgetful Cat in 1970 | Sainsbury’s Mog’s Christmas Calamity, 2015 | An established character in a new campaign story, accompanied by a book |
| Raymond Briggs’ The Snowman, 1978 | IRN-BRU’s Snowman advert, 2006 | A comic variation on a character also familiar from the 1982 television film |
| Roald Dahl’s The BFG, 1982 | Sainsbury’s BFG campaign, 2024 | A new festive adventure using the literary character and his world |
| Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, 1843 | Aldi’s A Christmas Carrot, 2021 | A playful retelling of the Scrooge transformation |
The dates belong to different things: a book’s first publication, a film’s first broadcast or a campaign’s launch. Keeping those separate makes the family tree much easier to follow.
Mog: a familiar cat, a new calamity
Mog was an established book character long before the Sainsbury’s advert. HarperCollins’ page for Mog the Forgetful Cat dates Mog the Forgetful Cat to 1970, giving the 2015 campaign decades of readers to draw upon.
Mog’s Christmas Calamity also became a book. The bibliographic record identifies Judith Kerr as author and illustrator, HarperCollins as publisher and Sainsbury’s as a contributor, with publication in November 2015.
So this is more interesting than simply taking an old picture book and filming its pages. An existing character received a new Christmas outing across advertising and print. The IPA’s campaign account also records the connection with Save the Children’s literacy work.
For readers who already knew Mog, the attraction was the return of a familiar personality. For someone meeting her through the advert, the story offered a doorway into the books. Those are two different directions of discovery, and both are worth following.
The useful question when you revisit it is how much of a character must survive a new format. A story can change its setting, pace and scale while keeping the sense that its central creature is still the same awkward, sympathetic presence.
Mog’s Christmas is a different story
The similar titles are easy to muddle. Mog’s Christmas Calamity is the 2015 campaign story. Mog’s Christmas is the earlier book, first published in 1976, later adapted into a television special in 2023.
Contemporary coverage of that adaptation identifies the earlier book, while Lupus Films’ production page credits director Robin Shaw and writer Joanna Harrison. HarperCollins also confirms the 2023 television adaptation.
If you want the story associated with the supermarket advert, look for the word “Calamity”. If you want to read the book behind the later television special, choose Mog’s Christmas. The shared cat does not make them the same adaptation.
The Snowman: from picture book to television to a cheeky advert
Raymond Briggs’ The Snowman was published in 1978. The television film followed in 1982, as Aardman’s distribution page records.
That sequence matters for IRN-BRU’s version. The character’s literary origins and his screen life both sit behind the audience’s recognition. A viewer may know the book, the animated film or simply the image of a boy travelling through the sky with a snowman.
IRN-BRU’s advert dates to 2006. Lupus Films’ account credits the original to director Robin Shaw and distinguishes it from the sequel he directed in 2018. The original’s joke sends the boy down into Glasgow’s George Square after the Snowman takes his drink; the sequel follows the attempt to get it back.
Our reading is that the humour depends on a collision of expectations. The familiar figure promises wonder and companionship. The advert introduces a very ordinary disagreement over who gets the drink.
That is quite a different relationship to a book from Mog’s campaign story. Here, affection for a familiar world creates room for mischief. Recognising the source helps you feel the change in tone.
For a read-and-watch pairing, start with Briggs’ book, then the 1982 film, then the IRN-BRU advert. Notice which associations come from the page and which arrive through the screen. The advert becomes a third encounter with a character, rather than a replacement for either of the first two.
The Snowman · Film guide →The BFG: a literary visitor in a supermarket Christmas
Roald Dahl’s The BFG was first published in 1982, with Quentin Blake’s illustrations. Penguin’s book page confirms both the literary origin and that first-publication year.
Sainsbury’s 2024 campaign takes the giant into a new festive adventure. The Roald Dahl Story Company’s announcement describes the BFG and a Sainsbury’s colleague called Sophie travelling in search of food. It points to details from his world, including snozzcumbers and dream jars.
This is a character entering a new commercial story. The campaign announcement grounds the connection in Dahl’s book; it does not present the advert as a promotion for a particular cinema adaptation.
That leaves a useful comparison for readers. Which details make the BFG recognisable when the original plot is no longer the task? His unusual language, the difference in scale and the objects around him all help carry a world into a short running time.
The pairing also shows how a story can become festive through its new setting. A beloved character need not originate in a Christmas book to fit a Christmas advert. Food, companionship and an invitation to share can give a new adventure its seasonal shape.
An extra shelf: Dickens and A Christmas Carrot
Aldi’s 2021 A Christmas Carrot reaches further back. The Charles Dickens Museum dates A Christmas Carol to 1843.
In the advert, Ebanana Scrooge takes the miser’s place, with Kevin the Carrot helping him towards a change of heart. System1’s contemporary account describes that character arrangement.
The pleasure here is recognising a story structure beneath the new names. Someone begins in a state of hostility towards Christmas and is offered a way to see other people differently. The vegetables change the surface; the transformation remains legible.
It is a literary reference that also speaks to viewers raised on film adaptations. You do not need to choose one particular screen Scrooge as the source of every joke.
Choosing the right book
For the original Mog story, choose Mog the Forgetful Cat. For the 2015 advert's story, look specifically for Mog's Christmas Calamity. Mog's Christmas is a different book and the basis of the later television special. Similar cover characters can make these easy to mix up.
For The Snowman, check whether you want Briggs' original wordless picture book or a later retelling. For The BFG, distinguish the story's 1982 debut from the publication date of the edition in your basket. A book can be the source of a character without containing the adventure shown in a supermarket advert.
A small reading-and-watching ritual
Choose one character rather than trying to cover the whole shelf in an evening. Read the book, watch the relevant adaptation or advert, then talk about one thing that changed.
With Mog, compare two stories featuring the same cat. With The Snowman, compare the feeling of the original world with the advert’s comic turn. With the BFG, look for the details that make a new adventure recognisable. With Scrooge, follow the change in behaviour beneath the food puns.
The most rewarding question is often simply: what did the advert expect us to know already? Answering it can send you back to a book you loved, or towards one you first discovered during an ad break.
Find more literary visitors and festive short films in the CineClaus Christmas adverts collection.
