Irish children's author Joe O'Brien has accused British department store John Lewis of using a plot similar to one of his books for their Christmas commercial without giving him any credit.
O'Brien said he wrote "Alfie Green and the Fly Trapper" 17 years ago in honor of his late son Alfie and said he was "hurt" to see the same characters used in the new commercial.
O'Brien's book centers around a boy called Alfie who meets a Venus flytrap called Snapper, while the John Lewis commercial also centers around a young boy and a flytrap with the same names.
The commercial tells the story of a flytrap that sprouts at Christmas and chews up a family's Christmas present, including a scene where the plant attacks a dog. O'Brien's book includes a scene where a flytrap attacks a cat.
O'Brien told the Irish Independent that his daughter heard the commercial on the radio and thought that his book was being featured on the radio.
"The first I heard of it was on the evening it was released. We had the radio on in the car and my daughter said, ‘Daddy, your book is on the radio’," O'Brien told the Irish Independent.
Irish broadcaster Maia Dunphy, a friend of O'Brien, also took to X, formerly Twitter, to point out the 'apparent coincidence' between the book and the Christmas advert.
We finally saw the #JohnLewis Christmas ad. We loved it, and were delighted to see one of our great friend @Joeobrienauthor ‘s stories brought to life on screen! Until we found out it’s apparently a coincidence? Pretty big one though? What say you @JohnLewisRetail ? pic.twitter.com/Ce74xatlwc
— Maïa Dunphy (@MaiaDunphy) November 20, 2023
O'Brien said he has contacted his publisher about the issue.
John Lewis said it is looking into the matter and stressed that any similarities with O'Brien's book are purely coincidental.
"We would like to reassure Mr. O’Brien that neither we nor any of the creative team working on our ad were aware of his book during any stage of the creative process and that any connection is coincidental," the retailer said in a statement.
John Lewis added that it was "very sorry" to hear of O'Brien's concerns.
The new commercial follows a young boy who lives in a single-parent family comprising of his mother, sibling, and grandmother. The boy discovers a flytrap seed at a flea market, which sprouts into a large plant that chews up his family's Christmas presents.
Meanwhile, the book centers around a young boy who lives with his father, mother, and grandmother and creates the flytrap using a magic book.
There are more notable differences between O'Brien's book and the new commercial, namely that there is no mention of Christmas in the book.
O'Brien's book additionally features several other monsters, while the commercial solely features a Venus flytrap.
The Irish Independent reports that the directors of the new commercial initially wanted the main character to be a girl but changed their minds, choosing Alfie because it is one of the most popular boys' names in the UK.
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