Well ahead of its seasonal campaign timeline John Lewis has begun drip-feeding info about its 2024 Christmas Advert.

The new three-part ‘through the decades’ campaign, which centres on the return of the John Lewis ‘Never Knowingly Undersold’ price pledge and is at the heart of the message, culminates with the department store’s highly-anticipated Christmas spot.

The first ad, created by Saatchi and Saatchi, was released Thursday evening on Channel 4, bounces backwards and forwards via a single store window changing over a century as it’s dressed and re-dressed with products such as 1920s looks and a toaster so innovative that that it took centre stage in 1925.

Scenes are also shown during the outbreak of the Second World War, when the retailer’s Oxford Street store – the first John Lewis – provided a temporary war bunker and was hit during the Blitz 84 years ago.

In the snapshots of the ad so far, styles from 1954 are recreated with mannequins with soft bobs wearing tea dresses, as a woman looks into the window applying lipstick.

Also in the clip, the window recreates the swinging 60s and the 1980s Lycra fitness craze before arriving in the present day with high-tech LED anti-ageing face masks.

The end of the ad features the Never Knowingly Undersold pledge, which began in 1925, reinstated on the shop window.

The ad’s soundtrack, a version of Paul Simon’s I Know What I Know, is sung by Laura Mvula, while actress Samantha Morton provides the voiceover.

John Lewis customer director Charlotte Lock said: ‘We’ve looked to our heritage to inform our refreshed value promise to customers, making it relevant for today by matching not only high street retailers but also online competitors – and we are backing it with the biggest marketing campaign in our history.

‘We have drawn on our archives and are literally depicting a window on Britain, showing the changing trends and events over the past century.’

Meanwhile, John Lewis said sales had “increased significantly” since the pledge’s re-launch, and organic visits to johnlewis.com – or those that are unpaid via search engines – had increased by more than 50,000 a day.