"What's Your Thing?"

11 September 2025

60s

Keeping it real.

This TV commercial for DFS is like watching a Christopher Nolan fever dream about Jonathan Glazer's ad for Levi's... in a good way, and with a very impressive outcome. Directors Bradley + Pablo take the protagonist on quite the journey before she ends up surrounded by furniture options at the advertised retailer.

The craft on display is terrific, especially as much of it was achieved in-camera, which adds to the dynamic in an indefinable way. At a moment when so many entities within the industry are trying to pretend that the artificiality of stuff made using AI is an adequate substitute for the beauty of human ingenuity, how refreshing is it to see something that illustrates the folly of that perspective?

The DFS journey is fascinating too. It continues its commitment to ambitious advertising, and, taking account of the impact of the pandemic, it has seen growth that is both steady and impressive over the period after it transformed its marketing approach with around £750 million in turnover ten years ago to north of £1 billion the year before last.

This, alongside the commercial for Argos which we featured yesterday, demonstrate that, for some brands at least, there is still tremendous value in advertising on TV.

UK

Furniture Retailers