Tesco has unveiled the first in a series of Christmas adverts as the grocer bids to claim its share of festive food spend.

The campaign follows a similar trend to last Christmas, when the supermarket giant ran four separate ads, breaking from the tradition of creating one showpiece TV advert.

Tesco’s first ad, screened for the first time at the weekend, again features a couple played by comic duo Ruth Jones and Ben Miller.

Jones’s character, Jo, is seen shopping a store in November and moaning to herself that “it’s only November” when Slade’s Merry Christmas Everybody is played.

Jo begins to run through everything she needs to buy in her head and, by the end of the advert, allows her husband Roger to pick up a box of mince pies, before declaring: “Bring it on.”

Tesco’s group brand director Michelle McEttrick said the ads and the new slogan are geared around showing that the grocer is “ready to help” its customers, “no matter what Christmas throws at them”.

McEttrick added: “We’ve identified those festive moments our customers experience in the run-up to Christmas and used them to create our TV adverts for this year.

“So however our customers choose to shop with Tesco this festive season, the message is loud and clear: Christmas – bring it on!”