John Lewis has launched its first-ever TV advertising campaign outside of Christmas and clearance, in a bid to push sales of its spring and summer collections.

The first advert will air tonight on ITV and will showcase what the retailer called “the very best” of its offerings across home, fashion and beauty.

The campaign’s central tagline is ‘Spring: we’ll help you style it’ and will cover more than 200 products – almost 60% of which are John Lewis own-brand.

The TV advertising campaign will be supported by John Lewis’ internal social media programme #WeArePartners, which has more than 500 of the partnerships’ staff creating and sharing “unique content across their own social media channels”.

The campaign will run from March 9 until April 26.

Marketing director Martin George said: “We know that our customers want to hear more from us outside of the Christmas period, which is why we’ve launched our first-ever spring advertising campaign, enabling us as a business to connect with more people in the most relevant way.

“This campaign showcases our credentials as a brand in tune with modern living and our expertise in design across our own brand products and the very best of the brands we offer across fashion, beauty and home”.

The news comes after John Lewis posted its results for the 2019 financial year last week.

The department store and grocer group said profit before tax, exceptional items and partner bonus fell 23.1% to ÂŁ123m in the year to January 25, 2020.

While Waitrose reported “a solid” performance, the department store group’s operating profit slumped 65% to £40m, driven by weak sales across its home, and electricals department.

The value of John Lewis’ 50-strong department store estate also plummeted £123m during the year, as a result of “shops playing less of a role in driving online purchases”.

The partnership said it would pay its partners a 2% bonus – the lowest since 1953.

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