Real people. No script. That's the hard part.

When John Lewis & Partners began refurbishing stores across the UK, they chose radio to reassure customers that something better was coming, and that the disruption would be worth it. The ads needed to feel genuinely warm and personal. Not corporate reassurance. Real people talking about their store.

Direction without a script

The Partners are a vital part of John Lewis: every one of them a part-owner of the business. It was only right they featured in the commercials. But we didn't give them a script. Instead, we recorded conversations with Partners around the key areas the ads needed to cover, then carefully edited their responses into something natural, personal and completely authentic.

This approach is harder than it looks. You need to put people who aren't used to a microphone at their ease. You need to know what you're listening for in the raw recording, how to shape conversational speech into something that flows, and how to preserve the warmth of the original while making sure the message lands.

It's direction without a script, and it only works if you know what you're doing. Which is why real-people audio so often sounds stilted and forced.

Authentic

John Lewis got radio ads that sounded like their own people talking about their own store. Because that's exactly what they were. Authentic, warm, and impossible to fake.