The John Lewis Christmas advert is fiercely, preposterously secret

Disney was criticised this week for responding to an unfavourable report in the Los Angeles Times by blacklisting its staff from advance screenings of the new Star Wars film, thus withholding the crucial jump on public release that critics rely on.

There is one piece of filmed content out there that's even harder for journalists to get a preview of than the blockbuster sequel to arguably the biggest franchise in film history, however: the John Lewis Christmas advert.

The annual, ~2-minute long video has superseded Coca Cola's cheerily naff truck as the official sign that Christmas is around the corner, and becomes a self-perpetually bigger deal every year, the timeline of hype having gone something like this over the past decade:

'These John Lewis adverts are pretty cool' > 'These John Lewis adverts are now a bonafide Thing' > 'These John Lewis adverts have gotten out of hand' > 'These John Lewis adverts have now lost touch with all reality but let's watch them anyway'.

Because of this, and the many millions of pounds ploughed into the commercials, and the time put into them (brainstorming starts in January), and the company's Christmas-orientated revenue strategy, there is now an omertà-like code of silence surrounding the adverts.

When it comes to feature films (even the highest profile, Best Picture-bound ones), journalists are offered multiple advance screenings to choose from, and occasionally studios will be persuaded into providing you an online screener link if you're not able to make it to an office or theatre. Reviews of what is watched are embargoed until a specific date under Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA), but tweeting your thoughts on the movie is generally okay.

With the John Lewis Christmas advert, however, which is, it's easy to forget, literally an advert, the process is quite different. For 2017's instalment, publications were summoned to the John Lewis head office. A private viewing link might have sufficed but no, instead journalists traipsed to Victoria in London to watch an advert that lasts a fraction of the journey time. Each publication was allowed to book in a time slot on the previews day, which served as the only chance to see the advert ahead of transmission and could not be rescheduled or repeated. Your correspondent was in New York at the time of the previews, so can only wonder what anthropomorphised, merchandisable animal will be front and centre this year.

NDAs are a huge deal if you want to so much as glimpse the advert, dished out like Official Secrets Acts and presumably contravened on pain of blunt force trauma by Cath Kidston cake stand. The Sun dared to merely report the time of the first TV broadcast of the advert this week and were swiftly asked to remove the line, a request they complied with. Care was taken to make sure the advert was shot out of view of the public in case of spoilers meanwhile, and the identity of its Oscar-winning director, Michel Gondry, was kept a secret until this week.

It's all highly surreal, a scripted short film designed to sell you products being one of the most eagerly-anticipated pieces of video content of the year, but, as long as 25 million people keep watching the adverts each year on YouTube (the TV broadcast is an afterthought by this point) the sky is the limit as to what journalists will comply with to bring readers that sweet, sweet, syrupy advert that warms the consumer cockles.