Argos Stages a Festive Intervention with Simon Bird in “Christmas Special”

Will from ‘The Inbetweeners’ is in trouble. In Argos’ 2025 Christmas ad, actor Simon Bird (who’s also well known from ‘Friday Night Dinner’ and more) has been taken Christmas shopping against his will.

The culprits are the retailer’s mascots, Connie and Trevor. They happen to be toys, but this time round they’re taking on a much more grown-up, serious role – akin to something from a Guy Ritchie film – driving poor Simon to a foreboding warehouse. Thankfully, it’s full of everything he needs for his family this season, so they’re soon forgiven.

The idea, created by T&P for a brand that’s worked with the agency for 20 years now, follows on from autumn’s cinematic intervention – in which Connie and Trevor confronted a customer who’d dared to claim Argos was “only good for toys”. The duo return to their mission to reframe Argos as a home of style and premium gifts.

Creative director Chris Clarke is enjoying the “new, interventionist role” mascots play, as they deliver a surprise to yet another unsuspecting shopper who’s made the costly error of thinking Argos is just for toys. “Given it’s Christmas, we wanted to add a little bit of stardust to the proceedings this time to help us cut through a little more in those ad breaks. That’s how we arrived at the idea that Connie and Trevor would be bringing a surprise to a celebrity.”

Simon Bird was a smart choice. With a return of ‘The Inbetweeners’ seemingly on the cards, he could be set to reach a whole new generation. “There’s just something about Simon Bird – someone a lot of us have grown up with,” says Argos’ head of brand communications Laura Boothby. “He’s been in lots of our favourite TV shows, and our core audience probably see a lot of themselves in him too. He’s a great British character actor who’s really well loved, and I think we get a bit of the halo effect from that.”

The kidnapping is a bold yet simple idea that’s not exactly the warm-and-fuzzy tearjerker we’ve come to expect at Christmas, but somehow feels right. “Thankfully, our brilliant Argos clients got behind it from day one, and we think people are going to love it because it’s fun, festive and cheeky. It’s going to feel very different to everything else that’s out there at the time,” says Chris. “There’s a bit of escapism in there as well – escapism from the regular kind of Christmas ads we all know. It’ll be lovely to see people’s reactions to that. It does feel like a different way of coming at it, and we’re really excited to see what people think.”

Laura loves the continuity from the autumn campaign. “When I’ve worked on other brands or campaigns, Christmas often feels special but quite separate from everything you’re talking about all year round, which makes it even harder to cut through,” she says. “Whereas this is a continuation of the story we’ve been telling, but with a bit more festivity about it. Argos aren’t just for Christmas – it’s a job we need to do all year round – but this has got a festive edge to it.”

Having a comic actor with such chops performing your lines is something sure to help you up your game, and that was certainly the case for the creative department at T&P for this. “We got the idea from the team, and we loved it right from day dot. Laura and the team were brilliant in terms of getting behind it and pushing it. But you’ve got a celeb and it’s Christmas, so you’ve just got to craft the living daylights out of it – every single line, every single beat of that narrative – so that every second of that 60 is valued and not a single line is wasted,” says Matt, also creative director.

“That was the thing really: just writing on it and writing on it and crafting it and honing it, and writing on it some more. We were incredibly fortunate that in Ruth and Charlie [voice actors - Ruth Bratt from ‘People Just Do Nothing’ and Charlie Cooper from ‘This Country’] we’ve got two brilliant writers in their own right, and they’re great comedians. They’ve done Connie and Trev for so long that they just instantly become the characters.

“It’s amazing when they’re ad-libbing because they’ll say, ‘Oh, well Trevor would say it like that,’ and then Charlie will just come out with his side-splittingly hilarious line. They bring their bit to it as well, and we just keep pushing it together – agency, client, the talent – to make it as funny as it can possibly be. It was a great process, and we’re very, very pleased with the outcome.”

Eventually, Simon was on set, delivering the lines and demonstrating his acting magic. “Full credit to Simon – he was brilliant,” says Matt. “He absolutely nailed the character… Every take he did was perfect – bang on the bullseye for that character. When we got into the editing suite, we had so many good takes to work with from him. He also struck up a really good relationship with the director, David Kerr, who’s worked with major talent on films and TV before.”

The tone isn’t the most straightforward, considering we’re working with a family-friendly brand and there’s a touch of menace there. “It’s really nuanced,” says Laura. “Sort of a parody of something quite serious, but also a bit ridiculous because you’ve got talking toys in it as well. He absolutely nailed the believability and the humour.”

It’s been a long journey to get here. Argos and T&P celebrate 20 years of working together this year. And chief strategy officer Rebecca Munds has been there the whole time. What was once all about the one-off Christmas hits, “what we do now is Argos all year round, and the Christmas version of that,” she says. But “Argos has got a very rich history when it comes to Christmas specials.”

She runs through just some of the highlights. “Back in 2011, the nation fell in love with the aliens. They arrived and were perplexed by human shopping habits, and discovered they didn’t have to shop for it – they could Argos it. We did the big Christmas special around things like the digital gift guide, which we know was loved by the nation.

Rebecca continues her oral history of the Argos Christmas ad: “It was time for them to go in 2014, and we pivoted to ‘Go Argos’. That was all about speed, adrenaline and excitement. It showed Argos as the modern, digital retailer that it was, underpinned by our Fast Track service. That campaign captured the excitement of Christmas, standing apart from other retailers who were appealing to heartstrings. Argos was absolutely about heartbeats and excitement in those big specials.

“It’s hard to forget 2019’s drummer – ‘The Book of Dreams’, which celebrated the great book of dreams and introduced the world to Nandi Bushell, this incredible young superstar drummer. That really captured what Argos was about. It re-engaged people with the tradition of circling the catalogue – something everyone remembers – and brought back that magic of Christmas, fulfilling the dreams of the nation’s children.”

Then 2023 saw the brand introduce Connie and Trevor – a new direction that ingrained “thinking all year round about what Argos is and what our Christmas expression of that looks like, rather than these big standalone specials,” says the CSO. “It’s about telling the nation that Argos is more than just toys.

People know and love us for toys, but we’re much, much more than that. We want to show you all of the incredibly desirable Christmas gifts we’ve got for adults – you saw the speakers fit for a rock star with Trevor, and now we’ve got this warehouse full of incredible gifts that blow away someone like Simon Bird. It’s been a fantastic journey, and I think we’ve got to a really great place.”

Navigating Argos’ ‘Book of Dreams’ to build a Christmas wish list is a core memory for many of us who grew up in the UK, and with the Argos Gift Guide still in print, that’s not a thing of the past yet. Laura says the tangible act is still a key part of the brand’s appeal. “We always started with the blockbuster present for kids. They were absolutely at the heart of what we were doing,” says Rebecca on the evolution of the brand’s festive messaging. “Obviously, we still do all that, and everyone knows that, but what they don’t know is that we also do really stylish, desirable gifts for adults. That’s why we’ve gone in this different direction – showing and shining a light on that side of Argos – but still with the same personality and heritage we’ve always had.”

Laura takes the ‘P’ for partnership in the name of the agency she’s worked with since 2023 seriously. “We’re seen as a team and a partnership. This isn’t a client–supplier relationship,” she says. “There’s a shared ambition in wanting to make the best work of our lives, and a huge amount of respect and understanding. It’s a privilege to work on one of the most iconic brands in Britain, and we all come to work with that mindset, wanting to do the best work we can. There’s a lot of collaboration, a lot of trust, and a shared view of wanting to take risks and be a bit brave, do bolder work and stand out.”

As a partner, rather than a client, Laura invites openness. “Being able to say the difficult thing, push back or challenge each other, but always in a collaborative way,” she says. “And a big part of it is that we genuinely feel like a team. We have a lot of fun together, and a lot of the work we do is really fun. We get to build real communities working on this stuff together. That’s what makes it special, and what helps us do brilliant work together.”

Ultimately, getting to make a Christmas ad for a brand that’s a big part of Christmas for many people in the UK – and working with a TV personality who’s made so many of us laugh – is a privilege. Rebecca relays a moment from a meeting between the brand and agency. Someone noted how nice it was to all be following the same North Star. Or, as Matt observed, a Christmas star in this case. “I thought that was a lovely expression,” she laughs.

“When you have that same ambition together as a team, that’s half the battle,” concludes Matt. “As soon as you’re united on what you want, the work just becomes so much stronger, because you’re all on the same bus.”