John Lewis advert 'remade' in 7 hours for £700

In case you missed it, Christmas is here. Or John Lewis have released their Christmas advert, or something. It supposedly cost £7 million to make and seven months.

MyVoucherCodes set themselves the challenge on Friday morning of trying to replicate the John Lewis ad in seven hours with a budget of less than £700.

The School of Communication Arts' students wanted to make a "discounted" version – obviously to represent MyVoucherCodes' discounting nature – and gathered their props after a meeting in the war room.

Christmas Doesn't Cost The Moon is their effort, and it's not terrible.

Chris Reilly, general manager of MyVoucherCodes, said: "The John Lewis ads are fantastic and lead the way at Christmas-time. So being a brand famous for offering high street goods at a fraction of the price, it felt right to try this tongue-in-cheek tribute to advertising royalty.

"While John Lewis are never knowingly undersold, our speciality is knowingly underselling, so it made sense to produce a Christmas advert without the big spend – reflecting the behaviour of the savvy shoppers who visit our site."

The students were equally happy. The School of Communication Arts' Chloe said: "We're super excited that our video is being used for this campaign. Everyone in advertising treats the John Lewis advert like a public holiday, so to be able to do something this reactive was a fantastic challenge and one we had a lot of fun doing.

"We can't wait to see everyone's reaction and it was of course lovely to see a few grown men playing with dolls all afternoon."