How important is emotion in the John Lewis advertising and what is it seeking to achieve?

John Lewis, historically, was very ambivalent when it came to advertising. The store’s commitment to being ‘never knowingly undersold’ was introduced by founder John Spedan Lewis in 1925 and has retained its status in the group ever since. Such was the founder’s apathy when it came to advertising that in June 1927 he wrote to all buyers and some key executives, asking their views regarding whether the group should give up advertising altogether in favour of an alternative strategy of plastering the group’s stores, delivery vans, etc.
with a notice that ‘we do not advertise: we sell cheap instead’. The John Lewis Partnership also retained a preference for the earlier style of informative window displays, advertising the stock rather than the store.
It was intended as a total trading philosophy. However, by the late 1990s ‘never knowingly undersold’ had been allowed to become just a price promise and one increasingly hard to defend against online retailers.