JD’s 2026 Christmas campaign is built around a simple proposition: the next generation does not need to inherit the usual festive script. It can rewrite it.
The campaign, titled “Create the New,” brings together musicians, DJs, athletes and designers including CHRIS STASSY, Sammy Virji, Skye Newman, Lauren James and Antonia Bronze. The work positions Christmas as a moment for collaboration and self-definition, rather than a fixed set of seasonal traditions.
The campaign makes participation the creative idea
The strongest part of the campaign is that its message is reflected in the way the work is assembled. Sammy Virji, CHRIS STASSY and other DJs join Skye Newman to create a new track, while footballer Lauren James works with custom football garment designer Antonia Bronze on a new piece combining their separate practices.
That matters because the campaign is not simply placing familiar talent in front of JD products. It is showing people making something together. The brand’s role is to provide the meeting point between sport, music and style, three communities that already sit close to JD’s retail identity.
The wider cast extends that logic beyond the UK. Hypebeast reports that JD also features footballer Ferran Torres, mixed martial artist Ilia Topuria and musicians including Emelia Mernes and Ele A. The international mix gives the campaign scale, but the more useful detail is the shared behavior: each participant is presented as someone developing their own lane rather than performing a generic holiday role.
“Forever Forward” becomes a participation system
JD has attached the campaign to its existing “Forever Forward” ethos. That could easily have remained a familiar brand line, but “Create the New” gives it a clearer job. It turns forward movement into a series of visible collaborations, with new music, new clothing and new combinations of cultural expertise.
Paul Orange, JD’s managing director, described the campaign as a celebration of communities across sport, music and style, while arguing that young people are already creating their own opportunities. The quote is conventional brand language, but the execution gives it some substance. The campaign is not asking audiences to admire a finished world from a distance. It is using creators whose identities are built around making, remixing and crossing between scenes.
That is the strategic lesson for seasonal brand work. Relevance does not come from adding a Christmas reference to an existing campaign. It comes from finding a behavior that already belongs to the audience and giving it a seasonal frame. Here, JD’s contribution is the collision of its communities. The retailer is less a narrator of Christmas than a connector of people who make culture move.
The risk is that a large roster can flatten the very individuality the campaign wants to celebrate. The work will need to give each collaboration enough room to feel specific, rather than using talent as interchangeable proof of youth and energy. But the central direction is clear: JD is treating its Christmas ad as a cultural meeting place, not just a product showcase.