The Another Love singer is set to storm the charts with The Beatles track
Last year Lily Allen went straight to number one with her John Lewis Christmas advert Keane cover, and it looks like Ivor Novello winner Tom Odell will be following in her footsteps this year.
The British crooner is the voice behind this year's tear-jerker, which stars seven-year-old Sam and Monty the penguin.
Odell, 23, covers Real Love, a little-known sentimental Beatles track - a rehash of a handful of John Lennon recordings made in 1979 - and Paddy Power is offering money on it reaching the number one spot on Christmas day.
They're also offering a skinny 9/4 for the ad to rack up a massive 15 million YouTube views before year end with the bookmaker offering a tasty Christmas bonus of 100/1 and 200/1 should the M&S and Waitrose ads prove more popular.
A Paddy Power spokesman said: “John Lewis’s Christmas ad is the gift that keeps on giving having become as synonymous as the cranberry sauce on the kitchen table.”
Odell shot to fame with his single Another Love, has been nominated for 21 major music awards in the past 12 months.
Radio 1 DJ Fearne Cotton is his biggest fan and even asked him to play at her wedding to Jesse Wood earlier this year.
The department store has spent £7million on the two-minute blockbuster featuring young Sam and his sidekick Monty.
It took nine months to bring Monty to animated life after artists pored over hours of footage of real Adélie penguins to get his movements absolutely right.
The advert follows Sam – played by Rhys Edwards, from Hertfordshire – and Monty through the year as they do everything together from hide and seek to football.
However as the winter months draw in, Sam begins to notice that Monty is sad and realises that he is longing for a companion.
Knowing his friend so well, on Christmas Day Sam gives Monty the gift he has been dreaming of – a new penguin friend called Mabel.
The ad, which aims to match the magic of last year’s The Bear and The Hare, was first released at 8am today.
