The new Sainsbury’s advert: why does making dinner look like La La Land?

In their new ad, high-street enormo-grocer Sainsbury’s has unexpectedly abandoned the usual supermarket battlegrounds of product range and discount pricing to focus on something rather more conceptual. Namely, that you can lemon-squeeze as much pleasure out of preparing a meal as consuming it. Thanks to a nationwide spycam network of hacked smartphones and laptops, Operation #FoodDancing assembles black-and-white surveillance footage of Britons La La Land-ing around their kitchens, throwing shapes while chucking together their dinner.

It’s a dance to the music of thyme, accompanied by a daffy novelty hip-hop track slathered with a full-phat “yum yum yum” hook. Even if the closest you’ve ever come to a spag bol boogaloo is absent-mindedly forking the film of a ready meal in time to the keyboard stabs of Soft Cell’s Tainted Love, it would take a cold, cold heart not to be at least mildly defrosted by the conga of unselfconscious clips. It’s also the catchiest food-related ad jingle since the glory days of I Feel Like Chicken Tonight. At the very least, this ode to the joys of food prep might make Britain grate again.