The from the UK's top retailers are always eagerly anticipated and each year they strive to make bigger and better productions. Unfortunately, in their attempts to appeal to a broad audience, they often open themselves to criticism.

This years advert, which stars 's Adjoa Andoh has been going viral since it was released with some quarters of social media slamming it as a "woke monstrosity" and calling for people to "boycott" the store.

The advert, released on November 7, is entiltled Make Magic and the complaints mainly centre around its use of gender-neutral pronouns such as "them". Some outraged viewers have taken to X claiming the advert is "un-British" and insisting they will now only shop at the rival Superdrug. The hashtag #BoycottBoots has spread across the platform with .

One user posted: "44 days of boycotting Boots until Christmas," with another adding "Again it's all about diversity... Don't worry boots, we'll spend our money elsewhere this Xmas."

This isn't the first festive advert to raise eyebrows amongst viewers. Although "woke" is a relatively new concept numerous adverts have fallen foul of claims they suffer from it. In most cases the premise was simply ill thought out or the offending moment was pure concidence but it doesn't stop the keyboard warriors making their feelings known.

In 2023 found itself "cancelled" after its advert starring showed burning crowns from crackers in red, white and green, which just happen to be the colours of the Palestinian flag.

It was clearly a coincidence as the ad had been filmed in August that year, which was weeks before the first salvos in the . However this fact wasn't enough to appease the baying mob and the company was forced to apologise.

In 2020 was forced to defend itself after it was accused of being woke for releasing a Christmas advert featuring a black family. Released during the pandemic lockdowns the one-minute-long clip, entitled Gravy Song, featured a heartwarming phone call between a father and daughter as they shared their excitement for Christmas, and their hopes of spending the day together amid the coronavirus crisis. Following the furore the supermarket said it strives to "represent a modern Britain".

Eleven years earlier in 2009, came under fire for an advert which included scenes showing soldiers returning home from battle after Christmas. The tagline included the words: "This Christmas, there's only one place to be" and the promo was airing in the midst of the Iraq war.

The advert sparked a slew of complaints including several from armed forces officials. The furore led the company to edit the clip and issue an apology. "We have removed a scene from our Christmas ad of a photo journalist stepping out of a helicopter," they said. "We would never wish to cause distress to anyone, and although the sequence was not intended to show a member of the armed forces coming home, we understand from a small number of customer letters that it could have been interpreted in that way."

In 2012 ASDA found themselves at the centre of a sexism furore when they released an advert that showed busy parents going to the supermarket to prepare for Christmas. The tagline read: "Behind every great Christmas there's mum, and behind every mum there's ASDA."

Many consumers were outraged that the company implied festive preparations are solely the work of women and accused them of perpetuating sexist tropes. They issued a grovelling, and very woke apology. "To any mums and dads who have been upset by our Christmas TV ad - we'd like to offer our sincere apologies. We respect all hard-working parents and know just how tough it is managing a family - particularly at Christmas.

In 2018 frozen food giant Iceland's woke attempt to spread a message saw their advert banned. They hoped to educate people about the dangers of palm oil. Their festive promo featured a cartoon explaining the destructive nature of palm oil farming - which has destroyed huge amounts of rainforests.

However it transpired the animation had originally been created for Greenpeace and so its use was deemed unlawful by Clearcast, who advise about adverts meeting UK Code of Broadcast Advertising standards. Therefore the ad was pulled before it even aired.

Iceland managing director Richard Walker, who has since been promoted to executive chairman, told the at the time: "We were told it was deemed too political, so we're absolutely gutted because we wanted to share this message far and wide and underline Iceland's commitment to remove palm oil from all of our products by the end of this year."