Only John Lewis, the nationally adored and trusted UK retail group, can get away with the shamelessly sentimental marketing that they do. More than 100,000 people watched and rewatched on YouTube in the first week it was available their most popular 'Always a Woman' advertisement. If anyone else had dreamt it up, they would have been pilloried as sexist and outof-touch. In it, John Lewis offers a politically incorrect view of modern womanhood: pair-bonding and breeding are significant milestones, they say, not making CEO of a company. Surprisingly however, figures show that the retailer has magnificently outperformed every single rival.