An A-level student who made a mock-up of a John Lewis Christmas advert for his coursework has accidentally tricked people into thinking it was the real thing.
Nick Jablonka, a media studies student, said he spent two weeks creating the one-minute video for his A2 coursework.
He uploaded it to YouTube in June and it has now been viewed more than 460,000 times, presumably because people have started searching online for John Lewis's eagerly anticipated 2016 Christmas advert.
“I uploaded this video with no intention of it becoming so popular,” Jablonka said in a comment under the video.
"This definitely isn’t the official John Lewis advert. I wasn’t going to upload it at all so I really didn’t mean for the confusion."
There are hundreds of comments under the video, which shows two characters made of snow being reunited for Christmas.
People thought the advert was official, with some writing "not as good as last year… didn't like this one.. something is missing. sorry, good bye!" and "I love this! But the 2015 was better".
Most people, however, praised the video saying it was of a strong standard for a student and called it "stunning" and "heartwarming" work.
Jablonka added that despite the “overwhelming comments” he felt his project could do with a lot of work as it was completed in about two weeks from start to finish.
“With such limited time I literally didn’t have enough time to render out the animation, so I had to sacrifice a lot of things to make it on time; the resolution, there’s virtually no shaders, and I had to reduce the amount of scenes and shot," he added.
Nonetheless, the animation appears to have accidentally kickstarted his career.
Hey @atnickjablonka, we are v impressed with your ad. Keen to talk to you about a role at W (for when exams are over). DM us your details!
@atnickjablonka Hi, congrats on the buzz around your animation! Would love to hear about your workflow
He also stressed that the ad, called "John Lewis Christmas Advert 2016 - The Snowglobe (A level media coursework)", was just a showcase of his student work.
"I do not affiliate myself with John Lewis or any of their production companies," he added.
BuzzFeed News reached out to Nick Jablonka but he had not responded at the time of writing. We have also reached out to John Lewis.