Autumn in Britain filmed right here

The John Lewis chain is using images of New Zealand for its first television advertising campaign to lure shoppers into stores.

Film crews spent three days in central Otago in May, shooting six vignettes for the promotion, which has cost more than $3 million.

They feature a stunning sunset at Wye Creek, an Arrowtown forest floor covered with fallen leaves, and birds jostling for position on a telegraph wire near Lake Hayes.

Glenorchy and The Deer Park, Queenstown, were also used for the ads promoting John Lewis' 26 outlets across England and Scotland, which had a turnover of E2.28m ($6.3m) in 2002-3.

A company spokesman said: "The flora and fauna featured, as well as the landscape, were all carefully chosen to look reminiscent of Britain."

The South Island locations were selected ahead of places such as South Africa and Argentina for the filming, carried out by Auckland company Republic Films.

"Recreating a credible autumn in the UK, at that time of year, would have proved more expensive than using a foreign location," said a spokesman.

"New Zealand was finally chosen because of its similarity to Scotland and the availability of experienced film production crew."