Never has getting a good nights’ sleep been so challenging, leaving us ever more groggy, foggy and tired each morning. In our ridiculously connected world, poor old boring sleep has to compete with the endless Instagram scroll, the emails from the boss, the thrill of Fortnite, TikTok dances to learn and just one more episode on Netflix. It’s no wonder sleep is under threat.

Add to the mix the current pandemic, blurring the lines between work and home life and making working from home, and often bed, a reality for many, and we find laptops and phones creeping into every area of our lives. And the fall-out? Our bedrooms are simply no longer the sleep sanctuaries they once were. In fact, from a recent study we commissioned, we know that for one in four Brits, quality of sleep is worse than ever.

It’s no understatement to say that this most basic of human needs is seriously under threat and as sleep wellness obsessives, we’re fixated on the importance of a good night’s sleep in making our days the best they can possibly be. Without sleep, the oft quoted ‘wellness pillars’ of diet and exercise are simply nigh on impossible to achieve. Sleep is the vital third ‘wellness pillar’ that underpins everything. So, at eve our mission is simple; to help the nation get the sleep they need to rise and shine.

A reminder to switch off for the night 

We were reflecting on a time way before this ‘always on culture’, when TV ended each evening, and we stumbled across the memory of the wonderful ‘Test Card F’, with the little girl and her clown doll that signalled it was time to tune out and turn in every night. So, we thought we’d have a bash at reminding people of this and encouraging them to switch off for the night.

Test Card F is a dream of a creative idea. It’s unbelievably distinctive and for most people it’s indelibly inked on our brains. A gift of a creative for a sleep wellness brand to work with. Together with the brilliant minds at independent creative agency Creature we’ve given it a bit of a zhuzh up (how on earth do you spell that eh?), and brought it to life, imagining what that girl would have said, if she could talk.

So, at 11pm each Sunday for six months on Channel4, she’ll be encouraging all of us to turn in for the night along with her sloth-y bed partner. Focussing on five different challenges that interfere with our sleep she’ll talk about the impact of blue light on disturbing our REM, the soothing tones of white noise for nodding off, a reminder of the importance of comfort and support for our aching bodies, and introduce natural sounds that can allow us to unwind. It’ll then be over to viewers to simply ‘switch off’.

Channel 4 have long been a wonderful partner and great supporter of eve’s and they were the obvious choice for this campaign, with the creative extending across their digital estate, including all4.com and their social media channels.

The campaign doesn’t end with TV. Alongside media planning and buying agency Goodstuff we have developed a seriously whizzy multi-channel, integrated campaign to max out on sleep saving effectiveness.

Switching to sleep mode 

In the reality of multi-screening we knew that to make an impact we have to catch people across a multitude of devices. Which is why the campaign will also feature in 30s gaming ads across Candy Crush, Pet Rescue and Farm Heroes, Instagram ads and stories, YouTube, Facebook, the list goes on. We’ll even be switching off our own evesleep.co.uk homepage on a Sunday night, making sure that as a brand we are living and breathing our own advice.

It’s not just in the home we need to remind people that it’s time to power down, so we’re switching to ‘sleep mode’ on digital billboards in key city centres nationwide between 10-11pm each Sunday for the next six months to remind those people out and about that it’s time to get to bed. We kinda hope that at some point in the next six months people will be allowed out and about again.

The Test Card F creative is adapted for each specific platform, keeping it perfectly contextually relevant and serving as a ‘multi-channel reminder’ to hit the hay.

And each morning, we’ll be catching up with people to find out how their sleep went, and how their morning felt, using a neat-as-crease retargeting plan, big thanks to Croud for this, the digital performance maestros amongst us, across channels to make sure people really get the sleep content that’s useful to them. All to serve our mission to help the nation get better nights, and better mornings.