The Challenge:

As the #1 sleep destination in Canada, Sleep Country’s purpose is to champion the power of sleep and all the positive effects that can come from it. We believe that better sleep can lead to greater things for all Canadians. 

Sleep is more than just a personal necessity; it's a communal responsibility. In an always-on world, the value of a good night's sleep can often get overlooked in favour of productivity. However, the repercussions of sleep deprivation extend far beyond the individual —they impact the safety and well-being of nearly every Canadian. 

This is especially true on the roads of Canada, where drowsy driving poses nearly an identical threat as driving under the influence. Studies have shown that sleeping less than four hours increases the likelihood of being involved in a car accident by a staggering 15 times. The parallels between drowsy driving and drunk driving are striking, highlighting the critical importance of addressing sleep deprivation as a public health concern.

It's against this backdrop that we sought to lead a movement to promote the power of good sleep during Sleep Awareness Month through an audio led campaign. 

The one-line idea: 

When You Choose To Prioritise Sleep, You Choose To Make The World A Better Place

The Plan:

In planning Sleep Country’s Sleep Awareness Month campaign, we identified a niche, but critically important group of people that we knew we had to speak to, to create real and lasting change: Long-haul truckers.  Under immense pressure to deliver their hauls efficiently and on time, a culture of pushing the limits of sleep deprivation still prevailed within this community. This willingness to cut sleep was a recipe for catastrophe, with large trucks twice as likely to cause fatalities than other vehicles on the road. 

With such a niche and targeted audience, we knew that traditional media channels would be ineffective at creating the behaviour change we desired. We needed to reach truckers in their world and on their terms. To do this, we leveraged the trucker equivalent of social media: The CB radio. An enduring form of communication, CB radios act as a lifeline for truck drivers to communicate and commune with each other on those long and lonely roads. 

But it wasn’t enough to simply hijack CB radio with our message, we also need to leverage trusted and known voices in the community to bring it to life. Because of this we tapped four unique and well-known voices in the trucker community to act as influencers in spreading the word and delivering audio messages across the CB airwaves. 

What happened/results:

The results of this campaign had a powerful effect for both society and the Sleep Country brand. 

Firstly, and most importantly, our message of better sleep made the roads of Canada a safer place. During our campaign duration, we contributed to a -9% decrease in accidents on the highways of Canada, as truckers became receptive, and began to develop better sleep practices. 

It was also effective at putting the Sleep Country brand at the centre of the conversation around the benefits of sleep, resulting in a 15% increase in sales across our stores during the campaign period.