Ahhh, sleep. Glorious sleep. If you can get it, that is.
This was the subject for our latest creative effort for Sheraton Grand London Park Lane, when the team asked us to help push the hotel’s club rooms and suites.
All the rooms at the hotel already boast Sheraton’s signature experience bed (which are insanely comfortable), so we wondered how we might encourage guests to ditch their screens at bedtime, in favour of something a little more conducive to a decent slumber.
We happened to notice that sleep (or lack of it) was making the news agenda a fair amount and further digging found that nearly a quarter of us struggle to sleep well each night (a report by the Sleep Council), a struggle that is only amplified when we’re not sleeping in familiar environments.
To help combat this, we came up with the “Zzz-List”, a specially curated library featuring 30 titles carefully selected to aid a peaceful night’s rest, available only to guests staying in club rooms and suites.
Teaming up with Hatchards, London’s oldest bookshop, and renowned Sleep Expert and Chartered Psychologist Dr David Lewis, we identified features within works of fiction and non-fiction that could be linked to readying the brain for sleep.
The library was constructed in the hotel’s Club Lounge and guests were encouraged to choose a book from the Zzz-List for the duration of their stay, instead of turning to phones and tablets at bedtime.
To launch the story, we landed an exclusive with the Daily Telegraph, the journalist being first to try the library out and (thankfully) reporting a decent night’s sleep.
From there, the media reacted to the initiative brilliantly, with the Evening Standard, Stylist, MSN, Woman & Home and The Mayfair Times all covering the Zzz-List, with thought-provoking pieces.
This was followed up with a wonderful full-page in the i newspaper, featuring a review of the library and insight from our expert on how the human brain reacts to certain stimulus.
The story did particularly well in the middle east (a big market for the hotel) too, with a further 28 pieces landed with the help of the hotel’s local agency.
All in all, our work had a potential reach of 850million and early reports suggest a healthy room occupancy rate.
Dreamy, you might say.
