• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, March 10, 2018

One of my favorite times of the year is the arrival of daylight savings time, which as I write this begins tomorrow (March 11). 

Yeah there’s nothing like the invigorating jolt of an extra hour of daylight, not to mention the increasingly longer days that follow. Yep, a sure sign that spring and better weather are near. 

Surely there must be a way to turn this great day into a marketing event. 

No sooner said than done—the Phelps agency is on the case! 

Phelps and its client Natrol Melatonin are doing a New York Times website takeover campaign on the big day. Come Sunday, every visitor to The New York Times site will be greeted by versions of a takeover ad (preview page  here). 

The ad features a kind of Dooms Day clock that counts down the hours until theoretically anyway, you lose an hour sleep as you gain an hour of daylight. 

“Don’t let daylight savings throw off your sleep schedule,” the copy reads. The ad is supported by the #GetYourSleepBack hashtag which leads to sleeping tips and coupons for the brand’s product. There’s also a separate “Get Sleep Tips” button that leads to the same microsite for people that don’t know from  hashtags (or perhaps have an irrational fear of them). 

Funny though, I’ve always been so giddy with joy about gaining the extra hour of daylight that I’ve never really noticed the sleep loss. But for all of you with super-sensitive inner body clocks who don’t want to try a good old-fashioned sleeping pill, Natrol might be worth pondering. 

Or you might try doing a vigorous happy dance to celebrate the return of longer daylight hours ahead. You might just wear yourself out so you sleep like a baby.