• by Les Luchter , November 10, 2023

With ex-Netflixer Eric Pallotta onboard as the company’s first dedicated chief marketing officer, sleep machine maker Hatch has launched a holiday-geared paid digital and social media campaign.

The thrust of the tongue-in-cheekish campaign is that people can use Hatch machines to get needed rest during the holidays.

Introducing “Choose sleep” as an ongoing tagline, the campaign features a :30 spot and 16 additional :10 to :15 films. In what a company spokesperson describes to Marketing Daily as a “cheeky, dreamy tone”a female British-accented voiceover begins with the line, “This holiday, get yourself to bed” and then offers such “playful, soothing advice” as“stop scrolling through your ex’s holiday party pics. At least after 10 p.m.,” “don’t feel guilty for skipping that white elephant party after-party,” and “make that holiday happy hour like an actual hour.”

Those lines give a clue that the campaign, from creative agency fable.works with media buying by Media.Monks, is not pushing Hatch’s nine-year-old line of baby sleep machines, called Rest -- but rather its Restore line for adults, which launched in 2020.

Hatch has previously used the same “dreamy, soothing” narrator in several videos, including this one a month ago, helping to launch the Hatch Restore 2 as a facilitator of healthy sleep habits.

Other elements of the new campaign include billboards launching in Dallas on Nov. 13 and in Hatch’s home base of San Francisco on Nov. 20.

“We wanted to run experimentation in two great U.S. geographies full of rest-seekers to test and learn more about billboard performance for the sleep market,” the spokesperson tells us, adding that “many of our original users and partners are San Francisco-based. Also, both San Fran and Dallas are in the top 10 major sleep-deprived cities, according to research from Mattress Firm’s sleep.com and SleepScore Labs."

Hatch also promises a stunt tied to New Year’s Eve.

Hatch, which began in 2014 with sleep machines for babies, is sold D2C at www.hatch.co and Amazon, and at such brick-and-mortar retailers as Target, Pottery Barn, Best Buy, Nordstrom and Walmart.

Palotta was at Netflix for nearly a decade from 2012 to 2021, first as vice president social media and then vice president, brand.

“By the time the holidays come around, people are exhausted, yet more often than not they find themselves busier than ever” he said in a statement. “The insight and mantra behind ‘Choose sleep’ is simple: Be unapologetic about prioritizing yourself and your health this holiday season -- and beyond.”