"Dumped mattresses became the perfect vehicle to help 10:PM disrupt the category."
More than 1.8 million bacteria-laden, skin-cell-infested mattresses are illegally dumped in Australia every year. Together with Howatson+Company and director James Dive, mattress startup 10:PM has turned several of them into guerrilla billboards.
Each execution exposes the condemning, rancid stories held within the fibres of competitor’s products. A stark contrast to 10:PM’s Aussie-made, microbe-neutralising mattresses.
Targeting inner-city Sydney suburbs, the 10:PM team located discarded mattresses and wrote bespoke long copy about each one, condemning them as rancid and suggesting a new, better alternative from 10:PM.
These messages were converted into mattress-sized stamps, one judgemental letter at a time, before the team installed the ‘bed-verts' in the same locations they were found.
The mattress billboards have taken curious onlookers by surprise. Exposing a global gathering of dead skin particles in Bondi backpacker-land, an underground swinger scene in affluent Watson’s Bay, a queen who partied too hard in Pride capital, Darlinghurst, and more.
Harrison Reid, founder of 10:PM, said: “We’re stoked to be working with Howatson+Company to launch 10:PM. As a startup we don’t have the media budget to reach millions of people like our competitors, so we used dumped mattresses to our advantage to create buzz and engagement, as well as reach people.
Doug Hamilton, creative director at Howatson+Company, said: "This campaign takes advantage of an amazing free media that thousands of us walk past every day.
"With some loving craft and cheeky copy, our competitor's old, soiled, dumped mattresses became the perfect vehicle to help 10:PM disrupt the category, and make anyone who sleeps, reconsider the state of their current mattress."
The campaign runs across out of home, social channels and PR.
Credits:
Client: 10:PM
Agency: Howatson+Company
Founder/CEO: Chris Howatson
MD: Renee Hyde
Executive Creative Director: Gavin Chimes
Creative Directors: Michael Kleinman and Doug Hamilton
Art Director: Raff Gandrabur
Copywriter: Zoe Finkelstein
Design Director: Ellena Mills
Chief Strategy Officer: Dom Hickey
Group Business Director: Katy Ward
Business Director: Sasha Thariani
Head of Production: Holly Alexander
Senior Editor: King Yong
Senior Account Director (PR): Melinda Durston
PR Executive: Millie Clout
Production Company: Scoundrel
Director: James Dive
Executive Producer: Adrian Shapiro
Producer: Charlie Taylor
DOP: Jordan Maddocks
Music & Sound: Heckler Sound
Composer: Johnny Green
Sound Designer: Dave Robertson
Executive Producer: Bonnie Law
