The premium mattress business has never been a place where manufacturers can rest easy. That's why Sleep Number Corp., the Minneapolis-based company that produces a line of dual-adjustable "smart beds," has worked for the better part of a decade to compile an offensive playbook that positions Sleep Number as more than a brand that simply sells mattresses and makes its top-of-the-line smart beds synonymous with well-being and fitness.

In 2018, Sleep Number made a bold gamble by drafting a new teammate to catapult it ahead of the competition: It became the official health and wellness partner of the National Football League. Among other marketing benefits, the alliance provided the company with a starring position at the 2019 Super Bowl Experience in Atlanta, a nine-day event leading up to the championship game that attracts thousands of NFL fanatics and is billed as "pro football's interactive theme park." And since NFL partners are the only exhibitors, Sleep Number would be the sole mattress brand in a sprawling 800,000-square-foot hall in the Georgia World Congress Center.

The company knew that if it delivered a top-notch performance at the event, it would translate into increased sales during Presidents Day weekend a mere two weeks later. "Presidents Day is historically a very large retail period for mattress sales and one of our top-selling periods throughout the year," says Patrick Campion, vice president of marketing and brand partnerships for Sleep Number. "The timing of the Super Bowl is a great lead generator and driver heading into that promotional time frame."

Football and mattresses may seem like odd bedfellows, but Sleep Number had done its homework. "The NFL's core audience aligns very closely with Sleep Number's target customer," Campion says. However, it could have been a relationship doomed to fare as badly as all four of the Minnesota Vikings' Super Bowl bids if Sleep Number's gambit looked like a transparent marketing ploy. To ensure that didn't happen, the firm crafted a bedtime story that demonstrated how its smart bed boosts performance in athletics as well as other areas of people's lives, such as work and home.

Pregame Preparation
Groundwork for Sleep Number's activation at the Super Bowl Experience began more than a year earlier when Sleep Number and the NFL announced their multiyear partnership just ahead of the 2018 Super Bowl in Minneapolis. At the time, Sleep Number was already partnering with the Minnesota Vikings and was a member of the Super Bowl Minnesota Host Committee. So although the company didn't have a presence at the 2018 Super Bowl Experience, it offered two engagements prior to the 2018 game: a virtual-reality quarterback challenge and a "sleep ride" that would both appear in its Super Bowl Experience activation a year later.

As part of their new partnership, Sleep Number and the NFL provided all active players with the opportunity to receive Sleep Number 360 smart beds, which allow individuals to set a firmness preference via a "sleep number" while internal sensors automatically adjust the mattresses in response to nighttime movement to deliver maximum sleep performance – a key component of recovery and concentration. During each night's rest, the bed tracks heart rate, breathing, movement, time in bed, etc. and generates a personalized SleepIQ score that evaluates the sleeper's quality of Z's using a rating from zero to 100. Nearly 2,000 players took Sleep Number up on its offer, as the biometric data provides athletes and team trainers with another metric to help optimize training and game-day performance.

Throughout the 2019 NFL season, Sleep Number upped its performance-enhancing messaging with a slew of commercials and online content. Some showed how Sleep Number beds help ordinary people better tackle everyday challenges while others spotlighted pro athletes, such as Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins, testifying about how the beds help elevate their game. All this front-end loading ensured prospects understood that Sleep Number's partnership with the NFL was a well-made marriage and primed the pump for the company's own championship event at the upcoming Super Bowl Experience.

In the months leading up to the occasion (and the Presidents Day selling period), Sleep Number tasked CenterPoint Marketing Inc., a Twin Cities-based exhibit house that Sleep Number has worked with since 2014, with crafting a Hall-of-Fame-worthy experience to help it meet several goals. First, the company wanted to collect 4,000 leads; second, it aimed to generate two high-profile media placements; and third, it dreamed of landing 98 million media impressions.

CenterPoint set about creating a dynamic 60-by-60-foot exhibit that showed off Sleep Number's offerings, deepened attendees' understanding of the benefits of a good night's sleep, prompted attendees to share their brand experiences on social media, and attracted media attention.

Sleep Number and CenterPoint knew they had a strong foundation for the exhibit by retaining the VR quarterback challenge and the sleep ride developed for the previous

Super Bowl. They also decided to incorporate some analog engagements for less techy attendees. "We wanted to build on the activations from the previous Super Bowl," says Greg Friedmann, senior account manager for CenterPoint. "In the end, we created a blend of new technology elements with traditional hands-on experiences that married well together."

Additionally, Sleep Number worked on developing a brand-new, one-off photo op featuring its 360 smart bed. To design that engagement, CenterPoint tapped LMG LLC, an Orlando, FL-based creative technology firm. "Sleep Number wanted to create an immersive setting that people could interact with," says Will Garrs, senior account executive for LMG. "It needed an incredibly high-quality, high-tech environment that complemented its high-end product." Using Notch, a graphics tool that can perform 3-D and data rendering in real time, in conjunction with projection mapping, LMG felt it could deliver.

Over the next few months Sleep Number and its partners refined and honed the booth. "Essentially, every element of the exhibit had stopping power without being overwhelming," Friedmann says. "The experience was designed to get people to spend time in the space and walk away with smiles on their faces. It was a perfect mix of opportunities to take photos and experience unique elements that no one else on the floor was going to have." With everything prepped, Sleep Number just needed to rest up and wait for the opening whistle.

Game Time
As fans flocked to Atlanta for Super Bowl LIII, thousands descended on the Georgia World Congress Center for the Super Bowl Experience. Inside the exhibit hall, patrons snapped pics with the Lombardi Trophy (awarded to the winner of each year's Super Bowl), met their favorite NFL athletes, and blitzed the Sleep Number exhibit. Approaching attendees first encountered a 16-foot-tall front-wall display that featured 32 pillows arranged in a football-field-shaped grid and sporting logos from each of the NFL teams, providing visitors a unique photo op. Mannequins outfitted in football pads and wearing Sleep Number-branded jerseys and helmets flanked a pair of 6-foot-tall arches leading into the exhibit's field of play. But before visitors entered, staffers scanned their personalized NFL One Pass badges (which attendees received upon paying an entrance fee ranging from $20 to $40 for adults and up to $25 for children ages 12 and under, depending on the day), allowing the company to collect personal data for tailored follow-up marketing.

The booth's interior was laid with turf featuring football hash marks and yard lines further solidifying Sleep Number's partnership with the NFL in the minds of attendees. Once inside, guests could choose myriad ways to engage with the company's brand experience. Many visitors beelined to one of the exhibit's four corners featuring 10-by-10-foot helmet-shaped canopies made of aluminum framing and tension fabric emblazoned with the company's logo. Staffers invited visitors to enter a helmet through an opening in the structure's "face mask" and sprawl out on a 360 smart bed set in the middle and bathed in a soothing blue glow.

Once attendees were positioned on the mattress, ceiling-mounted video monitors guided participants through a sleep experience "ride." Accompanied by relaxing music, a narrator with a soothing voice introduced the bed, promising the product would help users improve well-being in all aspects of their lives by delivering a personalized sleep experience that helps people fall asleep and keep them there thanks to the mattress's SleepIQ technology. Next, the narrator invited attendees to roll on their sides and experience the bed's Responsive Air technology while sensors measured their weight and shape and adjusted the mattress's firmness accordingly to relieve pressure points. After appreciating the automatic adjustments, visitors rolled onto their backs as the bed warmed their feet (demonstrating how it helps people fall asleep faster) and elevated their heads (revealing how it relieves a partner's disruptive snoring). As the experience came to an end, the narrator emphasized that Sleep Number is more than a mattress company: "We are Sleep Number, and this is not a bed. It's a revolution in sleep – and health and wellness – so easy you can do it with your eyes closed."

Feeling relaxed and educated about the bed's technologies, visitors floated out of the dreamy sleep experience and back onto the turf. Some next headed straight for the VR station along the back of the booth, where they could participate in the quarterback challenge created by Groove Jones LLC, a creative-tech company based in Dallas. Sleep Number deployed the gamified activation to drive home how important a good night's sleep is for health and performance using – what else – football as a case study. Brand ambassadors registered participants via iPads and posted their names on a portion of the 30-foot-wide LED screen along the back wall before helping players don one of six HTC Vive VR headsets. Participants were virtually transported to the 50-yard line of a football field inside a massive stadium. They could look left and right to see the other competitors and take a few warm-up throws by manipulating the Vive's hand controller to grab footballs from a virtual conveyor belt that continuously supplied pigskins and heave the balls down the field. Meanwhile, those in line watched the experience unfold on the video wall, which displayed a spectator view that allowed onlookers to formulate their own personal strategies.

The VR game consisted of two rounds. In round one, players were told they had experienced a week's worth of premium sleep. Using the Vive's joystick, the QBs had 30 seconds to lob virtual footballs toward moving targets at different positions down the field. Players earned points by hitting the targets. After the round, users' scores populated on the leaderboard behind them. Round two replicated the 30-second experience, except players were informed that they were sleep deprived. In this round, targets were more difficult to hit and players couldn't throw the ball as far or as accurately, simulating how a poor night's sleep mentally and physically impairs game-day performance. By comparing their dismal second-round performances with their all-star-like first rounds, attendees learned a better understanding of the benefits of stellar sleep. The overall leader won priceless bragging rights, but everyone walked away a winner with a branded sleep mask reading "Sleep smarter. Play better." or "Game Over." And since the experience lasted approximately two minutes, the activation maximized throughput and kept the line moving. In the center of the exhibit, Sleep Number staged its new high-tech photo op in the football-inspired Dream Team Virtual Bedroom.

Positioned in front of a blank 16-foot-tall wall, the display was a deceptively bland bed with white sheets and a gray headboard on top of a 10-by-10-foot piece of plain vinyl flooring. A few branded white pillows adorned the head of the bed with phrases such as "Eat. Sleep. Super Bowl." and "Huddle Up. Cuddle Up." The allure of the attraction, though, was in the dynamic projection mapping that transformed the pallid space into a vibrant setting kitted out in details featuring the visitor's favorite team.

Before attendees took their turns on the bed, a staffer asked them to input their names and select their No. 1 football team on a tablet. When visitors hit the submit button on the tablet's app, the scene transitioned from its unembellished state into a bedroom befitting an NFL fanatic in a few dynamic seconds. The wall behind the headboard became awash in their chosen teams' paraphernalia, including jerseys with each attendee's last name, bedside tables with lampshades in the teams' logos, and the Super Bowl emblem. The bedspread and floor were transformed as well. Using participants' phones, staffers took a snap of individuals or families piled on the smart bed and encouraged them to share the pics on social media using the hashtag #SmarterSleep.

After relaxing in their dream bedrooms, attendees sauntered to a low-tech Plinko board butting up to the back side of the photo op. Players mounted four steps and stood above the board, which was slightly larger than a king-size bed, and sent a branded disc cascading through the pegs and into one of seven bins at the bottom. Each bin was filled with branded swag, including wristbands, can koozies, sleep masks, etc., which visitors collected on their way down the steps.

And as if all those engagements didn't generate enough excitement, Sleep Number brought running backs Tevin Coleman of the Atlanta Falcons and Nick Chubb of the Cleveland Browns into the booth to sign autographs and pose for photos on the weekend preceding the Super Bowl, causing fans to swarm the exhibit. And on the Thursday morning prior to the big game (one of the busiest days of the event) and before the Super Bowl Experience opened to the public, the booth hosted Dak Prescott – the all-star quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys and a Sleep Number ambassador – for a media event. Prescott conducted press interviews about the Cowboys' season and was sure to discuss the role his 360 smart bed plays in his rest, recovery, and performance in the NFL. As part of the fun, several sportscasters and reporters challenged Prescott to the VR quarterback activation, which quickly turned competitive. The press event ensured that the national media amplified Sleep Number's partnership with the NFL.

Final Score
While Super Bowl LIII, which pitted the high-powered offenses of the New England Patriots and the Los Angeles Rams against each other, turned out to be a low-scoring 13 - 3 snooze fest – pretty on brand for a mattress company – Sleep Number's Super Bowl Experience booth brimmed with energy, engagement, and marketing synergy. "The entire event was a great way to attach the Sleep Number brand to the Super Bowl," commented one Corporate Event Awards judge. Another added, "Sleep Number created an experience that drew people in and did an exceptional job of building brand awareness in a playful and memorable way."

And Sleep Number had the points to prove it was an outright champion. The campaign generated 157 million media impressions, 60 percent beyond its goal. One post even produced more than 7 million engagements, making it Sleep Number's highest performing organic post. The event snagged mentions in eight national stories in high-profile publications such as Sports Illustrated and USA Today, as well as a spot on ESPN SportsCenter. Plus, the company intercepted 5,000 leads – 25 percent above its target – through badge scans at the Super Bowl Experience. Even better, considering the upcoming Presidents Day selling period, the company saw 60,000 unique visits to the Sleep Number/NFL landing page, which was sure to translate into mattress sales.

Best of all, Sleep Number's Super Bowl Experience exhibit contributed to a 10-percent boost in sales in the first quarter of 2019. And that growth continued across the year, resulting in a record $1.7 billion in revenue throughout 2019, an 11-percent increase compared to 2018. It goes to show that meticulous planning, flawless execution, and a good night's sleep result in an MVP performance. E