Silentnight launches children’s bed range

Silentnight Beds has launched a range of children’s beds. The My First Bed Range will be supported by a television campaign, created by Mortimer Whittaker O’Sullivan (MWO), which breaks this week.

The range includes Silentnight’s Miracoil mattress and three different headboard and base colours, various storage options and fun feet in place of casters. The beds also come with a choice of “playpal”: a hippo or a duck, a football, heart, beanies or playpal letters. The range is launched in stores this month and will also be put into the hotel rooms at Alton Towers.

The campaign features the hippo and duck characters, which were reintroduced in cartoon form by MWO two years ago, having been scrapped a decade earlier. The couple’s children, two hippos and a duck, also star in the campaign.

The ad sees the family sitting down to dinner, but the children do not want to eat. Eventually they are threatened with a late night if they don’t eat up and can only be calmed down by being told they can go to bed early.

The first burst of the campaign, which has voiceovers by Jane Horrocks and Clive Rowe, will run nationally for four weeks. Media buying is through Feather Brookbank.

MWO was appointed to the Silentnight business in 2000 after the bed brand decided to increase its advertising spend from &£1m to &£8m (MW May 11, 2000). As well as above-the-line advertising, MWO has also created a series of Silentnight sponsorship credits for ITV’s Where the Heart Is.