• by Les Luchter , March 5, 2024

Daylight saving time begins this coming Saturday night/Sunday morning, but sleep machine maker Hatch is having none of that -- or at least a current Hatch sweepstakes isn’t. The promotion will award two winners and their plus-ones with an extra hour of sleep this weekend by sending them off to Arizona or Hawaii, the two states that stay on standard time year-round.

Called “Daylight Savings Escape,” the sweepstakes was only announced this past Friday on Hatch’s Instagram channel and ends today, March 5. Winners will then be notified via DM, giving them a couple of days to prepare for their trips.

When consumers enter the sweeps on Instagram, they also tag their plus-one. This action “expanded the reach to additional audiences” beyond “being a surprise and delight moment for our community,” Eric Pallotta, Hatch’s chief marketing officer, tells Marketing Daily. By Monday afternoon, the promotion had generated more than 1,700 entries, he reveals.

Hatch will have separate “drawings” for its two prizes (which include roundtrip airfare from the nearest airport): trips to the Sanctuary Camelback Mountain in Arizona and the Fairmont Kea Lani in Hawaii. Winners will have a Hatch Restore 2 device in their rooms, and will also receive $50 in cash, their own Restore 2 and other gifts.

PR agency Edelman and social agency Toast Media Group worked with Hatch on pulling the whirlwind promotion together.

But Hatch has been on top of the savings time issue for a while.

Pallotta credits Hatch’s customers with educating the company about the disruptive effects of both the start and end of daylight savings time.

Citing research from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine “which shows 64% of U.S. adults want to replace seasonal time changes with a national, fixed, year-round time,” Pallotta notes that “great sleep starts with going to bed at the same time and daylight savings messes with circadian rhythm and sleep schedules for everyone in the family.”

It can also negatively impact heart and brain health, according to the American Heart Association, which on Friday said that “scientific researchers have noticed a marked increase in heart attacks and strokes in the days following this time change each year.”

Also on Friday, D2C organic mattress marketer Samina Sleep cited “a very real spike in workplace accidents, road accidents, and medical errors due to sleep deprivation. We also suffer from cognitive impairment.”

Samina also noted that 20 professional organizations, including the National Sleep Foundation, the Sleep Research Society, and the American Medical Association, support year-round standard time.

Hatch machines are sold D2C at www.hatch.co and Amazon, and at such brick-and-mortar retailers as Target, Pottery Barn, Best Buy, Nordstrom and Walmart.