One of the negative perks of our industrial revolution has been to negate, if not dismiss sleep and treat it as the root of all laziness, unproductivity and time wasted. Sleep deprivation, working around the clock for little or no additional retribution has been celebrated and glorified across the board. It has gone so far that admitting to needing more sleep would show weakness and incompetence. In my case for example, for as long as I can remember, I have always needed 8 hours of sleep otherwise I get ill. But the guilt of seeming frail led me to repress my truth for many years. I was too concerned of being judged by my peers, especially colleagues.
But today, thanks to icons like Arianna Huffington, more and more people and companies are coming to realize the importance of a good night sleep and how it affects everything else in our lives. Redefining our relationship with sleep is not an elusive concept anymore but a reality which we all need to accept, surrender to and integrate into our lives. Arianna Huffington explains it the best in The sleep revolution. “Our cultural dismissal of sleep as time wasted compromises our health and our decision-making and undermines our work lives, our personal lives–and even our sex lives.”
KUBA WIECZOREK
My guest of today has understood the relevance of this topic and the urgency to move from “a nice to have” to “a need to have”. He and his partner figured out the blue ocean of the mattress industry three years ago and have not stopped uncovering more space since then.
A week ago while in London, I had the pleasure to meet Kuba Wieczorek, the CMO of Eve Sleep, the Sleep and Energy brand that is revolutionising the mattress industry as we know it. Kuba has “Creative” in his blood. He breathes it, eats it and lives it wholeheartedly. I never get enough of being around such personalities because they bring so much passion in everything they do that one cannot leave untouched or uninspired. After our meeting I was pumped, ready to create and innovate!
Without any further a-do, please meet Kuba!
LET’S TALK
You will notice that this does not follow a typical interview style. We let passion and energy lead the conversation and take us where it needed to go. That’s why I love to sit with creatives! They cannot be scripted. Their drive and love for their craft take precedence to following roadmaps.
Tell us about your Why
Our “Why”, our “What” are centred around our belief that everyone deserves the perfect start. That is why we come to work everyday, that’s why we make mattresses, why we develop products which help give people that perfect start – whether you wake up in the morning and give them the perfect start to their day because they had a great sleep, whether it’s the perfect range of baby products because we believe babies should have the perfect start, whether it’s employing, young, talented people, like Dave who is fresh out of school versus employing someone 10 years into their careers, whether it is to work with mental health charity.
There is a huge link between lack of sleep and bad mental health, or better quality sleep and improved mental health. We’re not selling a block of foam, we’re not selling three layers of breathable memory foam. We’re actually selling positivity, energy and a lifestyle. We believe in promoting and creating tribes of like-minded people believing in positivity, in energy, in the power of sleep and the power of the mind. And this is not Bullshit! I preach these values all the time!!
That’s why I made my brand yellow, why I called it Eve, which means “to live, to breathe” in ancient hebrew. Our logo, the semi-circle is the sunrise. All of our content is around energy. All of our branding and imagery showcase that feeling. I don’t believe in creating a sleep brand and showing people sleeping on a bed, or people snoring. That’s not the type of movement we are creating.
Who are your customer?
Our data shows that our customers have above average income (which is not great since our message is that our brand is for everybody). I want to be more democratic. But maybe it is a positive thing because we have created an aspirational brand. The other interesting thing in the UK is that we are evenly spread throughout the entire kingdom. We thought we would be much more biased in London since we are a London-based Start-Up. That’s because we don’t have any stores. We deliver in a box and if you don’t like it, it gets picked up – probably a more exciting proposition that buying in store if you happen to live out in the country side somewhere.
I am inspired by fashion and beauty which is reflected in our imagery and brand across the board. I don’t believe that older people want to be patronised and shown imagery that will make them feel old. They want to be inspired to dream like everyone else. I want to do creative imagery, I want to challenge old conventions. I don’t want to show old people sleeping in their bed with a bad back.
Our data shows that we are evenly spread across the age demographic – completely evenly spread. The only thing which we found out is that we are under indexed for below 25 maybe because they cannot afford our mattresses yet and also move around quite a bit. Plus acquiring a good mattress is probably not on their radar yet!
Our universal insight is “Everyone’s day starts the night before. If you sleep well you have a fulfilled life.” You don’t need to be 21 or 101, everyone can understand that if I sleep well, I will have a brilliant next day and a fulfilled life.
For me the best brand proportion has to be rooted in a universal insight, a universal reality. We created something I call the “traveling brand” – it travels across gender and age, it travels geographically (US, Poland, Switzerland, Mexico…). Some brands are based on a cultural insight but I base mine on a universal insight – “Sleep makes a better life.” And it travels across products as well. When you have such a strong brand guiding principle, it should go through absolutely everything you do – your brand, your advertising, your products, etc…
Our brand also guides what products we are getting into, what we should do and what we shouldn’t do.
Is sleep the new cool?
People ask us all the time why we got so successful, so quickly? We floated the company on the stock market 2 years after our start. It’s almost unheard of. It’s crazy. We’re only three years old! But why?
I am a great believer in serendipity, faith, and lady luck. Somehow the stars aligned for us perfectly at the right time. One of the big thing that has happened is that Sleep has become Cool and interesting. We are noticing a huge shift in the mindsets.
I left Chanel 4, my dream job as Creative Director, to start Eve Sleep. Everyone asked me why I left and what I was going to do next. When telling them about setting up my own start up they would all get excited and curious ….until I’d tell them “it’s a mattress company”! They’d look at me and say a mattress company? The thing you sleep on? Why?
Very quickly in my head I flipped it and stopped calling it a mattress company but instead a “Sleep company”. It was really interesting to see the difference in people’s reactions. It’s like speaking two different languages! Why is “mattress” such an awful word? You spend a third of your life on it, you read your children’s stories on it, you cuddle up with your partner on it, so why is it such an embarrassing product? A mattress should be celebrated as a super cool interesting product.
We wanted to build a Cool company. Cool is not dirty but interesting and engaging. The cool ones are the ones who don’t try to be cool – they just get you. The uncool people are those who try too hard with logos everywhere.
Unfortunately in most places sleep has not yet become cool. People are afraid to admit that they sleep more than 5 hours a night.
The conversation has at least begun. A sleep revolution is happening and it is great for us. What I find amazing is that for years we have been told that sleep is not good and if you want to achieve anything in life you must deprive yourself of sleep.
Why has sleep become a conversation only since the last couple of years? The body can live for about 3.5 weeks without food as long as you have enough fat in your body to burn, you can go without water for 5 days as long as you are well hydrated but the maximum you can go without sleep is 48 hours. The body will shut down!
How did you figure out your blue ocean? What was your process of finding it?
It happened quickly. When we did the Paralympics campaign in 2012 while I was at Channel 4, we had a real challenge in our hand. We created the best campaign ever realised in the last 100 years. It changed how society looks at disability. But in the beginning no one at channel 4 wanted to work on this project. I got the job to specifically market the paralympics games and create an advertising campaign. No one wanted to touch it because people were embarrassed to talk about disability. We took something deeply uncool, unloved, embarrassing and deeply stigmatised (you never showed the disability, the wheelchair..) and turned it into a victory.
We decided to create something totally new and celebrate disabilities. We created an ad which tagline was “Meet the super humans.” That ad changed everything and how people viewed disability.
I showed it to my cousin in 2014 who at time had decided to start a mattress in a box company. He asked me to introduce him to a creative person. He hadn’t realised that I was one!
It took me a day to resign from my job at Channel 4, which by the way became our main investor! I wanted to use my paralympics experience and create something special, interesting, relevant. We agreed from day one that whatever we would do would be unexpected – as is our business model.
Everyone does the same thing in our market – the words, the colors and imagery are all the same. It’s like everyone is sleeping! (metaphorically and literally)
We are not a sleep brand, we are an energy brand! That’s how we got to our blue water 🙂
Why do you think you became so successful so quickly? Did your background and network help the process?
I’m very good at surrounding myself with great people and sharing ideas. That’s something you learn from experience. When I started in 2006, I didn’t want to hire an assistant who knew more than me because I was embarrassed. With experience I understood how crucial it is to surround yourself with people who know more than you and who are better than you. I have a lot of holes in my brain and I try to fill them with talented people’s help.
Very few startups have a creative person on board. They have a Tech person, a data person, a CEO but very few have a branding person. I’m still amazed by that! They are trying to build a consumer brand but no one creative to do it. Thankfully more and more brands are realising the importance of creativity in getting their message across.
Are you worried about AI and VR taking over?
There is so much talk about Virtual reality and Artificial intelligence, especially in London which is becoming a hub for all that. But companies are also understanding that it is not just about the data. A brand is a conversation with the consumer. It is about Empathy, connection, vibe, emotional engagement. This is what branding is today. In 1880, it was about trust and consistency. Today branding has mutated, morphed and moved from product consistency to engagement and emotional connection. A lot of brands and startups think they’re still in 1882 – stick their logo on, a little bit of Artificial Intelligence and that’s it. But we’re in 2018, it’s about conversations, about being inspired by the brand message. A brand is not about being the best, the fastest but it is about being adaptable.
Creativity and human empathy can never be replaced by robots. Do you agree?
I think creativity is about problem solving. The most creative people I work with are the best problem solvers. Data can never solve a problem, a human brain can. In any company, whether it be B2B or B2C, you always come across problems and a creative mind will always find interesting ways around that problem.
Let’s take Eve as an example for creative problem solving.
Problem: Sleep is boring. Everyone says and does the same thing. How can we talk about sleep in an engaging way?
Solution: let’s not talk about sleep at all. Let’s talk about energy in the morning.
We are a brand with a pulse. We move with the time. We listen and care. We have empathy and a heart beat. No robot can ever replace that!
Closing words
In conclusion it is important to know who you are as a brand, what you believe in. Believe in the power of creativity, believe in people, in your customers. Believe that what you are doing is not about fluff but a higher purpose driven product.
SLEEP OVER AT OPERA HOTEL IN ZÜRICH
We got to experience first hand Eve’s most talked about products while they were in Zürich. It was so much fun. See for yourself 🙂
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