2021 Winner
NUK
NUK 3am Club
Milestone Integrated Marketing
GoldNiche Strategy
Every night, thousands of new parents wake up to the sound of their crying baby. Breaking their own sleep, they comfort their child with whatever means they can. With the combination of fatigue, frustration and utter confusion, many new parents feel extremely alone at this time. Often second-guessing themselves, affecting their own mental well-being.
Through years of working with new parents, NUK knows it’s what happens after a baby has fallen back to sleep that is often most detrimental. With questions flowing through their minds, parents often can’t sleep. They often consult the internet for answers: “When can I sleep train my baby?”, “When do babies sleep through the night?” and “How do I get back to sleep?”.
As they scour the internet for any relief, they inevitably find parenthood sites and forums filled with judgemental opinions and unhelpful advice. Without answers or sympathy, parents find themselves mentally and physically beat down. And while there are many websites touting encouragement, brands rarely acknowledge the actual hardships parents face every day. The dichotomy between the displayed joy on packaging contrasts heavily with the lived struggle of being a parent.
During those sleepless nights with a newborn, sleep-deprived parents often feel alone, unable to turn to anyone for help. Here they introduced The NUK 3am Club: an online tool dedicated to the sleep and well-being of both new parents and their newborns.
NUK wanted to transform from an extremely functional brand into one that can truly connect with their consumers. Knowing that sleep-deprived parents often turn to search engines and online forums for advice when no one else is awake, NUK decided to intercept them with “The 3am Club.” An online tool dedicated to helping new parents and answering their questions so they can return to their much-needed sleep. The site was filled with hundreds of hours of content dedicated to the sleep and well-being of both new parents and their newborns. Using a strong SEO campaign, The 3am Club was the first result when the most popular sleep questions were asked. And, with targeted ads that only ran between the hours of midnight and 5 am, NUK lent a helping hand. The 3am Club was a cozy corner of the internet that provided parents with exactly what they needed when they needed it most.
To do this, the agency worked with a world-renowned baby sleep expert to develop dozens of articles with helpful baby sleep information. Answering the tough questions, simply. So simple, an overly tired, sleep-deprived parent could understand. They hosted late-late-night live-stream conversations with trusted experts discussing a wide array of parenting topics: answering questions, discussing the struggles of parenthood, and passing on snippets of wisdom to all viewers.
But, because NUK knows that the parent’s well-being is equally as important as the baby's, The 3am Club was also a tool to help parents get back to sleep. To do this, they partnered with the meditation app Breethe to develop free practices specially designed for struggling parents, focusing on breathing patterns and providing reminders that they are a great parent. They also developed sleep playlists and had adult bedtime stories to help ease a parent back to sleep.
The 3am Club kicked off in 2020 and as NUK strives towards making a parent’s life as enjoyable as possible, it will be a part of the brand's mission moving forward. The website will continually grow to answer more questions that parents may face, provide helpful tips and more tools to get baby and more importantly parents back to sleep.
NUK wanted to increase their online presence and to be seen as a company that truly cares about both parents and babies. By specifically targeting parents who were up in the wee hours of the morning, these goals were surpassed. Since its launch, The 3am Club has increased NUK’s online traffic by 91% year-over-year leading to an online sales increase of 62%. But most importantly, NUK connected with new parents by lending a helping hand when they needed it most.
Credits
Strategy
Stacy Barr, VP, Milestone Integrated Marketing
Creative
Anne Onn, Creative Director, Milestone Integrated Marketing
Heather Graham, Art Director, Milestone Integrated Marketing
Steve Wallace, Director of Copy/Content, Milestone Integrated Marketing
Cory Ill, Sr. Designer, Milestone Integrated Marketing
Domenic Nardone, Sr. Designer, Milestone Integrated Marketing
Sarah Fernandez, Int. Designer, Milestone Integrated Marketing
Nikki Smith, Jr. Designer, Milestone Integrated Marketing
Kyle Ashley, Sr. Social Media Manager, Milestone Integrated Marketing
Account Leadership
Roger Simmons, Group Account Director, Milestone Integrated Marketing
Alex Ireland, Sr. Project Manager, Milestone Integrated Marketing
Fraser Mowat, Account Manager, Milestone Integrated Marketing
Client
Max Bernstein, Sr. Marketing Manager, NUK
Will Granros, Marketing Manager, NUK
For partnership inquiries, please contact Neil Ewen at newen@brunico.com.