Insomnia, the short film, is visually driven by a single still image of a woman draped in a sheet in anguish. The photography style is inspired by Baroque art from the 1600s and captures an intense sense of light and dark that relates to the struggles with sleeplessness. The still imagery captures the severe mental and physical pain associated with insomnia. As the camera moves us around the still image, ehe voice-over in slam poetry and audio build intensity, anguish, and a deep desire for stillness.

Cases of Insomnia are rising around the world. The Harvard Gazette referred to this issue saying that “many sleepless nights can aggravate both physical and mental health problems” and sleep deprivation is getting worse during the pandemic.

Pzizz is the world’s most advanced sleep app to help people fall asleep fast, stay asleep, and wake up feeling refreshed. The app, covered by The New York Times and Wired, utilizes effective psychoacoustic principles to create beautiful dreamscapes that help you fall fast asleep.

Our brief and core objection was to create a piece of branded content that would stand out on social media and resonate with consumers suffering with insomnia and introduce them to Pzizz.

Insomnia is a short film that uses Baroque art and slam poetry to artfully bring to life the mental and physical pain associated with sleepless nights. With the Baroque-inspired imagery, and intense chiaroscuro lighting, the piece sets up the notion that insomnia can be a thing of the past. The voice-over, in slam poetry, rambles in and out of consciousness between the wake and sleep states that cause insomnia. As the camera moves us around the still image, the narration and audio build intensity, anguish, and a deep desire for stillness. Insomnia ends with a call to make insomnia a thing of the past, download Pzizz, and enjoy a more beautiful dreamscape.

The driving insight behind the piece is that Insomnia is like a nightmare that can only be put to rest with the modern dreamscape offered by Pzizz. Our strategic goal was to resonate with consumers struggling with sleep deprivation with an artfully crafted piece of captivating, branded content that spoke to consumers on an emotional level. We launched the film on IG stories to reflect the fleeting nature of sleep itself and debuted the piece at night while users were awake and dealing with insomnia.

Insomnia debuted after midnight on social media, when many people are awake, looking at content, and desperately trying to fall asleep. The short film was placed on the Pzizz brand IG stories to quickly catch attention from millions of viewers late at night. The IG story outlet was strategically selected so the spot would air and then fade away quickly, much like people fade in and out of wakeful states at night. This instant, quick, targeted short film debut caused viewers to crave finding out more about the brand behind the mysterious piece of sleep content. We collaborated across continents to shoot the still image, edit the film, and debut it to the world.

The night it launched, the film helped drive the single largest day of traffic to the Pzizz website. The short film reached 4 million viewers and helped the brand attain over 430 thousand users.