Campaign Trail is our analysis of some of the best new creative efforts from the marketing world. View past columns in the archives here.
The beginning of fall means many things: leaves change color, pumpkin spice lattes hit menus and people spend more time in bed, either to sleep in or enjoy the cozy season. The multiple reasons people retreat to the sheets drives a new campaign from direct-to-consumer bedding brand Brooklinen that debuted on Aug. 27.
“Best. Sheets. Ever” makes its titular argument in a 30-second hero spot that pans across four bedbound scenes: comedian Robby Hoffman doing virtual therapy, “Saturday Night Live” talent Ben Marshall avoiding plans, musician-actor Alana Haim seemingly waking up after a long night and New York Knicks star Mikal Bridges on a phone interview.
Each vignette is explored in a series of 15- and 30-second cutdowns. The campaign is running across channels including linear TV, connected TV, YouTube and social platforms like Meta. It will run throughout the fall, including around the season premiere of “SNL” on Sept. 26, and the start of the NBA season on Oct. 20. “Best. Sheets. Ever” is Brooklinen’s first celebrity-led effort and its largest omnichannel campaign to date.
“Best. Sheets. Ever” builds on a previous “Best in Bed” campaign platform, launched last year, that sought to reignite the brand. Other marketers in the category tend to either focus on clean product aesthetics or the idea of the bedroom as sanctuary, explained Brooklinen CMO Laura Jacobs.
“Brooklinen lives in a very different place than all of those brands,” Jacobs said. “We talk about the bedroom as a place that's full of life where lots of things happen and we don't shy away from any of them.”
The “Best in Bed” campaign mixed the brand’s expertise with a cheeky sense of humor, showing the different activities people do in bed, including eating ice cream and playing with their kids. With “Best. Sheets. Ever,” Brooklinen tries to bring its ads closer to its core product.
“The brief was tying the brand platform to our product expertise, and leveraging interesting, authentic, bold personalities to help us to tell the story of why our sheets are the best sheets ever, and the fact that they never want to leave their bed,” Jacobs said.
In-house, celebrity-led and full-funnel
After speaking with a few agencies, Brooklinen decided to rely on its internal knowledge and creativity by crafting the campaign in-house. The team focused on finding the right partners to collaborate with, eventually choosing award-winner Barbara Anastacio to direct the ads.
“We wanted a diverse cast who spoke to their own audiences,” Jacobs said. “It wasn't about just speaking to one specific Brooklinen demographic.”
The cast includes a handful of figures who are each having their moment. Hoffman released a comedy special on Netflix last year and was nominated for an Emmy for her performance on the TV series “Hacks.” Marshall became a full-time cast member of “SNL” in 2025 and appears in two films this year. Apart from Haim’s role in her eponymous sisterly music trio, she has branched out into acting, with roles in “One Battle After Another” and “The Drama.” She was also seated with friend Taylor Swift during a Knicks playoff run that ended with Bridges winning a ring.
“We wanted people who were culturally in the conversation, who were truly authentic and bold in their creativity and who weren't afraid to be a little cheeky about the bed, which we got in spades from them,” Jacobs said.
Along with the hero spot and different cuts of the individual vignettes, the campaign includes behind-the-scenes footage, like Marshall and Bridges racing to fold a fitted sheet. The wide array of content allows the brand to keep the campaign fresh as it works down the marketing funnel.
“It's not just ‘look at our brand, learn about us.’ It's pulling people down [the funnel] and not just saying that they should love it but why, and what to buy,” Jacobs said. “We're already starting to see the results of that, which is really rewarding.”
