How Nescafé’s decaf ad helped Panama City find a good night’s sleep

The 21st-century recipe for a good night’s sleep has “avoid screens in bed” written in bold as the first ingredient. With guidance from experts such as Andrew Huberman and strong determination, many insomniacs might manage to put away their small screens before bedtime. However, how does one avoid the light pollution emitted by the massive billboard screens entering their homes during the night? 

The conundrum was even more vexing for the residents of Panama City. The South American capital is notorious for its high concentration of skyscrapers and glaring billboards.

These Out-of-Home (OOH) advertisements were not truly out-of-home, considering the significant light pollution they emitted into people’s homes during sleep time. The answer? Ironically, it’s a cup of coffee.

Also something to be avoided before bed, coffee addressed the sleep issue in Panama with Nescafé’s ‘Decaf Billboards’ campaign. The coffee giant, in collaboration with ad agencies Ogilvy and Star5, filled giant billboards featuring flashy, bright advertisements from other brands.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Camilo Garzón (@camigarzonrengifo)

The coffee brand poured Nescafé Clásico Decaf, a decaffeinated variant, inside these billboards in a calm and soothing manner. The decaf gently flooded the billboards, dimming their brightness almost entirely owing to the rich brown hue of the brew.

The slow motion of the poured liquid also had a tranquillising effect on the audience.

What made the campaign truly count was the fact that Nescafé bought the last advertising slot of the day for these billboards from JCDecaux, the multinational corporation that owns them and specialises in outdoor advertising.

This meant that Nescafé’s late-night advertisement reduced light pollution when people actually go to bed in Panama.

What could have been another bright billboard for a coffee ad was transformed into something entirely different by an ingenious ad campaign. Nestlé, along with Ogilvy and Star5, was quite imaginative in suggesting that Nescafé Clásico Decaf won't disrupt sleep, just like its ad.

While the 'billboard insomnia' hasn’t explicitly been flagged by the city authorities as dystopian, Nestlé identified an issue that was indeed causing inconvenience to the city residents and tried to solve a problem that people did not know could be solved, at least in part.

The ‘Decaf Billboards’ campaign seems to have garnered eyeballs for its ingenuity both locally in Panama and internationally. Activists in Hong Kong City and Mumbai have also been quite vocal about how these cities have been lit up like football stadiums, making residents lose sleep in their homes and motorists lose focus while driving on the road.

Nescafé Clásico Decaf may find the coffee-drinking residents of these cities to also be drawn in by its Decaf Billboards campaign.