How Sleep Number Used Justin Jefferson and Ja'Marr Chase to Sell Performance Sleep
Sleep Number's "Perform Next Level With Justin Jefferson and Ja'Marr Chase" is a September 2023 film campaign released in the United States that enlists two elite NFL wide receivers — the 2022 Associated Press Offensive Player of the Year Justin Jefferson and his former LSU teammate Ja'Marr Chase — to demonstrate the performance sleep benefits of the Climate360 smart bed, positioning it as essential recovery equipment for athletes and everyday consumers alike.
The campaign sits within Sleep Number's broader "Sleep Next Level, Perform Next Level" strategic platform, which the brand launched in April 2023 with Gabrielle Union and Dwyane Wade as its lead personalities, according to reporting documented at actingmagazine.com. The Jefferson and Chase execution extends that platform into the NFL season with a three-film series comprising distinct creative territories: temperature control in "Temp (Cooler Than Justin)," adaptive movement in "Always Making Moves," and athlete competitive banter about smart bed performance in "I Sleep Better." Each film anchors a specific product claim to a moment of rivalry between the two players, keeping the commercial logic tight and the entertainment value high.
In the United States, the campaign ran in September 2023 as Sleep Number held its position as the official sleep partner of the NFL. The brand's statistic that eighty percent of all NFL players use a Sleep Number smart bed to perform and recover during the NFL season, as stated in the campaign's own materials, provides the credibility scaffolding on which the Jefferson and Chase storylines are built. The Climate360 smart bed — the specific product featured throughout — carries a brand claim that smart sleepers gain up to forty-four minutes more restful sleep per night, a figure Sleep Number cites directly in its campaign communications. That claim bridges the household products category with the language of athletic performance, which is the campaign's central strategic maneuver.
Sleep Number operates in a crowded segment of the United States household products market. The brand holds approximately nine percent of the US mattress market, according to data noted by clapboard.com, placing it in direct competition with Tempur-Pedic, which commands a larger premium segment, and Casper, which built its reputation on direct-to-consumer accessibility before pivoting its retail strategy. Against these competitors, Sleep Number's differentiation has long rested on technology — the adjustable firmness of its smart beds and, more recently, the temperature regulation of the Climate360 — rather than on price or distribution convenience.
The mattress market in the United States sits within a global industry that bonafideresearch.com and thebrainyinsights.com estimate is growing at roughly five to eight percent annually through the late 2020s, driven in part by rising consumer interest in sleep health and connected home technology. Sleep Number's strategic response to that trend is to own the intersection of athletic credibility and sleep science. The "Sleep Next Level" platform, developed with creative agency 72andSunny, uses sports figures not as mere celebrity endorsers but as functional validators — people whose professional outcomes depend on recovery quality, according to actingmagazine.com.
Choosing Justin Jefferson and Ja'Marr Chase specifically reflects a sharper calculation. Both are elite NFL wide receivers with an existing public relationship as former LSU teammates, which gives the campaign a built-in narrative engine that requires no manufactured backstory. Jefferson's status as the 2022 AP Offensive Player of the Year, as identified in the campaign's own materials, lends the execution institutional credibility. The eighty percent NFL player adoption figure, cited by Sleep Number in its campaign communications, is the kind of statistic that functions as social proof at scale, suggesting that performance sleep is already standard practice among the highest-performing athletes in the United States — and that the household consumer is simply catching up.
The "Perform Next Level" campaign is directed by Ryan Booth, with creative direction handled by Geno Burmester at 72andSunny, according to production records documented at kathryndavenel.com. The execution unfolds across three films, each structured around a specific Climate360 product claim and dramatised through the competitive dynamic between Justin Jefferson and Ja'Marr Chase. That structure — one product claim per film, one rivalry beat per scene — keeps the creative disciplined without making it feel like a product demonstration.
Burmester, in commentary documented at kathryndavenel.com, points to the eighty percent NFL player adoption figure as the creative foundation: the fact that the majority of NFL players already choose Sleep Number removes the need to argue for the product and instead allows the films to dramatise what that choice looks like in practice. The result is a tone that sits closer to sports entertainment than to household products advertising. Jefferson and Chase do not deliver scripted testimonials; they compete with each other — over who sleeps cooler, who recovers faster, who performs better — and the Climate360 smart bed is the shared technology enabling their rivalry.
Production on the three-film series — "Temp (Cooler Than Justin)," "Always Making Moves," and "I Sleep Better" — is confirmed to have been developed under the 72andSunny creative umbrella, with Horizon Media handling media duties on at least one related spot from August 2023, as noted at kathryndavenel.com. The visual language across the films prioritises the athletes' physicality and competitive charisma over product close-ups, a choice that aligns with the "Sleep Next Level, Perform Next Level" platform's intent to position Sleep Number within the cultural vocabulary of performance sport rather than the functional vocabulary of home furnishings. The campaign's single media asset formally archived from this execution is the film format, covering all three creative territories within one unified release.
No third-party verified performance data for the "Perform Next Level With Justin Jefferson and Ja'Marr Chase" campaign — such as independently audited reach figures, conversion rates, or sales attribution — is publicly available. Sleep Number does not disaggregate campaign-level results in its public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission at Sec Gov, and no media owner or research firm has published verified metrics specific to this execution.
The campaign earns a Clapboard Score of 53 out of 100. That score reflects a structurally coherent execution that benefits from strong athlete talent, a clear product claim hierarchy, and a platform — "Sleep Next Level" — that gives the films a strategic home. The three-film format demonstrates category ambition: splitting one campaign into distinct creative territories reduces media wear-out risk and allows Sleep Number to address different consumer motivations — temperature, movement, and sleep quality — without compressing them into a single overcrowded spot.
The score's ceiling, however, is constrained by factors visible in the creative structure itself. The films operate within a familiar athlete-endorsement grammar that, while competently executed, does not materially advance the household products advertising conversation. The eighty percent NFL player adoption claim, while powerful as a statistic, is presented rather than dramatised — it serves as a title card rather than a narrative engine. For a brand competing against Tempur-Pedic and Casper in the United States smart bed segment, the campaign consolidates existing positioning more than it opens new territory. The Jefferson and Chase dynamic is the campaign's clearest creative asset, and it is used effectively, but the overall execution stops short of the creative risk that would push the score meaningfully higher.
Sleep Number's "Perform Next Level" campaign is a September 2023 US film series featuring NFL wide receivers Justin Jefferson and Ja'Marr Chase. Created by 72andSunny under the "Sleep Next Level" platform, it positions the Climate360 smart bed as a performance recovery tool, with three films covering temperature control, movement, and athlete rivalry.
Sleep Number chose Jefferson and Chase because their real-world history as LSU teammates gives the campaign an authentic competitive dynamic. Jefferson's status as 2022 AP Offensive Player of the Year adds institutional credibility, and Sleep Number's claim that eighty percent of NFL players use its smart beds frames both athletes as representatives of a wider professional standard.
The Climate360 is Sleep Number's flagship smart bed featuring active temperature regulation. Sleep Number claims that smart sleepers gain up to forty-four minutes more restful sleep per night on this bed, a figure cited in the brand's own 2023 campaign materials. The product is the specific model featured throughout the Jefferson and Chase film series.
Ryan Booth directed the Sleep Number "Perform Next Level" campaign, with Geno Burmester serving as Creative Director at 72andSunny, according to production records at kathryndavenel.com. The campaign comprises three films — "Temp (Cooler Than Justin)," "Always Making Moves," and "I Sleep Better" — each addressing a distinct Climate360 product claim.
The Jefferson and Chase campaign extends Sleep Number's "Sleep Next Level, Perform Next Level" platform, which launched in April 2023 with Gabrielle Union and Dwyane Wade, according to actingmagazine.com. The NFL-season timing and athlete selection reflect a consistent brand strategy of using elite sports figures to validate performance sleep technology in the United States market.
Sleep Number's "Perform Next Level With Justin Jefferson and Ja'Marr Chase" campaign received a Clapboard Score of 53 out of 100. The score recognises strong athlete talent and a clear product claim structure across three films, while noting the execution consolidates existing brand positioning rather than opening materially new creative territory in the US smart bed category.
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