This Time-Traveling Mattress Ad Reminds You How Much of Life Happens in Bed

For its "Replace Every 8" campaign, U.K. mattress retailer Dreams enlisted CheethamBellJWT to produce "Everything Changes," an ad that follows a couple's by-the-bed adventures over the course of time.

You've seen this gimmick before (notably from Bacardi, Levi's and, most recently, HSBC), but it's reliably effective. As eight years pass, watch alarm clocks transform into iPhones and a fresh-faced, college-aged man become a bearded father. Babies and dogs appear. Mom's hair morphs into the familiar low-fuss bob favored by chasers of pattering feet.

The objective of the work is to remind you to change your mattresses every eight years, and by the end, it may surprise you how much of life happens in bed, and what unwitting abuse your faithful bedsprings endure.

The music may also seem familiar. That's because it's a cover of Take That's "Everything Changes," composed in this case by Richard Bodgers and sung by Emily Isherwood. In what marketing director Lisa Bond of Dreams calls an "unprecedented step" in the U.K. market, the brand released the single on iTunes for 79p (about $1.20), following in the footsteps of brands like Converse and Bacardi (which, to be fair, released their singles for free).

Director Phil Hawkins says the piece was shot over the course of two days on motion control and was made in reverse, so you could see the actor's beard flower for real. Below is the making-of, if you're interested in listening to that song (for free!) one last syrupy time.