On World Sleep Day (3/13), TV personality and fitness instructor Mr Motivator (Derrick Evans MBE) has launched Bed Bank, a charity tackling bed poverty in the U.K., supported by a pro-bono integrated campaign by Leo UK, spanning film, print and OOH.
Bed poverty affects over one million children in the U.K. It is not directly linked to homelessness; many children are living in family homes but do not have a proper bed of their own, instead sleeping on floors, sofas, shared beds or makeshift arrangements.
According to Barnardo’s No Crib for a Bed report (2023), 894,000 children slept on a floor or shared a bed in the past year, while more than one million parents gave up their own sleep so their child could use the only bed available.
To highlight this issue, the campaign reframes the familiar phrase “waking up on the wrong side of the bed” to highlight a harsher reality facing children across the U.K.–many simply don’t have a proper bed at all. For hundreds of thousands of children growing up without a safe comfortable place to sleep, the phrase takes on a far more literal meaning. The work aims to bring national attention to bed poverty and the profound impact that a lack of sleep can have on children’s health, wellbeing and development.
At the heart of the campaign is this film produced by Untold Studios and directed by Charlie Sarsfield, known for his work with artists such as Billie Eilish, YungBlud and Lewis Capaldi. The three-minute film follows a young boy’s day at school as he struggles to get through it. Provocative lyrics draw viewers in, while layered sound design recreates the overwhelming fatigue and sensory overload of long-term exhaustion. Drawing on poetry and UK Rap, the film reflects a wider cultural truth about how poverty persists unseen in modern Britain.
In a joint statement, Helen Rogerson and Owen Hunter Jenkins, senior creatives at Leo UK, shared, “This project genuinely came from the heart. We were initially asked to help shape Bed Bank’s brand, and as part of that we wrote a series of tone-of-voice documents. One of those was a piece of spoken word, which when we read aloud–the room fell silent. We knew then that it couldn’t just live on a page.
“What’s been most powerful is how many people have personally connected to the issue. Across creative, production and post so many of our team have either experienced housing instability themselves or seen first-hand the impact lack of sleep can have on children. It formed a little collective that really believed in the cause and were more than happy to fight for it. So, it’s really all down to amazing people that we actually made this happen.”
Director Sarsfield said, “Working with Derrick and the Bed Bank team meant translating a vital social issue into something that feels human and lived. Our role was to take the vision and give it clarity and focus so that audiences can see the impact without being told what to feel. It’s about empathy and understanding the depth of the challenge the young people navigate on a daily basis.”
