Lovehoney pays for off-grid cabin stays in Australia when couples halve their screen time with DND

Key Takeaways

• Lovehoney and creative communications agency CampaignLab have launched DND, short for Down N Dirty, a series of off-grid cabin stays for Australian couples.

• Guests screenshot their screen time on arrival and again when they leave, and the bigger the drop, the bigger the discount, with couples who halve their scrolling staying for free.

• Every stay includes a Lovehoney Reconnect Kit valued at over $250, and each cabin swaps phones for a disposable camera and a journal.

• The cabins are run with Into The Wild Escapes across NSW, VIC, QLD, SA and WA, with bookings opening on 20 October at lovehoney.com.au/dnd.

Lovehoney has found a way to make Australian couples' screen time reports worth bragging about, with an off-grid cabin offer where, in the campaign's own words, the less you scroll, the less you pay.

Called DND, which stands for Down N Dirty and will look familiar to anyone who uses the do not disturb setting on their phone, the campaign comes from the sexual wellness retailer and its agency CampaignLab. It is built on new Lovehoney research suggesting Australians give their screens 12 times more attention than their partners, and it turns that finding into a getaway that puts a price on every bit of scrolling couples manage to give up.

Lovehoney and Into The Wild Escapes link the price of a DND cabin stay to each couple's drop in screen time

The stays run with Into The Wild Escapes, which operates off-grid tiny homes within roughly two to three hours' drive of major Australian capitals. Time Out lists locations including the NSW Southern Highlands, the Hunter Region, the Barossa Valley, Toowoomba, the Macedon Ranges, Bendigo and South West WA, with Melbourne options such as Tiny Max in Daylesford and the Macedon Ranges, which has an outdoor bathtub, and Tiny Eli near Bendigo. According to Time Out, the cabins have no wifi and the DND package is available for stays from 4 November to 22 December.

In order to participate, couples must screenshot their average daily screen time when they arrive and again before they check out, and Lovehoney calculates the percentage reduction. Bigger reductions unlock bigger discounts, and couples who cut their scrolling in half stay for free. In place of the usual distractions, each cabin offers a disposable camera and a journal.

Every stay also includes a Lovehoney Reconnect Kit valued at over $250, which is sent to couples before they arrive. The kits are tailored to each couple and feature Lovehoney products such as the Pleasure Link Remote Control Couple's Kit, alongside lubricants and massage oil. The campaign runs across PR, social, creators, owned and paid media, and Australians can join the waitlist at lovehoney.com.au/dnd before bookings open on 20 October.

Ryan Foster, head of Lovehoney ANZ, acknowledged the slight irony of the brief, saying, "We're an online retailer asking Australians to spend less time on their phones, and we know how that sounds." He added, "We're not just encouraging couples to switch off, we're picking up the bill when they do." Andy Scales, founder and director of CampaignLab, put the research more bluntly, saying, "Aussies are touching their phones more than they're touching each other."

Lovehoney research finds Australians give their screens 12 times more attention than their partners

Alongside the headline figure, Lovehoney found that many Australians are more likely to stay up scrolling than to have a real conversation with their partner or initiate sex. Foster framed the campaign around the brand's belief that sexual pleasure starts well before the bedroom, in the attention couples give each other, which explains why the offer focuses on time together in place of a straightforward product discount.

The idea also continues a run of experiential work in Australia from Lovehoney and CampaignLab, which has handled the brand's PR and integrated campaigns there since April 2021. Last October, the pair teamed up with Melbourne ice cream shop Billy van Creamy on a two day pop-up in Brunswick under the Feel the Lovehoney platform, serving limited-edition flavours such as Lavender & Honey in a double cone designed for two. DND takes that same focus on shared experiences and stretches it across a whole weekend away.

Brands asking people to put their phones down has become a theme of its own this October. It sits neatly alongside Krusteaz and its Pancake Pause Box, a lockable phone safe for the breakfast table, which comes with a year's supply of pancake mix to keep families talking over breakfast.