Is Mattress Shopping Easy? "Dream On" Says The New York Times In the October 8, 2014 issue of The New York Times, Home and Garden reporter, Steven Kuruntz, asked if buying a new mattress was easy. Without a moment of journalistic hesitation, he answered his question in the headline, "Dream On." No one at Wingman Advertising held their breath for Kuruntz' answer. After 21 years marketing mattresses, we empathize. In a recent case study for our client, mattress retailer Sit 'n Sleep, we admitted that mattresses are, "the hardest considered purchase Wingman has ever sold." And by "hard" we aren't referring to the firmness of the Simmons Beautyrest Eleanor Luxury Firm (which, by the way, is quite pleasantly firm). The Mattress Consideration Cycle: Caveat Emptor Researcher The consideration cycle for a mattress begins when a consumer has realized their incumbent mattress is old and lumpy or when they're experiencing an important life event like a move, divorce or death. Mildewing mattresses from the Reagan administration and nasty divorces are clear-cut entry points into the mattress sales cycle, but the next step in the cycle has proven murkier – the research and product vetting stage.
This is where the mattress industry can get lost in the messaging woods. According to Kuruntz, to choose the right mattress shoppers "must go through a Kafkaesque maze." Kuruntz continues, "Then there is the incomprehensible tech-speak: advanced pocketed coil technology; It’s as if mattress manufacturers are selling not what is basically a large stationary cushion but a spaceship." Vetting Mattresses: Neither Intuitive, Simple, Nor Quick Although most consumers who reach the research stage of the consideration cycle will eventually purchase a mattress, confusing product features and indistinguishable brands act as unfortunate gatekeepers to consumer knowledge and retailer sales. In terms of brands, Kuruntz' has a simple explanation of the landscape, "most major brand names inexplicably seem to begin with the letter 'S' (Simmons, Sealy, Serta and so on), creating a blurring sameness. Is Simmons a step up in quality from Serta? Does Stearns & Foster sell the Posturepedic, or is that Sealy?"
A Carefully Considered Purchase As with any considered purchase, buying a mattress entails risk -- financial and even health-wise. Customers ask themselves: What if we end up buying the wrong size? What if we overpay? What if my back hurts and I can't replace it? With these questions weighing heavily on their minds, combined with the arduous task of sifting trough the industry's menagerie of nebulous product specs, consumers are apt to take the path of least resistance. They walk into their nearest mattress store. Kuruntz agrees with shoppers that finally break down and opt for a hands-on shopping experience. He suggests that consumers, "Focus less on the marketing and hardware and more on the 'software...How does it feel to you?'" Mattresses are the hardest considered purchase we've ever sold. To see how Wingman Advertising has managed to do it for over two decades, read our case study down below. [READ WINGMAN CASE STUDY: Shortening the mattress consideration cycle with the concept of "Replace Every 8"]
About WingmanWingman Advertising is an industry leader in the home improvement category. The agency is based in Los Angeles and focuses on marketing for clients that sell big-ticket items for the home. Let's talkStarting a conversation about your business begins with a simple "hello." Number of Employees * Please select one10 or lessFirm, plush, or soft feel? �Firm,� I said to the 1-800-Mattress guide as I lay on a Simmons Beautyrest. �Thought so,� he said. �New Yorkers like firm. Soft only sells in the suburbs.� That was the simplest thing I had to consider in my journey through modern bed-land. A lot has changed since the days when a bed was just some springs buttressing iridescent quilted polyester. Mattresses of the moment are made of foam, latex, and sometimes coils in a mind-numbing array of combinations. The original foam is Tempur-pedic, the solid-memory foam developed by nasa and made famous by its infomercial; now there are legions. Tempur-pedic is one of the firmest beds you can buy and a best seller in New York.
(Note to shoppers: This time of year, as white sales abound, Macy’s lists a California King Rhapsody mattress set at $3,799.) Converts like that unshakable feeling�one person can get up without the other inhabitant feeling the weight shift (it’s called �motion separation� in the mattress business). Memory foam is also hypoallergenic, since dust mites can’t live in it. But most of the foam beds I tested felt like warm quicksand, and the way they slowly rose up after I rolled off was slightly creepy. My favorite of the lot was from the Italian company Magniflex, whose �geoethic� line of beds have layers of plant-based memory foam ($1,399 to $5,399 for a queen). Magniflex cuts channels into their foam so air circulates. As I reclined my way through the Soho showroom (59 Crosby St., nr. 646-330-5483), I felt supported but not swallowed. And the delivery is smart; the mattress arrives rolled up a like a rug and vacuum-packed, which makes it a lot easier to lug up to a sixth-floor walk-up.
Then there’s latex, which can be natural (made from rubber) or synthetic. It has bounce, so it feels closer to a traditional coil mattress, and manufacturers often layer various densities to �build� a bed�firm on the bottom, soft on top, and so forth. The rule of thumb here is the more natural latex involved, the higher the price. A mid-priced queen like the Stearns and Foster Julep, which has a puffy �Euro� pillow top, costs $1,799 (Sleepy’s, 157 E. 57th St., nr. 212-421-3090). I found Ikea’s $899 queen-size natural latex quite satisfactory and�in this time of gargantuan, 21-inch-deep pillow-top giants�appealingly slim. (Ikea Brooklyn, 1 Beard St., nr. Otsego St., Red Hook; Hybrid beds made up the majority of the mattresses I tried. By and large, they felt exactly the same�an inch more latex here, a firm pillow top on a soft mattress or vice versa. Some even had a core of inner springs, each nestled into their own fabric pockets. I sunk happily into the Empress Exceptionale by Simmons at 1-800-Mattress ($3,499 for a queen, 369 W. 34th St., nr.
212-239-0127), made with springs covered in latex plus memory foam and a pillow top. But it is so enormous, I can’t imagine getting it into my New York apartment. Which is one of the problems with beds today. Some salespeople I spoke with reported a supersize backlash. 1-800-Mattress just introduced a house brand of shallower, cheaper mattresses with old-fashioned coils ($599 for a queen Classic Gem). They’re also two-sided, which many mattresses aren’t anymore, meaning they can be flipped periodically, thus lengthening their life span. I admired the thriftiness, but after trying all the pillow tops, the throwbacks felt too springy. If I were going to replace my ten-year-old embodiment of old technology, I’d buy the David from OrganicPedic by OMI at ABC Carpet & Home’s organic emporium ($3,395 for a queen, 888 Broadway, at 19th St.; 212-473-3000). Three layers of pure organic latex, customizable to your preference: firm, soft, medium. And the cotton cover is removable, so if the top latex layer seems saggy after a couple of years, you can just replace it for $850 instead of buying an entirely new mattress.