Would you say you work in a fascinating market? Are you working with a sexy brand that your customers just can’t get enough of? Are you now selling t-shirts with your logo emblazoned across the chest just to your customers can show off their allegiance to your products? Thought not.
There are cool products…
I used to love the school projects where you had to invent a product nobody had ever thought of. Nail clippers that float in water. Dragon killing sprays. Deloreans that take you back to the future (for some reason I was given an F for originality on that project…).
Your mind ran wild. Like finding yourself on an episode of The Apprentice. Except you didn’t want to strangle your teacher. The cool factor overshadowed functionality. Surely you could be more inventive coming up with a weird and wacky idea that presenting a boring product in an innovative fashion?
…and then there are the not so cool products
My teacher never asked the class to design a mattress. Apart from the idea of springs that shot you across the room in the direction of your wardrobe each time your alarm went off… it would be an unenviable task.
Exit sandman… enter Casper
Isn’t it great when choices are made simple for us? A quick scan of the mattress market and you’re presented with 100s of choices differentiated by features that mean nothing to us. We just want a good nights sleep, right?
The mattress has to be one of the most uninspiring purchases we ever make. But, as you know, we spend more time on our mattress than we do in our car. The car that we spent weeks or months deliberating over.
Remember that conversation you had with your friend where you were discussing your choice of mattress? Of course you can’t, it never took place.
This is why I love what New York startup business Casper are doing.
Embracing simplicity
Casper offer one single model. Why? they’ve put ‘all their energies into building the ideal bed… for people of all shapes and sizes‘. The ideal bed. Isn’t that what we’re all looking for? You find yourself in a superstore surrounded by hundreds of beds. Up walks the jovial salesperson, ‘what kind of bed are you looking for, sir?’ ‘Well, an ideal one, I guess?’
Casper is a market disruptor. Well and truly. Whilst showrooms, due to the nature of the product, are huge, alongside the associated overheads, what do Casper do? They distribute directly to the consumer, 100% online and their mattresses are delivered compressed into a box half the size of the actual product itself – watch the video below to see how this works:
More than just a mattress
The direct distribution and packaging is a huge USP as Casper’s website explains “this allows us to profitably sell the Casper for three times less than what it would cost in a store.” But, price isn’t what would steer you in the direction of Casper.
The team at Casper clearly believe in their mattress. How does a 40-day no quibble guarantee sound to counter the mental strain of shopping for a mattress in nondescript retail parks or feature-driven hyperbole online?
Co-founder Philip Krim knows his market. It’s a £12bn global industry. He refined his product development through his own experience working at his father’s mattress retailer. The quality of Krim’s product is that which you’d associate with a mattress 3 times the cost of the Casper. Casper’s website outlines the exact reason why latex covered memory foam has been utilised. In human speak. No features, just pure unadulterated consumer benefit. Why? Because we all crave ‘better sleep for brighter days’, don’t we?
If a potential customer has a question, Casper are on call ‘to answer your questions or sing you a lullabye.’ Even their online support invites you to ‘talk to a founder’. How welcoming is that?
Casper haven’t just broken convention, they’ve demolished it. They’ve honed into their audience’s real desires and delivered a product that suits.
The story of the mattress?
I can’t imagine why the purchase of a mattress would ever enter conversation. It’s not an experience you’d share… for the right reasons at least. Then, along came Casper. Casper have built a product that gives it’s owners a story to tell. The simple buying process. The innovation behind the product. The fact the mattress is compressed into a box half it’s size. It’s a story in itself.
It’s not the story, it’s the well you tell it…
Casper make buying a mattress cool. The empathy they share with their audience sits at the core of their website. They’re on our side. They’ve created a brand that you can believe in.
Casper is a brand new business. They couldn’t have second guessed the demand for their mattresses – even adding a little scarcity to the purchase persuasion!
If story, empathy and authenticity can work for a product as mundane as the mattress, what could it do for your business?
I really hope Caspers more conventional competitors are getting a good night sleep… they’re going to need it.
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