With industries facing a huge impact due to COVID 19, surprisingly bedding industry sales has been decent and better than anticipated. Repose mattresses is one of the leading bedding companies to concentrate on a healthy lifestyle for their customers. With the crises, Repose mattresses has given a safe and hygienic environment for the manufacturers besides paying them their salaries apart from concentrating on sales. Repose Mattress ensures safety for their workers through regular temperature checks and equipping them with masks and gloves. Mattresses are sanitised before their delivery to ensure customer safety. Balaji V, Chief Marketing Officer at Repose Mattress Private Limited, in an exclusive chat, speaks on their marketing plans.
What are the key factors a consumer looks before buying a mattress and how Repose fine-tunes its messages to reach out to the right audience?
It is unfortunate that people don’t give enough importance to a product like mattress, especially considering that they spend almost one-third of their lives on it. So we have always done campaigns to increase the involvement of the consumer and make them understand the role it plays. For example, they tend to spend more on a cot than a mattress without knowing or realising that they actually sleep on the mattress and cot is just a support structure. We are not undermining the importance of the cot but people should give as much importance to a mattress as much as they give to a cot. Another example is people have no idea about the dust mites, fungus, bacteria, sweat that gets accumulated in our mattress over a period of time. All of this is not visible to the naked eye.
Repose has done enough and more campaigns to build awareness among consumers. Also, we primarily focus on spring mattresses which are the latest/modern type of mattress. People across USA and Europe sleep on spring mattresses. Even most of the good hotels use spring mattresses. Spring mattress is an engineered product compared to coir or foam, and is a more durable product. There is air-circulation which prevents any bad odour.
Your campaigns are made in such a way pitching mattress a health aspect than a luxury or comfort, What is the strategy behind the campaign?
The strategy as mentioned above is to increase the involvement of the consumer. They are okay to spend Rs.15-20 for a cup of coffee or tea and have 5 cups a day but not okay to spend less that Rs.10 per night for a good night’s sleep. So we will continue to hammer this message to our consumers about the importance of a mattress. We have a long journey ahead of us.
What innovation you had made in your campaigns which are unique and different from your competitors and how effectively it worked?
While competition is highlighting the product features, we are focussed in increasing the involvement and bring awareness about the importance of a mattress. We have also positioned our brand in the ‘Fresh Ideas’ platform. Why?
Because there is a very intrinsic connection between sleep and brain. If you sleep really well, your brain will also be fresh and can think of good ideas. And ideas is what shapes this world. So while competition focuses on sleep, we are all about ideas. ‘Wake Up To Fresh Ideas’ is the creative expression of this thought. And this is not just a line. We believe in this. To demonstrate this, we came up with two innovative products:
a) India’s first locker mattress where you can keep some jewels and cash inside the mattress. It is concealed and only the owners would know about it.
b) India’s first memory foam music. This pillow comes with two tiny speakers inside the pillow and a wire that can be connected to a smartphone. People can listen to their favourite music while lying down on the pillow.
The world is evolving in new ways. Unlike earlier days, not many are settling in the same job for ages in the same location. Millennials relocate more frequently. How does it impact the sales of mattresses?
Fortunately, we haven’t encountered this in our company. The attrition rate has been minimal. Even now, after COVID 19 lockdown when we resumed operations, our people have got used to the new normal of being in touch with us and our customers through video calls.
What are the key markets for you and where are you planning to expand your reach?
We are currently present in South India (Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana). Apart from these states, we are in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Goa, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh. We will be shortly launching in Chhattisgarh. In about 2 years’ time, if Corona is kind to us, we hope to be present across India.
You would have attempted various media platforms for advertising. Which platform had been successful for Repose and where are you planning to increase your budget spends in this fiscal year?
Television has been the most successful for us because of a) cost efficiency and b) an audio-visual medium that allows you to showcase your story and products in a better manner. We have restricted our spends now because of COVID 19. We’ll have better clarity only after things return to normalcy.
