By Mark Seavy 

For many years, mattress suppliers have supported outbound brand licensing that stretched across sheets, pillowcases, comforters, and other products. But those long-time strategies are showing signs of change. 

Historically, licensing efforts within the bedding industry were largely an intramural affair, with brands like King Coil, Spring Air, Therapedic, and Englander making their labels available for international markets. Tempur Sealy, for example, had a 47-year licensing relationship with the U.K.’s Silentnight Group for distribution of Sealy products before shifting the business to internal management. And Serta Simmons Bedding, which claims a 19% share of the U.S. mattress business, has 42 licensees.  

More recently, Adventure Mattress—whose corporate trademark was registered in June—extended a licensing agreement with the Scott Brother from the HGTV series Property Brothers. Adventure Mattress shares the pact with Restonic, which first signed with the Scott Brothers in 2018 and operates a network of independently owned licensees that manufacture and distribute branded mattresses. King Koil also signed with the Scott Brothers with plans to show the first product at the Las Vegas Market next week.  

Adventure Mattress also launched sales of 10 licensed Skechers PostureFit mattresses with prices ranging from $1,149 to $3,199. The mattresses played on the Skechers brand with “Cool Skech-Knit” and “Skecher Max Cushioning” features.   

“When we look for a brand to partner with, comfort is the main focus,” said Stefani Van der Voort, Head of Marketing at Adventure Mattress, told Bedding News Now. “It has to be one that people know and recognize and that’s going to help drive traffic to retailers.”  

Yet that traffic has been affected in recent months by declining discretionary spending as well as by bankruptcies. The retailer American Mattress, which carries Skechers mattresses and operates 52 stores in Illinois and Indiana with affiliates in other states, filed for bankruptcy protection in June. Adventure Mattress ($1.21 million) was the top unsecured creditor, followed by freight transportation provider Canterbury Logistics ($255,983).   

“It has been an extremely difficult 18 months for the mattress industry, with many competitors and manufacturers failing and/or filing for bankruptcy,” American Mattress CEO Michael Kenna said in the bankruptcy filing. “This trend has been driven by a perfect storm of events, including an election year that dampened consumer spending.”   

Because of these challenges, the importance of branding as a point of difference has become clear.  

Purple Innovations, for example, which sells both directly to consumers and through 61 company-owned stores, hired Brandgenuity earlier this year to expand its brand into bedding accessories, furniture (office chairs, sofa beds), and pet products.   

The decision to enter outbound licensing came as Purple reported a 13% decrease in Q1 sales with its wholesale revenue declining 24%. Purple, however, gained an agreement with retailer Mattress Firm to expand distribution starting this month, growing from 5,000 slots in 1,400 stores to reach 12,000 slots, CEO Rob DeMartini said. The expansion is forecast to generate an additional $70 million in revenue for Purple.   

Purple is part of a coterie of direct-to-consumer mattress suppliers, including Casper, Avocado Green Mattress, and Nectar Sleep, which are challenging Serta Simmons and others. And while Purple enjoys 77% brand recognition, there “is still groundwork to be done online,” DeMartini said.  

“The [mattress industry] has leaned on discounting to drive demand, but our path forward is to focus on the benefits of our products, especially the sleep and health advantages,” DeMartini said. “We have begun to shift our messaging and focus our investment in marketing on what consumer benefits Purple mattresses deliver. Conversion of online customers has declined and there has been a disconnect between consumer curiosity and product understanding [that needs to be resolved].”