TVs and mattresses: Not quite strange bedfellows
Larry Thomas, Business Editor -- Furniture Today, May 14, 2007
Marketing efforts for high-definition TVs and mattresses may seem like, well, strange bedfellows, but according to a speaker at Furniture/Today's recent bedding conference, there are more similarities than you might think.
Don Hofmann, a former Simmons marketing executive who now works as an industry consultant, urged his bedding industry colleagues to adopt a marketing strategy similar to the one employed by TV makers in recent years.
He said that TV folks have taken a new government regulation that could have been a negative — the end of analog TV broadcasts in February 2009 — and turned it into a positive by urging consumers to buy new-and-improved TVs with digital tuners and HDTV receivers.
Hofmann said bedding producers have a similar marketing opportunity when new federal mattress flammability standards take effect July 1. By touting improved safety, he believes the bedding industry can take a page from consumer electronics and convince consumers to trade up to a new and improved product.
"We can ride in on the white horse," he told conference attendees. "We now have a better product."
Hofmann marveled at the success of the marketing efforts of TV makers and retailers, noting they've convinced countless consumers to upgrade before the analog cut-off date, even though they could still use their existing set after February 2009 by purchasing a converter box for about $40.
"The electronics people have made owning a big-screen, high-definition TV an aspirational product," he said. "We have the same opportunity (in bedding)."
A recent survey by the Consumer Electronics Assn. showed that just 29% of adults own at least one HDTV, which suggests the growth curve for the product, and the furniture that often goes with it, is a long way from its peak.
The CEA survey, which was discussed in the March/April issue of CE Vision magazine, noted that 54% of HDTV owners have a set with a screen size of 40 inches or larger.
The report also said the majority of those owners have a flat-panel display using either LCD or plasma, the two most popular new-generation TV technologies available. About 15% have rear-projection sets and 13% bought traditional CRT televisions with high-definition tuners.
Another 15% of those surveyed said they planned to buy an HDTV in the next 12 months.
But regardless of what type of HDTV they own, respondents were overwhelmingly pleased with the product. In fact, some 85% described themselves as "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with their HDTV set.
Those are satisfaction ratings that are only in the dreams of furniture and bedding producers.
