Simmons to feature Pocketed Coils in new ads

Sales associates go on camera to extol product's virtues

David Perry -- Furniture Today, December 10, 2010

Mattress salesman George Vivanco is in the spotlight during a video shoot for a Simmons ad to promote the bedding major’s Pocketed Coils.

ATLANTA — Retail sales associates George Vivanco, Carlos Martin and Mike Lankes have each sold more than one million Simmons Pocketed Coil springs in their sleep shops. And now they are talking about the virtues of those coils in a new advertising campaign mounted by Simmons.

Vivanco, Martin and Lankes recently spent a day behind high-powered video and still cameras at a Midtown photo studio here, sharing their thoughts on selling Simmons sleep sets supported with Pocketed Coils, the trademark name for the encased coils that have been the hallmark of Simmons bedding since the Beautyrest brand was introduced in 1925.

Seeking to secure its heritage in the encased coil arena, one in which Simmons expects to get some new competition from another major next year, the company is emphasizing its deep roots with its Pocketed Coil springs, which it says provide superior conformability and reduced motion transfer compared with other coil systems.

The three retail sales associates who gathered here the other day made some of those very points in their interviews with a video crew, shooting them in a darkened studio perched on a hillside setting several miles from downtown Atlanta.

Vivanco, a 16-year veteran of Sit ‘n Sleep in Montebello, Calif., has sold almost 10 million Simmons Pocketed Coils and is a fan of the construction. He tells consumers there is "no motion transfer" with the Pocketed Coils. "The benefit is that you don't wake up your partner," he tells his consumers.

Vivanco, who described the Simmons line as "just real easy to sell," said he encourages consumers to press down on the Pocketed Coils in a demonstration unit. "That gets them involved" in the selling process, he said.

In his video interview, Carlos Martin, a home furnishings veteran who has been with Back to Bed, an Itasca, Ill.-based sleep shop, for seven years, told the story of a particularly meaningful bedding sale. An older woman came into his store and said she wanted a bed that would make her dying husband comfortable. Martin said he knew a Simmons Beautyrest sleep set, with Pocketed Coils, would be a good choice. And it was.

"She came back after her husband died and said, ‘He loved that mattress,'" Martin said. "I felt that what I did makes a difference. I feel that what I do is important. I want to sell them the right bed."

Martin has sold more than 22 million Pocketed Coils in his bedding career.

Also in the spotlight was Mike Lankes, who has sold more than 12 million Pocketed Coils in his 10 years at Mattress Warehouse of Frederick, Md. He likes to use a demonstration unit, noting that when consumers push down on one coil, the others don't move. That is in contrast to the systems in which the coils are "all wired together" and don't move independently, Lankes said. Those systems can cause shoulder and hip discomfort, he said.

Lankes said that while other bedding producers introduce encased coil designs that come and go, Simmons has been consistent in its commitment to its Pocketed Coil spring system. "It has been there," he said.

Why are the Simmons Pocketed Coils better? Lankes was asked during his video interview.

"They have gotten the bugs out," he responded. "They have perfected the design and concept of Pocketed Coils. Everyone else is using them because they are losing market share to Simmons."