Serta lining up national promotions through next year

David Perry -- Furniture Today, November 14, 2011

HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. — No. 2 bedding producer Serta, riding a strong growth wave, will continue to use national advertising to drive sales, the company says.

Serta President Bob Sherman holds a pillow as he sits on an iComfort sleep set to tout an iComfort promotion this fall.

"We have a lot of momentum," said Serta President Bob Sherman. "We had a record August and a record September." It is all pointing to "a very strong year for Serta" with a significant market share gain for the producer, in Sherman's view.

And that performance comes against a backdrop of lackluster industry results. "There's not a lot of momentum out there for the industry as a whole," said Serta's Jim Nation.

The company's success with its iComfort line of gel memory foams beds is well known, and that success may be obscuring another Serta success story, according to Sherman. Sales of Serta's flagship Perfect Sleeper line, designed with input from the National Sleep Foundation and introduced earlier this year, are up 20% over Perfect Sleeper sales last year.

"We are very pleased with the success of our iComfort and Perfect Sleeper introductions," Sherman said. And he promises "another major introduction" is coming at the January Las Vegas Market.

Serta is boosting its business this year with national advertising events that will continue through the rest of this year and pick up again next year, Sherman said.

Serta touted the 120-day free trial period offer for its iComfort line (a regular feature for that line) for the recent Columbus Day holiday, an offer that resulted in "strong iComfort sales," he said. The promotion for November through the end of the year features an offer of two free pillows with every set of iComfort bedding sold.

Next year, Serta will run its first-ever double event, with national ads backing Perfect Sleeper and iComfort bedding for the President's Day sales period. In March, an iComfort event will follow.

Next year Serta will strengthen the product features in its Perfect Sleeper line, Sherman said.

At the recent High Point Market, Serta made its first encased coil offering in its Perfect Sleeper line, at price points ranging from $899 to $1,099. Sherman said Serta needs stronger offerings at those price points because consumers formerly focusing on those price points have stepped up to iComfort models.

He said the bedding industry has been "extremely fortunate" in the past few years to regain its growing ways, something that has eluded other industries. "I think we are doing just fine."

A stronger economic climate would further boost the mattress category, according to Sherman. "Until unemployment is fixed we can't fix the housing industry, which will then fix the bedding industry," he said.