Losing Sleep over Marketing as Service

I had a dream last night that my phone was ringing off the hook from CMO’s losing sleep over Marketing as Service. One in particular, the CMO of Sealy, told me he understood the merit of the concept but he simply couldn’t figure out how to get there. And just as I was about to explain to him how MAS could be applied to the mattress business, I woke up. Talk about nightmares! But then I remembered I had this here blog to ‘splain all I wanted.

Sleep deprivation is a national crisis. According to the National Sleep Foundation (and no, I didn’t dream this one up), less than half of us get seven hours of shut eye during the week. I suspect the reasons for this can be clustered into three key areas:

1. You have trouble falling asleep;
2. You have trouble staying asleep;
3. You simply elect not to sleep as much as you should.

Regardless of the reason, an enlightened mattress company could turn its marketing into a service by teaching exhausted Americans how to get their beauty sleep. In fact, a leader like Sealy could actually own sleep but it would take more than cute ads like their new campaign which promise “a better six.” The campaign, by the way, which was written up in both the Wall St. Journal and MediaPost, features a few lucky people who actually get more than their fair share of shut eye (trust-fund babies, heiresses, and siblings of lottery winners). For the rest of us, the ads suggest we get a better mattress like a new Sealy PurEmbrace.

What a nightmare! Sealy wisely brings up an issue that we are all losing sleep over and then they suggest that the answer is as simple as buying a new mattress. Bull hunky! Perhaps they are all on Ambien but many of us don’t get enough sleep because we simply can’t shut down our minds. We don’t know how. We need help. The opportunity for Marketing as Service is a dream come true. Here are just a few of ways mattress makers could blanket this topic:

• Sleep therapy: Run in-store seminars on how to get all the ZZZ’s you need without medication;
• Sweet dreams hotline: Customers could call this number day or night and talk to a professional sleep therapist;
• Sleep channel: Set up a cable station that is so boring it is guaranteed to put you to sleep in 15 minutes and will turn itself off.
• Sleep central: A social network that segments by sleep type (finally a place for those who only need three hours a night to hang out!)
• Pillow talk: Podcasts that read you to sleep.

Had I gotten more than my usual 6 and 1/2 hours last night, I suspect I could come up with a lot more. According to Media Post, “In its most recent quarter, Sealy’s sales fell 5% to $391.9 million, while net income dropped to $16.2 million from $24.6 million in the comparable period a year earlier.” Perhaps Sealy needs to open their eyes to Marketing as Service–I know I’ll sleep better if they do.