Digitally-native comfort technology company, The Sleep Company was launched in 2019 with the intention to redefine sleep culture through scientific innovation and disrupted the industry with its SmartGRID patented technology. The company started with mattress and has now expanded its portfolio to include recliner bed, chair, recliner sofa, pillow & cushion, bedding and desk.
Taking its innovative spirit further, The Sleep Company has now launched a SmartGrid sleep analyser pillow. The brand’s mission is to democratise and quantify sleep, as opposed to the present focus on qualitative sleep. Taking up the challenge to quantify sleep, the company noted that though there were variable products available today, the products were intrusive in nature such as wearing a watch or a ring while sleeping. Explaining about the new product, Ripal Chopda, Chief Marketing Officer, The Sleep Company says, “We have developed a non-intrusive product, inbuilt into a pillow that helps track sleep. If you have an existing pillow and don’t want to change it, you can buy the sleep analyzer belt which can be put beneath your pillow or mattress. It will help you track your sleep and also health parameters such as breathing rate, heart rate etc.”
Reports show that India is the second most sleep deprived in the world after Japan. A recent survey conducted found that 61% of citizens reported fewer than six hours of uninterrupted night sleep in the past year. These startling data-points helped The Sleep Company define its “core brand proposition.” Chopda explains, “We stand for peaceful sleep. About two-and-a-half years back when we started our journey, we debated on what would be our core brand proposition.
A consumer told us one very simple thing – ‘peaceful sleep, as a brand if you're able to help me get peaceful sleep, I'll take care of everything else in my life.’ That's what we stand for today, peaceful sleep and our objective is to always help and partner with our consumer to achieve that.” After discount, the pillow and the sleep analyzer belt is priced at ?8,000, and if a consumer only purchases the sleep analyzer belt, this is priced at around ?7,000. Positioned as a mass premium product, Chopda says that the effort is to democratize the product. He says, “Our objective is to democratize as much as possible and build better technology. Our product is 95% more efficient versus a sleep monitor. It is better than every variable available in the market and we have tested it against all parameters to ensure we give a product high on efficacy and efficiency.”
A Tactical Approach For Brand Tie-ups
In 2021, The Sleep Company roped in actor Anil Kapoor as its first ever brand ambassador and has since leveraged Kapoor in multiple campaigns. In November this year, The Sleep Company collaborated with Sima Taparia, the celebrity matchmaker from Netflix reality series Indian Matchmaking – for the “Peaceful Sleep Mubarakh Ho!” digital campaign targeting the wedding season. Chopda says, “Anil Kapoor has been part of our journey for four years and his personality has helped the brand.” He continues, “In India, the wedding season starts post Diwali till mid-summer. A wedding is a time when people upgrade their bedrooms. In some States, there is a tradition of gifting furniture and mattresses during weddings. That's where we tied with Sima Taparia for a tactical campaign, as she is now the biggest face globally for weddings in India. While Kapoor is our main brand endorser, Taparia was taken for a tactical idea during the wedding season.”
Expanding Distribution Reach
Starting with even ingraining the customer’s name on the mattress, The Sleep Company looks at personalization during the entire consumer journey process. Aside from the product, great emphasis is on the product availability from a go-to-market perspective. The goal of the company – to have The Sleep Company within 15 to 20 minutes of a consumer. In Bangalore, where The Sleep Company has 22 stores, the company ran a campaign with influencers where an influencer located The Sleep Company’s nearest store using Google Map. Chopda states, “We are trying to ensure that consumers don't need to make an effort to travel to find the solution for peaceful sleep. We are going to come as near as possible to you.
One thing that sets The Sleep Company apart from its peers is its sheer media presence across channels. Chopda says that the category was a “dead category from a perspective of marketing: as all the legacy players were retail first brands and not a marketing first brand. What helped, was Priyanka Salot, the co-founder of The Sleep Company, who came from a marketing background. He states, “We come from a consumer-first brand approach. We believe we have to build consumer love, and then the consumer will start partnering with us, and buying our product. Today, our A2S (advertising to sales) ratio - a simple metrics which the industry follows across different categories - is one of the highest and literally double of the best second best in the industry.” He continues, “Education is needed for people who haven’t adopted new technology that can help improve sleep. This journey is where we are spending ahead of the curve and the market to build a strong and fundamental brand. We are five-years old and are in the top three brands in terms of awareness. This is a big achievement and our objective in the next two to three years is to be the top brand in terms of awareness metrics.” The Sleep Company’s marketing investment is in the tune of ?80 crores to ?100 crores for the current financial year with the spends likely to go up as the company is increasing its categories and footprint.
The company’s follows a ROPO (Research online Purchase offline) strategy which has worked “brilliantly” and the comfort-tech brand has invested in a repository of online content to capture the consumer who is researching online. Chopda says, “A big chunk of our consumers purchase offline. Marketplaces & e-commerce form a large chunk of our business because there are certain consumers present, where we do not have a reach and our stores are not available. Offline contributes around 70% of our business, while online contributes 30%. Mattress is our bread and butter, the core category for us and it is more than everything else combined.”
Looking ahead, the company is again looking at bringing in its biggest disruption in the Indian comfort industry with a path-breaking product. He says, “As a company, disruption is in our DNA. Soon, you’ll see two new path-breaking product launches which has not yet been seen globally. We believe that time has come where the top-end of India is ready to adopt new technologies and be ahead of the curve.” He continues, “Looking at FY25, we are going to end as per our annual operating plan. We entered two new categories during the year - recliner sofa, adjustable desk - both have done well for us. We started the year with around 80 offline stores, today we have 126 offline stores, and we will end FY25 with around 145-150 offline stores. We have increased our city span. We are building a new sleep technology and the use of AI in the journey and also a new category. We are excited this will help us unlock the new growth avenue for the organization going ahead.
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