Serta’s Arctic Cooling. Tempur-Pedic’s Tempur LuxeBreeze. Casper’s Sleep Wave. Eight Sleep’s Pod Pro.
The list of mattresses out there that promise a cooler night’s sleep goes on—almost to the point that it seems like there’s a cold war among companies offering cooling mattresses.
If that sounds ridiculous, it’s because it is. Is that really what consumers want?
According to Mike Magnuson of Goodbed.com, from what he’s seen and heard, people are interested in these cooling beds only because of the heavy marketing companies put into them.
But as mattress expert Barrie Brown says in a LinkedIn post about Serta’s Arctic Cooling ad, “The only product feature is that you will sleep 15x cooler. Who wants to freeze their tushy [off] all night? Do I really want to sleep that cold? Why? [It] negates the notion of comfort and cuddling with images of cold air and freezing. Plus a bunch of tech-sounding words that are not comforting.”
Magnuson also says that what people really want is to not sleep hot, which as we know from industry veteran vice president of retail engagement at Resident Bob Muenkel, is all about a person’s microclimate.
“When we sleep, we create a microclimate with sleep clothing and covers,” Muenkel says “Have you varied these to mitigate the feeling of sleeping hot? The human body actually sleeps two degrees cooler than when we are awake. Most often, the microclimate we create with sleep clothing and bed covers are trapping too much heat, creating that situation.”
Further, Brown says all of this marketing about cooling technology misses the real goal of advertising.
“The reason the Serta ad is so bad is that there is no place to buy the mattress,” Brown says. “No website, no retailer. No price. No promotion. No nothing. If you see the ad but don’t know where or how to buy it, is it really an ad?”
As the cold war continues, consumers are likely to be fooled by the advertising, but eventually, this fad will fizzle (or freeze) out.
Any guesses on what the next mattress trend might be? Let us know in the comments below.
