Earlier this week, we reviewed important metrics as it relates to the brand funnel for DTC mattress companies. Today, we’re going to look at how monitoring the brand funnel can support brand performance in an increasingly competitive environment.
When it comes to DTC mattress brands, Casper and Purple have the highest national brand awareness - 35 percent each. Leesa and Tuft & Needle fall behind with 18 percent and 11 percent awareness among consumers, respectively.
In today’s market, these numbers make sense. Casper has secured hundreds of millions in funding to support product innovation, brick & mortar retail locations, and large marketing campaigns. They reported annual revenue of $400M in 2018. While Purple’s sales are slightly behind Casper's, their net revenue managed to increase over 45% to $285M in the same year.
However, fast forward 12 months, and things could look very different. In our study of 500 US mattress consumers, heritage brand Serta had both the highest unaided (43 percent) and aided (78 percent) national brand awareness. This matters because in late 2018, Serta merged with Tuft & Needle in a bid to keep up with the bed-in-a-box craze.
As a result, Casper, Purple, and all other mattress companies are now competing with not just Tuft & Needle but their access to the Serta powerhouse. Serta brought in an astonishing $3B in 2018 and with the merger, provides Tuft & Needle with decades of built-in consumer preference and trust.
How Tuft & Needle will use their access to additional resources is unknown but their potential should be enough to trigger fear among both DTC and legacy mattress brands.
As mergers and acquisitions become even more prevalent throughout the DTC space, brands can use their funnel (awareness, relevance, consideration, credibility, and preference) as a metric to track performance. Tracking your brand funnel provides real-time insights to react to any changes in the competitive environment before they result in a loss of preference or market share.
