• by Sarah Mahoney , July 1, 2008

Times are tough at America's leading mattress marketer, so Sealy is tossing aside the usual industry conversation about coils and stuffing to get right to the heart of the matter: Since you're only getting about six hours of shut-eye a night, shouldn't it be high-quality?

Themed "A better six," the new ads are from Cramer-Krasselt, Chicago, and spoof the lucky few who do get plenty of ZZZs--trust-fund babies, heiresses, and siblings of lottery winners, for instance. Ads ask: "Now for the rest of us. In the real world, we don't even get eight hours of sleep. We're lucky to get six. So why not a better six--so we can make the most out of the sleep we do get?"

National TV ads just launched for the Sealy products, including its brand-new PurEmbrace line, sold exclusively at Macy's. The marketing campaign--reportedly $25 million--also includes print, out-of-home and online banners.

"Ads in this category are always about tossing and turning and lumps and back problems," says Marshall Ross, the ad agency's chief creative officer. "We just thought it was important to change the conversation, so we went with some data that we knew all people know in their guts--Americans don't get enough sleep. Nobody gets eight hours--if we're lucky, we get six. And that's not because of our mattresses, it's because of our lives."

Recent times have been anything but cushy for Sealy, the world's largest bedding manufacturer. Bedding sales--as is true with most furniture--are closely linked to the housing market, which has been languishing. And according to the Better Sleep Council, the average American buys a new mattress only every 10.3 years; a tough economy isn't likely to inspire sleepy splurges.

Part of the issue is that Americans may be sleeping less, but they're doing it on pricier specialty mattresses. Industrywide, Americans spent $6.87 billion on mattresses and foundations in 2007--up just 1.4 % from the prior year, reports the International Sleep Products Association. But those statistics are a little misleading: Sales of conventional innerspring mattresses actually declined 0.2%, while sales of non-innerspring products, including the higher-end specialty varieties, jumped 10.2%. In 2007, mattresses costing more than $2,000 accounted for 7.3% of the market, compared to 2.2% back in 2003.

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. In the U.S, volume sales fell 10.5%, on top of a 1.4% decrease in the average selling price. Branded domestic specialty bedding product sales increased 17% in the first quarter, compared to the comparable period in the prior year.

The company, which appointed a new CEO earlier this year, is expected to post quarterly results next week.