The Sleep Company: Nap-vertising Goes Local

The company recently laid out its marketing spends in the public domain. Can you elaborate on TSC's marketing budget and strategy for FY25?
On digital, we largely focus on two major platforms - Google and Meta. Being a digital-first company, understanding what is performing and what is not is crucial. Hence, 95-97 per cent of our digital spend is on these platforms. For offline spending, I would say we have a mix of media modelling. For example, we are trying TV in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, which are Telugu-speaking regions. That is one media-based modelling we are doing. We also use print media in certain geographies to try and see if the local impact can be created with a certain reach. Additionally, we are exploring localised outdoor advertising in cities like Bangalore where we have multiple stores, helping us increase brand awareness in specific micro-markets.

The festive and wedding seasons are around the corner. What will be your approach this time in terms of marketing?
Festive, I think, is real important. We typically release our main thematic communication in June, allowing time for the message to establish itself before the festive season begins. Also, we use a lot of local influencer TV celebrities to celebrate local festivals. As for Onam, we use a big face of TV in Kerala to connect with consumers and celebrate that.
Similarly for Ganpati, Ugadi and others. We use local faces which helps us connect in the regional languages rather than the larger meta piece. We use the physical people whom the audience is always seeing in those markets.

For the wedding season, we're working on a unique activation campaign that will release in November.

How are you leveraging AI in your marketing efforts and also are there any challenges that you foresee with AI entering the marketing space?
I believe disruptions are always bound to happen. We use AI both on creative and content parts to enhance our creativity. The way we look at it in our team is that AI plus people create the magic. AI helps us with 60-70 per cent of the work; we then import it and tweak the basis of the brand's requirement to do the magic. You can't expect AI to give 100 per cent of the output, but you can expect 60 to 80 per cent of the output to come from AI and then top it up with your creativity to make it really powerful. It is literally a co-creation of AI plus people. 

One major challenge is the potential loss of creativity if people rely too heavily on AI. It’s important to view AI as a co-creator rather than becoming a slave to it.

How do you tailor marketing to different generations' views on sleep and technology, while simplifying and educating consumers about your SmartGRID technology?
We focus on building awareness by connecting with different generational contexts. For instance, during periods when new homes are made or renovated, we target consumers who are likely to invest in sleep products. Our marketing messages highlight the benefits of peaceful sleep and the advanced SmartGRID technology, which resonates across age groups.

Our core benefit is peaceful sleep. While many in the industry still use outdated memory foam from the 1960s, our SmartGRID technology represents an advancement. In 2018-19, we did a lot of research and came up with this SmartGRID technology and patented it in 2019. Today, all our products have SmartGRID inside to deliver our consumers the best comfort possible.

We have just released a campaign which is tested for 30,000 sleep hours, which translates to our 10-year warranty. We give ten years of warranty and that's why we test the mattress for that level, because we have to ensure that the mattress sustains for ten years for the consumers buying from us. Our creative partners came up with the idea and imagine when I'm throwing such a big number to the consumer. It just builds trust with the consumer -- a brand which talks everything scientifically and through a technology lens. Hence, the inclination to give me just walk into my store increases. Fifty per cent of our job is done. From entering the store to going out is a journey mandated by the team.

How does TSC approach data privacy and personalisation?
We maintain our data privacy really strongly. We follow all government rules because we work very strongly with both Google and Meta. We work with the best global standards to ensure that data privacy is protected. We should ensure that as a responsible brand, it has to be really important and we take all the precautions to ensure that happens.

We also avoid hyper-personalisation. While some people might love it, some might not. We do segmentation based on human understanding and then we segment a certain cohort of people in the journey to go back to them and help them close their journeys.