Serta Simmons Bedding maximizes key selling periods with digital marketing activation

After realizing many of their retail partners were not fully utilizing co-op funds, Serta Simmons Bedding saw a need to better support its retail partners in planning, buying, and executing media campaigns. Serta teamed up with Ansira to implement local marketing activation functionality that combined digital media campaign activation with co-op funds.

One of North America’s largest bedding manufacturers (the company behind the Serta®, Beautyrest®, Simmons®, and Tuft & Needle® brands), Serta Simmons Bedding realized that a significant amount of co-op funds were being left on the table by retail partners.

In a world where partners in a distributed sales ecosystem are a brand’s most important advocate, especially for manufacturers who have a strong retail network, partners need tools and intelligence to help engage and sway local customers. But the brand recognized that it needed to support its retail partners in planning, buying, and executing media campaigns — especially during key promotional selling periods.

To effectively reach and engage local customers, channel partner marketers need an easy-to-use solution for launching timely, on-brand marketing communications. Ansira was tapped to implement local marketing activation functionality with a simplified user experience that combined digital media campaign activation with co-op funds. Since Ansira was already providing Serta Simmons Bedding’s channel partner marketing platform, the integration of the campaign activation functionality, co-op program, and claims capability was seamless.

The primary objective was to increase sales at the local retailer level — which was challenging in the best of times but made more urgent given the Q2 2020 retail shutdowns caused by the novel coronavirus. The ability to activate social, search, and display and video advertising was a game-changer for retail partners during the key summer holiday promotional selling windows.

“We were extremely pleased with the performance of the campaign,” said Ursula James of Beautyrest Sleep Gallery. “As our first full month back from being temporarily closed, we weren’t sure what to expect; thankfully, it surpassed our forecast — we finished May 2020 up 40% from May 2019, and we are sure that the Ansira program contributed to that success.”