Here at Agency Creative, we often recognize and draw inspiration from admirable advertising campaigns that go against the grain. Did you know that the average person is exposed to anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000 advertising campaign messages per day? Meet Purple Mattress, a company specializing in the perfect mattress, that broke through the noise by leveraging user-generated content in an advertising campaign that challenged the category norms with an unconventional experiment.
In a cluttered and noisy digital environment, it is important to craft messaging and campaigns that authentically engage the customer. Creating customer engagement with a product or service is not easy. It requires a stellar product and strategy that make a customer want to become part of the content and contribute to the conversation. User-generated content is one of the most cost-effective ways to advertise and reach a variety of audiences in a timely manner. The level of disruptiveness within an advertising campaign is directly proportional to the amount of response and engagement. Invite the customer into the conversation. Give them a voice and something to talk about. Make yourself known to future brand advocates through authentic connections, and you’ll spark conversation straight from the source that counts most – the audience. Why not break through the clutter and engage your customers with the irresistible challenge of trying the product firsthand? That’s exactly what Purple has done seamlessly with their recent “do it yourself” advertising campaign. Now that you have the what and why, here’s the how.
Purple Mattress created the “Raw Egg Test” to position itself as a leader in the mattress category and invite its customers to validate its claim by dropping raw eggs onto its mattress from above. In the spot, viewers witness firsthand how eggs respond when they collide with various types of mattresses, as categorized by a playful and spunky narrator. As you can imagine, the too-hard and too-soft mattresses shattered the eggs upon impact. Conversely, when the egg collided with the Purple mattress, it was impervious to the impact, and a zoomed-in shot revealed the egg seamlessly forming into the mattress. An egg-cellent fit! The re-enactment effectively portrayed just how much damage a faulty mattress can do to a consumer. The Purple Mattress was designed with the body’s pressure points in mind, providing firmness to support your body while maintaining softness for ultimate comfort. See for yourself how they set up the advertising campaign with this Goldilocks example.
Many brands have clever ads, but not all of them can create a social movement. Purple encouraged viewers of the spot to purchase the mattress and conduct the egg test firsthand. Customers quickly accepted the challenge and were pleasantly surprised to discover that the bed indeed lived up to its advertisement. The idea behind the spot was outlandish enough to turn heads and receive a number of social responses, including videos of customers trying the raw test out for themselves. The benefits of user-generated content are two-fold. Not only did this social movement generate buzz around the Purple brand name and products, but it also validated the brand promise and engendered trust that ultimately establishes brand loyalty.
Purple Mattress is just one of the many brands, similar to Uber and Airbnb, that are successfully revolutionizing and reinvigorating their industries through social media, satire-based campaigns, and user-generated content. Through this advertising campaign, Purple has disrupted the usual messaging flow in the mattress category and delivered a digital alternative that lets customers test mattress quality in-store. User opinions are both valued and remembered by potential customers because they demonstrate a high level of authenticity. Purple recognized the need to spice up the mattress category and leveraged user-generated content and social media to give the audience a compelling reason to press play. This strategic, forward-thinking is exactly what revs our creative engine and fuels our desire to think outside the box.
