The mattress buying experience is notorious for being as iconically bad as used car shopping. Seemingly a daunting chore, mattress buying hadn't evolved in decades. Casper has redefined what it means to shop for a good night's sleep by offering one perfect mattress sold directly to consumers at an honest price.
Cutting out the sleazy salesmen and unnecessarily extravagant mattress showrooms, Casper only sells its products online. Our direct-to-consumer model means our website, social media, and content are the sole representation of what it means to sleep on a Casper.
Our goal was to bring the Casper experience and brand to life online to replace the traditionally expected physical presence of a store. We wanted to communicate like a friend and not a mattress salesman to connect with consumers in a genuine way. We wanted to give potential buyers a look into how getting a Casper would transform their sleep. We wanted to create a group of loyal sleepers that felt proud to share their Casper. And through all of our efforts, we wanted to make sure everyone felt equipped with everything they needed to make an informed and and confident purchase, and most importantly, get a good night's sleep.
SLEEP OVER SALES
Everybody sleeps, but not everyone is in the market for a new mattress. We care as much about making sure everyone gets their best rest possible (no matter what mattress they're sleeping on) as much as we care about our own products.
We created an editorial site, Van Winkle's, to explore the science, culture and curiosities of sleep with an unbiased, journalistic integrity. Van Winkle's is defining sleep and wakefulness as a new editorial category — much like food, shelter, and fitness are now. It's an endless source of helpful information that we use to answer questions and address pertinent sleep concerns.
And most importantly, for the nights you spent partying instead of sleeping, we created a series of hangover GIFs to cure your dry mouth and splitting headache — making 3 hours of sleep feel like 8.
SOCIAL, AT YOUR SERVICE
Our customer experience social team is trained as extensively on the Casper products as the product design team. We can answer all questions without consulting a single other soul. We know as much about sleep as expert researchers, and can even use the internet to interpret dreams.
We answer all questions with transparency and honesty, and don't shy away from inquiries about "indoor sports" or chronic back pain.
We're up and on at all hours of the night. We know that people are most conscious of how uncomfortable their old spring mattress is when they're lying restlessly in it at 2am. We make sure we're available to answer any mattress-related questions or even just tweet someone a link to bedtime reading.
WE BUILT A PRODUCT WITH SOCIAL IN MIND
Unlike traditional brands that prompt sharing through explicit CTAs, desperate promotions, and gimmicky hashtags, we built social media sharing innately into the very start of the Casper experience. The Casper mattress was designed specifically with social sharing in mind. From the magical unboxing and instantaneous unfurling, to the Instagram-worthy packaging, customers are proud to document the moment they open their new bed on social media.
THE UNBOXING CRAZE
From Casper's iconic blue and white stripes in Kylie Jenner's new home to a mom sharing her daughter's first big kid bed, unboxing pictures and videos have taken the internet by storm. We propelled the sharing of box content by amplifying the most unique and engaging in an authentic way with each and every social post.
COMMUNITY OF CASPER SLEEPERS
Through our dedication to making internet friends and helping them get a good night's sleep, we have created an official group of followers on social media that, without prompt, have become our biggest advocates. They constantly share pictures of their bed, chime in to Twitter conversations, and post on our Facebook wall in the spirit of being motivational sleepers.
Casper's strategy of building a very vocal group of online brand evangelists and creating a social media sensation has heavily contributed to Casper's $100 million in sales to date.
Our social media strategy has been applauded by the Wall Street Journal: "Casper has a fun, tailored social-media strategy that includes posts of sleep-related articles, responding directly to customers — even gifting bottles of Champagne and a beer helmet as a Valentine's Day promotion."
Fortune commended the shareability of our packaging, stating "the important thing to know about Casper is that its packaging is the stuff of social media genius" and "they're novel enough to elicit reactions of disbelief and awe on social media.
CBS News hailed our ability to "surprise many people by turning the mundane activity of buying a mattress into a conversation on social media."
The wit and genuine, relatable voice behind our social media has been recognized by Buzzfeed and the New York Times.
Without solicitation, each day we receive a steady stream of non-incentivized organic UGC, averaging more than 100 posts daily.
Over the course of the year, we have grown our social following by 1,311%.
We've gone from 5,000 to 50,000 Twitter followers.
From 13,000 to 250,000 Facebook fans.
And from 2,000 to 32,000 Instagram followers.
