“The product was something that we invented,” Krim explains. The Casper team developed the technology in house, and was the first brand to combine latex and memory foam. The result is a bed that, according to most customers, is uniquely comfortable and supported.
The product is complemented by an end-to-end experience: customers order online, receive a speedy delivery, and get 100 days to sleep on the mattress — during which time it can be returned for a full refund. It’s unlike anything that’s ever been offered in the mattress category. “Buying a mattress is such an important process for people, and yet the mechanism of acquiring it, having to step in a mattress store has been so painful for so long,” says Krim. His team looked to avoid that, went direct to consumers, and offered something that was completely different.
Casper solved an acute pain point for consumers, which Krim believes was a huge part of why the brand grew as quickly it did.
“If it was a marginal improvement from what was out there then I don’t think we would be where we are,” Krim professes. Even with a great brand, if a company can’t offer something definitively better to customers, then its growth will be a much more gradual process.
Getting people to try something new is incredibly difficult, so you really have to offer a large incentive. Casper’s model was a complete change compared to what mattress buyers were used to; its straightforward process is a large part of how the company caught on with so many people from the moment it launched.
Because people truly loved the experience as well as the product, they started telling their friends and family about it. Krim believes that word of mouth has been the key to Casper’s growth, as people have talked about Casper and posted on social media, sharing their positive experiences with the brand. Two years after launch, word of mouth is an incredible ingredient for Casper’s continued growth.
Casper’s branding and advertising strategy was designed to support the idea that it’s a different kind of mattress company. “We didn’t spend a lot of time studying how other companies were involved in their branding, or the looks of other brands and try to figure out where we fit in to this puzzle,” Krim admits. “We really just said, ‘What’s the brand we want to build?'”
Krim and his co-founders wanted to represent that while they take their work seriously, “we don’t take ourselves too seriously. That’s why we have more fun with the creative [elements] and ended up with the subway campaign.” Casper took a product that is a normally very straightforward and unexciting and presented it in a way that no one in their category had expressed visually before.