According to King Koil CEO David Binke health and wellness is not a trend —it’s a lifestyle. Binke shares the company’s new Wellness campaign comprising three collections: Re-Spun, PureBliss and Natural. He also describes the evolution of the Xtended Life line and talks tech, as in the Smart Life smart mattresses.
Transcript
Waynette Goodson
It’s Waynette Goodson. I’m your managing editor of BedTimes Magazine. And welcome to this edition of “Take 5” with David Binke of King Koil. Talk about your new wellness campaign because wellness and a healthy lifestyle and sleep that’s what everybody’s talking about.
David Binke
Well, my belief is wellness isn’t a trend. It’s just the way of life, not just in the mattress world or about sleep. It’s about everything how you eat, how you exercise, your daily routine, everything. And I believe we have to get in front of it. So the last three markets, we developed three different product lines that had elements of it.
And then we’re thinking to ourselves, why don’t we capture it under one big banner hence Wellness+.
Waynette Goodson
Wellness. One umbrella. Wellness.
David Binke
There’s componentry in all three of them that serve you. They’re natural and sustainable. We use a lot of natural latex, and the key to this is making sure we make beds that aren’t just sustainable and don’t look and feel good as you go through our collections. They all look great. They feel great too. Great value price points.
So we’re very proud of what we do. We are introducing this new retail concept where we have about six or seven different types of screens we could put in, talk to you about wellness. We work very closely with our marketing agency to make sure what we’re saying is factual and true. It’s not just a bunch of marketing-type spin.
Waynette Goodson
Because it is true, and the three lines you’re combining now keep me straight. You’ve got your Re-Spun denim.
David Binke
Re-Spun, which is our sustainability natural collection. And then Pure Bliss by King Koil, which is our latex category.
Waynette Goodson
Talk about extended life and just what that means with the durability story.
David Binke
Extended life has been part of King Koil for probably 12 or 15 years. That’s really the only product category I brought forward when I came in about five years ago, and kind of redid the whole company. It’s made to last for 25 years. It goes against the grain of, you know, planned obsolescence. This is our second update now.
It’s very fashionable as well as being able to handle the 25-year warranty. And how we got to that was we did – you familiar with the rollator test? Every mattress goes through 100,000 cycles. We put this through 250,000 cycles and only came up with a half-inch of a body impression, which is nothing. And since we’ve been manufacturing Arizona, I think one bed that has come back and was damaged on delivery, it’s like it’s there forever.
Waynette Goodson
Wonderful track record so far. So talk a little bit about Smartlife.
David Binke
Well, Smartlife is now. We’ve been doing it for about three and a half years and have learned so much about technology. I say to our retail partners mixing mattresses and technology isn’t as smooth as peanut butter and jelly. We’ve learned a lot about it. You know how Smartlife is in over 600 doors across the United States; we believe our product is far superior to Sleep Number and our retail partners.
And it’s over 20% of our business every month. It retails at $6,000, $7,000 and $8,000, depending on the model and if it comes with the adjustable base and everything. And it’s different. It’s not as easy to sell as a conventional mattress. We’ve really focused on the training on it and retraining and training. You’ve got to always keep in front of the retail associates because technology is different than just lying on a nice comfortable bed.
Waynette Goodson
Right? And technology changes every day, as is the mattress industry every day we are innovating. So congratulations, David Binke.
David Binke
Thank you.
Waynette Goodson
You are on the cutting edge of the mattress industry. Thank you.
David Binke
We have a great team that pulls it all together.
Waynette Goodson
Yes, absolutely. Well, thank you and thank all of you for tuning in to this edition of “Take 5.” As always, get a great night’s sleep.
