Duroflex Mattresses’ marketing-with-a-heart is sound strategy during COVID-19

At a time, when most of us are confined at home, our beds have become a haven now more than ever. Keeping this in mind, Duroflex has released a film, titled #StayIn, with the social message urging people to #StayIn and #StayHome because currently, our bed is the safest and most comforting space we have.

The film narrates the intimate relationship we have with our beds and how that has become even more important in the current scenario. With this social message, Duroflex also aims to spark conversations with the audience, create positive communication and encourage people to look at staying in as a joyful experience. For the same, the brand is asking people to share their joyful moments of staying in.

The brand also wants to encourage people to get their 7-8 hours of sleep to help build immunity, the need of the hour. They have further activated the #StayIn#StayHome message through renowned influencers who go live from the brand’s handle, indulging in various activities from the comfort of their home. These activities include Working Out with celebrity trainer Yasmin Karachi Wala, Running Drills with Ayesha Bilimoria, Bed Yoga for Better Sleep with Vandana Gupta and many more to enrich the #StayIn #StayHome experience.

Along with these, Duroflex has also partnered with Bangalore-based technology start-up Dozee to supply a medical-grade contact-free health-monitor that tracks heartbeat, respiration, sleep and stress recovery, which is claimed to be 98.4 per cent accurate. 

In conversation with Adgully, Smita Murarka, Vice President - Marketing, Duroflex Mattresses, speaks at length about her company’s marketing strategy during the tough COVID-19 times, the strong CSR vision behind all initiatives and navigating the post-COVID-19 world. 

To understand more and know about the brand Duroflex and what are they planning during Covid-19 and what is their long-term plan post Covid-19, ADGULLY had the opportunity to have tete-e-tete with Smita Murarka, Vice- President Marketing, Duroflex Mattresses. 

How is Duroflex Mattresses joining the fight against COVID-19?

Our approach and strategic thinking on this exercise has been authentic and completely narrative and is clearly focused towards the purpose identified by us. Durloflex as a brand offers sleep solution. To further elaborate on our major role towards COVID-19, we partnered with Dozee, a start-up from Bangalore, where we had an indirect engagement with them and our thoughts and value systems were matching with them towards our end objective. Dozee’s monitoring devices were used to reach out to people who were quarantined at home where the device helped in giving early signals and assisted them to take the right action and not rush to hospitals, etc. 

What are your long-term plans amid the COVID-19 crisis?

Our intent is to currently support and help Dozee in terms of funding and help them reach out to homes where patients are quarantined. We have partnered them for a good cause as of now, but in the long run we could strategically tie up with them, but nothing is confirmed on that front. Our immediate objective is to help each other from a CSR point of view by reaching out to doctors and hospital.

Our communication is clearly to demonstrate about how sleep provides health and fitness, which is seen as a key pillar, while it is missed out by many. Even in our conversations when COVID-19 started and immunity was an important factor, we started our conversation on #SleepForImmunity and created a TV campaign to build awareness on sleep. While people do not forget to focus on food and workouts; sleep, which is one of the key pillars to good health, is never on the top of one’s health regime. 

How you plan to take CSR forward as a long-term activity?

The group strongly believes in CSR activities and campaigns related to CSR. We have been doing CSR consistently, especially where our factories are located. In the past, when there were floods in Chennai and Kerala, we had extended our support. Besides that, we are supporting primary schools with academic tutorials, materials and utilities. We have also given away beds to orphanage, provided employment opportunities in small villages from where we hail. Ambulances have been donated to hospitals. Thus, we continuously keep ourselves active by contributing substantially on the CSR front. 

What is your communication strategy during the current situation?

Our core proposition is sleep solutions. So, what we are doing is a preventive measure to drive home the immunity aspect, which is the most important factor. Immediately after Prime Minister Modi announced the lockdown, we reached out to all channels and spoke about the importance of sleep, which was led by our MD, Mathew Chandy, who is a sleep evangelist, and shared detailed information on how sleep immunity functions and what are the various ways to benefit from it. To complement this, we have started our TV campaign, where we are encouraging people to stay home and stay in bed.

We have also tied up with influencers like fitness trainer Yasmin Karachiwala to handle our fitness programme. So, we have a two-fold approach here, where we want to communicate to people on the importance of sleep as a precautionary measure and encourage people to stay home and enjoy during these times. 

How are you strategising for a post-COVID-19 world?

Yes, there is going to be a new world and actually it has already happened. Consumption of content online has now slowly shifted to older age groups and so digital is going to be a major part of our communication strategy. We will be also strengthening our product range, especially in Duropedic, as the product addresses serious health benefits. With technology and innovation, we will drive our message as experts in sleep solutions and to further push our marketing, we will own the thought leadership position to advice and guide our customers. Our sleep evangelist Mathew Chandy (Managing Director), who has immense experience, will share his knowledge on the subject of sleep, which is part of our DNA.