Then again, since I was the slow kid for awhile there, I figure what the hell.  Let’s look at some local crap, shall we?!?!

That's either a cheap mattress or an expensive homosexual

I swear I must have channeled my dad when I wrote that caption and yet, there is stays.

Anyway, Leeds is a local mattress store chain out here in California and probably one the closest things that jackass over at Sit N Sleep has to a competitor.  Unlike Sit N Sleep, who you can’t go more than one break or two on the radio without hearing one of his annoying ads, Leeds likes to stick to outdoor and local cable as its communication methods of choice.

That little elf looking thing in the ad is a cartoon of the store’s founder, Neil.  You can see him better here in one of his classic local cable spots:

Neil always uses the tagline, “I won’t be beat!” in all of his ads, but from looking at the guy he probably took quite the pounding all the way through high school.  Is there a line in the local advertising guide that says, “make sure to include the founder in the ads, no matter how weird the dude looks?”  Both of the guys in the California Mattress Wars right now are unfit for public consumption, yet here they are in full, rich color.

How about those lead-in statistics?  “9 out of 10 people need a new mattress?” What? Constantly?  I mean, between you and Larry at Sit N Sleep, you guys must push a lot of foam rubber to pay for all the media spots you buy. I’m pretty sure that because of all the hard work you two have done convincing people that they need a new mattress all the damn time, that statistic has probably dropped a little over the years.  And who collected that data? The Mattress Institute?

Neil has been running ads on cable for some time now and here’s the thing I love about them the most. At one point, they shot some footage of him at the store, showing off mattresses, giving his standard spiel about free delivery, free frame, etc.  I’m pretty sure this took place sometime during the 80s.  Now, what they do is just have him come in and read some new voice over copy to change up the offers and re-edit that footage over and over so they don’t have to get the cameras out again.  So, what you get are these bizarre, mid-sentence cuts away from Neil while he’s talking about the mattresses because the sound wouldn’t sync up if they left him on screen.

This is local, cheap-ass advertising at it’s best, my friends.

J.

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