PURPLE — ON PURPLE
Rebuilding a distinctive brand around an extraordinary product.
I joined Purple to lead Brand and Creative at a moment when the company needed to reconnect a famously distinctive product with an equally distinctive brand.
Purple had tremendous awareness, a genuinely differentiated technology in the GelFlex Grid®, and strong distribution across ecommerce, owned retail and wholesale. But the brand had become fragmented across those channels. Marketing had increasingly become promotion-led and conversion-focused, while the larger story of why Purple had become harder to see.
My mandate was to help change that: establish a clear brand direction, create a more disciplined creative system, and build work capable of driving demand while making Purple feel like Purple again.
That led us back to the thing no other mattress company had: the GelFlex Grid®.
We developed a new visual and verbal system around Purple's product truth, Less Pain. Better Sleep., and began exploring how better sleep could mean something bigger than simply getting through the night.
On Purple pushed that idea into culture—positioning sleep as restoration, escape and performance, and Purple as the technology that helps you get more out of the hours you're awake. The campaign asked what life could feel like when you're On Purple.
Three creative territories. One distinctive brand.
We developed three creative territories, each with a distinct voice and role in the customer journey. The BEA (Bed Enjoyment Agency) brought a voice of authority to product education, exposing the uncomfortable truths about sleeping on foam. Any Questions? dramatized the transformative experience of sleeping on Purple. And Hooked on Purp gave Purple sleepers a voice, celebrating the unexpected—and sometimes unintended—consequences of a superior mattress.
For the first time, we also developed dedicated campaign landing pages, connecting the creative to deeper product education and directing shoppers to their nearest retailer. The goal was simple: Try it to believe it.
From promotion-first to brand-led demand.
Before my arrival, Purple's campaigns were almost exclusively promotional, leading with offers but rarely giving consumers a compelling reason to choose the brand. We changed that by introducing benefit-led storytelling and rethinking the promotional calendar itself.
Rather than leading with discounts, we built campaigns in three phases: Griducation, educating consumers on Purple's differentiated technology and benefits; Promotion, introducing compelling offers once we'd established the why; and Urgency, driving action in the final days of the campaign. This approach gave brand storytelling and sales activation distinct but complementary roles.
Creative that delivered.
The new creative approach delivered measurable business results across the funnel. Top-of-funnel paid creative launched at more than twice its target ROAS, leading to repeated increases in media investment. A redesigned CRM creative system drove a 65% increase in email-driven sales, while new retail creative contributed to more than $500,000 in incremental owned-retail sales in a single month.
Together, these results demonstrated that a more disciplined, distinctive creative approach could build the brand while delivering immediate commercial impact.
