It’s no secret that Bedgear is a branding behemoth. You can see the Bedgear brand and attitude tied to everything they do, from their innovative in-store displays for retailers to the sleek merchandising of their sheets, pillows, and mattresses.
Jonah Nelson, senior director of brand strategy, is one of the masterminds behind the strong and prominent Bedgear brand. During his tenure in the industry—previously serving as senior brand director at Tempur Sealy International for nearly 10 years—he learned a thing or two about the power of branding and its relationship to a bedding retailer’s strength.
With Labor Day nearly behind us, it’s time for retailers must start thinking about how they will make the most of the rest of this year and prepare for 2027. We caught up with Nelson to talk about retail branding and why a retailer needs to be more than just a store.
“When you think about a brand and the role that it plays in the overall consumer journey, having a brand to me is about the emotional connection that you build with your customers,” Nelson said. “In our industry, historically, brands both on the retail side and on the manufacturing side have had a hard time differentiating themselves from their consumers. You walk into a mattress gallery and it’s a bunch of white or black rectangles that all look and operate similarly.”
He said it’s a difficult challenge for our industry to stand out, but having a strong brand is one way to start. Your brand is how you make people feel around you, whether that’s your end consumers, your trade partners or your supply network. “It’s the emotion that comes through that really helps people connect to what your brand’s all about and your purpose,” he added.
The role of the retailer today is evolving, according to Nelson. Since e-commerce became a significant channel in the overall consumer journey, retailers are now more directly the curator of product for consumers. Retailers need to establish that strong point of view of who their consumer is. That’s the place that you always start as a brand. Who are you talking to? Who’s your consumer? Do you have a clear point of view of the challenges and opportunities that that consumer faces? This information allows you to build a narrative and have a connection to the desired outcomes they’re seeking.
Shocking as this may be to some in the industry, the bedding category is not one that consumers browse for pure enjoyment. They’re usually coming into stores with a need. Being able to identify that need and connect on that emotional level to the outcomes that your consumers are looking for will create value beyond just that immediate transaction.”
That answers an important question: why do you invest in a brand? Nelson said it’s to create lifetime value with your consumer base.
“It’s much cheaper for a retailer to keep that same consumer and get them back into your stores than to have to go find a new consumer to sell to,” he said. “And oftentimes, the way the industry brings them in isn’t the most profitable path into our ecosystem. We need to make sure we foster that relationship and get the long term and lifetime value out of the consumer by delivering a unique experience that stands out. One that connects to their emotion, is enjoyable and what consumers expect.”
A strong brand position as a retailer or manufacturing brand offers a way to clearly articulate ideas throughout an organization. It’s a framework for how to approach everyday interactions and make choices and decisions that are going to be good for the company.
However, a question looms: how does a retailer function as both a brand as well as a store that sells other brands?
Over his years in the industry, Nelson says he has seen a change in how retailers utilize and leverage brands to drive their own business that mirrors consumer expectations and behaviors.
“We’ve had a transformation to where there’s no longer the barriers between consumers and brands out in the marketplace,” he explains. “There’s always direct access for the consumer if they want that, and a lot of the digital channels help facilitate that direct relationship between brands and consumers, which is great. All of the research that I’ve been exposed to still says that the consumer hasn’t made up their mind until they come in and talk to an expert on the floor, so there’s a nice synergy between driving awareness and setting the table for what consumers are going to be thinking about and trying to solve from that desired outcome perspective when they walk in your door.”
Nelson offers three pieces of advice for retailers who are serious about working on their brand in the last quarter of 2026 and on.
- Make sure you don’t confuse branding with your marketing strategy,” he said. “A brand is something that can facilitate and drive some marketing efforts, but marketing is intended to build awareness and drive traffic and those types of things. Brand is who you are, and you want to tell that story in your marketing, but don’t confuse the two. They should always be separated.
- Think about how you start with defining your consumer and understanding their needs,” he explained. Having a clear point of view of how you can uniquely deliver those needs to your consumers or for your consumers. Be a great storyteller, and don’t just focus on the sell.
- Focus on authenticity. Consumers today are exposed to so many marketing messages and pieces of content—and the amount of Artificial Intelligence (AI) out there is going to accelerate all of that. We’re going to be exposed to more and more, so what that builds up as consumer skill and behavior is the ability to filter through and decide what we believe is authentic and real and what we think is fake or not. We do that in a split second now as consumers. Ensure you don’t lose sight of like what consumers are going to actually connect to, what the real conversation is that they care about.
