04 January 2012

[pdx_liff] Mattress World Closing ; Officially Too Late To Sleep Like A Baby

2741.And now, following Tom Peterson into the pages of Portland advertising history, Mattress World, they of the awkward logo and the too-catchy jingle.

A few twittering birds told us that the Mattress World website had been replaced with a large letter of apology, and here's an excerpt:

What has happened?
I believe in being responsible for my choices. Simply stated, during good economic times, Mattress World grew very quickly, and expanded to service more of the community. However, we did not prepare the business for any potential downturn, and when the recession hit, it negatively impacted our business, like many businesses in this community and across the country. Mattress World made continuous adjustments the past two years, and when it appeared the company would survive the economic crisis, we were hit with, what we consider, an excessive and unfair tax assessment by the State of Washington - this even as an Oregon company, with no retail stores in the State of Washington. We have and continue to fight this. But, this new element created an unrecoverable financial blow, which has been reflected in our customer service and has done great harm to the reputation Mattress World worked so hard to build. I would like everyone to understand that no one at Mattress World is responsible but me, Sherri Hiner. The staff and family members were not given enough information to take care of you in the manner of which we pride ourselves. I have been liquidating everything to make sure all our customers will be taken care of. My deepest apologies for how long this has taken. It is my full intent to make sure each and every customer has been taken care of the best way possible. I ask for your patience while we use the promotional company to take care of all current customers and help us to take care of the past customers.
Since this last decade, the Mattress World commercials, with the stick-in-your-head jingle, have wormed their way into the head of every Portlander or Vancouverite who had the luck to have the idiot box on late at night, becoming the latter-day Tom Peterson's "WAKE UP!!!" commercial.

They weathered the recession ... just, to hear the tale ... only to be cut off at the knees by Washington sales tax law, even though they physically made no direct deliveries in Washington nor do they have a single location there. Sherri Hiner, the face of Mattress World, explains it all in this article at KGW. There's no video but the report on the news was something of a tearjerker.

Goodby, Sherri. We'll miss you, seriously we will.

There will still be two MW stores - the ones in downtown Canby and at MLK and NE Couch here in Portland ... but they're franchises. Mattress World in memory only, really.

And, here's a MW commerical for the road:



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