Serta (company)
Encyclopedia
Hoffman Estates, Illinois
Hoffman Estates is a northwestern suburb of Chicago in Illinois. The village is located primarily in Cook County with a small section in Kane County, Illinois. As of the 2000 census, the village population was 49,495 and estimated to be 52,520 in 2003...
that specializes in making mattress
Mattress
A mattress is a manufactured product to sleep or lie on, consisting of resilient materials and covered with an outer fabric or ticking. In the developed world it is typically part of a bed set and is placed upon a foundation....
es. It was founded in 1931 by 13 mattress manufacturers who licensed the Serta name, and now eight independent licensees
Franchising
Franchising is the practice of using another firm's successful business model. The word 'franchise' is of anglo-French derivation - from franc- meaning free, and is used both as a noun and as a verb....
acting like a cooperative
Cooperative
A cooperative is a business organization owned and operated by a group of individuals for their mutual benefit...
own the company. Its largest licensee, National Bedding Company, (which owns 20 of 27 Serta factories) has managed the company as Serta International since 2004.
Serta is the second largest mattress brand in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, after Sealy Corporation
Sealy Corporation
Sealy Corporation is an American owned major manufacturer of mattresses, based in Trinity, North Carolina, in the United States. The company draws its name from the city where it started, Sealy, Texas.- History :...
, and offers two major types of mattresses - latex and inner-spring. Serta products are used extensively in the lodging industry, with Hilton Worldwide and Wyndham Worldwide
Wyndham Worldwide
Wyndham Worldwide is the holding company for Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, Group RCI and other lodging brands. It was spun off from Cendant Corporation in July 2006....
among its customers. Serta mattresses are also offered on cable home shopping channel ShopNBC
ShopNBC
ShopNBC is an American broadcast and cable home shopping network, owned and operated by ValueVision Media, which is in turn 30% owned by GE Equity and NBC Universal...
.
The company is famous for its "Counting Sheep
Counting sheep
Counting sheep is a mental exercise used in some cultures as a means of lulling oneself to sleep.In most depictions of the activity, the practitioner envisions an endless series of identical white sheep jumping over a fence, while counting them as they do so...
" advertising campaign which were animated by Aardman Animations
Aardman Animations
Aardman Animations, Ltd., also known as Aardman Studios, or simply as Aardman, is a British animation studio based in Bristol, United Kingdom. The studio is known for films made using stop-motion clay animation techniques, particularly those featuring Plasticine characters Wallace and Gromit...
.