With new features and more affordable products, the bed-in-a-box industry cut a pretty wide slice in the well-settled brick and mortar mattress industry. These companies took advantage of the tools and perks online stores could offer and re-shaped the way we buy beds.
With new features and more affordable products, the bed-in-a-box industry cut a pretty wide slice in the well-settled brick and mortar mattress industry. These companies took advantage of the tools and perks online stores could offer and re-shaped the way we buy beds.
But, they also proved a lot more sensitive when it comes to advertising. And here, I call to your attention the notorious case of Casper vs. a mattress review blogger. In this case, Casper accused an online mattress review site of undermining their products by recommending the products of their competitors (with which they had a business relationship) over theirs.
Fast forward to 2017, and we have a new case of false advertising, this time opened by Purple against Ghostbed. Ghostbed was accused of using the Honest Mattress Reviews website, owned by Ryan Monahan, to cast a negative shadow onto Purple’s products.
The Details Behind the Case
According to Purple, the site mentioned above published an article in which they accused the producer of using an anti-tack powder that was unsafe. The article made several defamatory statements about Purple’s products without having any real grounds. In reply, Purple filed a complaint and asked for the material to be removed while the case was being considered. They also accused Ghostbed of being the ones who paid Ryan Monahan to write the article and bring down their competitor’s designs.
At first, the defendant opposed the restraining order that forced the site to remove the article, saying that there were no connections between Ghostbed and the owner, Ryan Monahan. According to the defense, the Purple bed review had nothing special in comparison to other reviews they had done, and it expressed their honest opinion.
So, to summarize, Purple didn’t file the complaint just because the Honest Mattress Reviews site had written a negative article about their products. They also sued because they had a strong suspicion that the article was not as honest as Ryan Monahan claimed. They suspected that Ghostbed, a rival company in the same niche, was trying to shake down Purple’s good online reputation.
The Solution
Purple was so adamant about this secret connection that they started a private investigation, looking for connections between Ghostbed and the site. And, they actually found such a connection from one of Ghostbed’s former directors of marketing.
This discovery took the case to a different level and, in the request addressed to the court, Purple asked for sanctions and punishments for the defendants’ alleged lies.
The case is of great importance because Purple’s sales are highly dependent on their e-commerce platform and articles like the one published by Honest Mattress Review can be extremely damaging. The published material is indeed very negative towards the plaintiff’s product and goes as far as to compare the white powder in question to finely ground plastic bottles that the users would inhale every night. Furthermore, they also published a review of Ghostbed which was highly positive, creating a contrasting effect between the two.
Finally, HMR (the site) clearly stated that they don’t receive any financial gain from mattress producers for posting these reviews. Both the CEO of Ghostbed and Ryan Monahan declared that they do not and did not have a business relationship. The only link they admitted to was a distant connection between the HMR site and an online marketing agency that also worked with Ghostbed. Otherwise, the defense counselor sustained that the link Purple insisted on was nothing more than a convoluted, unreliable allegation.
Still, as I mentioned above, the connection proved to be true when Purple submitted new evidence in June 2017. They obtained a written declaration from Ghostbed’s former director of marketing that exposed Ryan Monahan as being the influence in the shadow when it came to marketing decisions taken by the company. Furthermore, Monahan actually had more power than the titular director of marketing and was deeply involved in Ghostbed’s brand decisions.
The court was able to find that both Monahan and the Ghostbed CEO lied in sworn statements and a financial connection was established through a marketing agency owned by Monahan. Ghostbed would pay Monahan through this company, and this discovery revoked Monahan’s position (and rights) as an independent journalist.
Overall, such defamatory campaigns do happen in all walks of life, and it’s not new for someone to get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. But, the thing that amazes me the most is how the defendants were so eager to lie to the court.
In the end, Ghostbed and the HMR website only managed to discredit themselves, showing the world how low they were capable of stooping just to get a bigger slice of the market.
Join the conversation!