My Pillow: Is It the Best Pillow in the Whole Wide World?

If you watch a modest amount of television, you've probably seen the ubiquitous "My Pillow" advertisements (see video below) too many times to count. It's accompanied by a catchy and annoying jingle as in other infomercials that's hard to get out of your head after you've heard it! 

The selling proposition of My Pillow is that other pillows are uncomfortable, rigid and fail to keep your neck and spine aligned. But, My Pillow, which bills itself as "the world's most comfortable pillow" is different! Their ads also claim My Pillow:

• keeps your neck aligned
• adjusts to your individual needs and holds that support all night long
• gives you the best night's sleep
• is the Official Pillow of the National Sleep Foundation
• provides a money back guarantee

Now, it's not like the pillow is a recent invention - they've been around for centuries and millennia! Premium, higher priced (and higher profit margin) pillows are a newer phenomenon. These go by the names of memory foam, cooling gel, ergonomic, etc. And the best of these pillows, do a better job of contouring to your head and keeping your neck aligned. So, it's hardly the case that the benefits of My Pillow are unique. 

My Pillow Review

My Pillows are pricey. The "Standard/Queen" version is $99.97 but the company offers a buy one, get one free so you can get two pillows for $99.97 (plus $19.95 shipping and handling) which is more reasonable but far from a deal. You can find quality pillows at much lower prices (there are many, for example, on Amazon.com).

Is this a case, though, of getting what you pay for? Are My Pillows worth the premium prices that they are charging? A survey of customer reviews for My Pillow suggests no. Here are the highlights:

• 33 percent of Amazon.com reviews received the lowest one-star rating (out of five stars) and another 12 percent were just two-stars.
• 193 complaints filed with the Better Business Bureau over the past three years and only 33 of those were classified as being resolved to the customer's satisfaction.
• On numerous websites with customer reviews of My Pillow, the biggest concerns cited were product quality, value and the company's exchange/refund policy.

"The Official Pillow of the National Sleep Foundation"

In their ads, My Pillow is pitched as "The Official Pillow of the National Sleep Foundation" which makes it sound like the pillow has a special endorsed status with an independent, non-profity sounding named organization. Regarding this partnership, according to a press release on the My Pillow website:

“The National Sleep Foundation has chosen to work with My Pillow Inc., because we admire their passion and dedication to helping consumers get a quality night’s sleep, and because of their broad national distribution...”

“The goal of the National Sleep Foundation’s Official Licensed Products program is to provide Americans with useful sleep health information and the best sleep products on the market...”

The National Sleep Foundation reported more than $4.7 million in revenue for the most recent tax year on its IRS Form 990 and the CEO, David Cloud, was paid more than $342,000 in total compensation. 

It's vital for consumers to understand that the National Sleep Foundation isn't actually acting as an independent evaluative service that chose My Pillow as the best pillow or best value pillow after doing an exhaustive review of many or all pillows on the market.

In fact, this appears to be a pay for play situation (with My Pillow giving money to the National Sleep Foundation in exchange for endorsement) similar to what large companies do when becoming official Olympic partners - i.e. sponsors. (Messages left for company officials have not been returned.)