As part of this opportunity, I was given the chance to speak directly to Jeff Brown, the CEO of Big Fig. Jeff was tremendously generous with his time, and we spoke for about 90 minutes. His passion for the brand really struck a chord with me. I also deeply admired that he immediately talked about his own thin privilege, something that is so often not addressed by companies that are selling to fat people. In fact, one thing Jeff said that particularly struck me was, “it’s up to us to listen to our community,” meaning their consumers who buy their product. This is all too often not the case with brands selling to fat customers. We’re just a commodity to exploit for far too many, and what we actually want or need isn’t really a major concern.
This does not seem to be the case for Big Fig. The brand only sells mattresses for people in larger bodies. While they tell you that anyone can — conceivably — enjoy their mattress, it’s made quite clear who it is designed for, and their ads are beautifully and joyfully reflective of this. If you’ve never seen a Big Fig ad (they are all over social media), I highly encourage you to look for some. The inclusivity of the brand is impressive, and by this I mean, not only do they use actual plus-sized or fat people in their ads, they also feature people of various races and ethnicities and same sex couples.
Given that the brand is located in Ohio, a state known to be more politically conservative, I have to think the use of same sex couples and interracial couples was not without some pushback, at least from locals. Additionally, during our chat, Jeff told me that when they wanted to use actual fat (my word — not his, he was very careful of using the word until he knew I was comfortable with it, since coming from thin folks, it’s often a slur, and not every fat person has embraced using the word, and I respected him for both knowing that and displaying such sensitivity) models in their ads, they received a great deal of pushback from ad agencies, who would’ve much preferred them to use smaller models, or at least models who are considered “plus sized” but are really just “average” sized people. Big Fig considered the idea unacceptable and stood their ground and I deeply respect them for this.
