What we can learn from the cult of the Stanley Cup
What is the deal with these f**king cups!
If you’ve used the internet in the past month, you probably know about latest craze that’s taken TikTok by storm- The Stanley Cup.
The rise of watertok and the emotional support water bottle
Do you know when the term emotional water bottle was coined? No stress if you don’t - that’s just a testament to how integrated into our current conversations it is.
It seems during our little communal ‘sick break’ between 2020 and 2022, when we were all swapping out makeup for skincare, and using our extra free time to work on our health, drinking more water kinda just perfectly slotted itself into our lives. (Seeing as drinking water and taking care of your skin are practically synonymous at this point, it makes sense.)
The term started spreading in early 2021 on tiktok following the rise of the popular #watertok trend, where finding ways to encourage more water consumption was EVERYWHERE.
The thing is, Stanley wasn’t the first to capitalise on this newfound trend, and during the VSCO girl trend of 2020, Hydroflask had the market in the palm of their hand.
We’d also seen the rise of Australian-owned brand, Frank Green, during this time, which saw massive success with Hydroflask not being as widely available in Australia.
You might be surprised to find out their now-viral quencher wasn’t initially a hit, and was actually taken off the website…
Stanley has been around for 111 years, but not as we know them in 2024.
Let’s all close our eyes and take a moment to think about a time before the Stanley craze. (to speed this up for you, we’re going back about 4 years).
Stanley introduced the quencher in 2016 offering sizes between 14 and 64 oz, and let’s just say a travel cup with a straw wasn’t exactly a hit in the adventure community.
Sales on the product were average, and eventually they “stopped restocking the Quencher on [their] website. Though still available for purchase elsewhere, it was not being prioritised from a production and marketing standpoint by the brand.” (Terence Reilly, Stanley Global President - the NY times)
Stanley’s audience had always been in the outdoor adventure space, with very little targeting towards women, let alone corporate women.
SO WHAT HAPPENED?
Caught in a perfect storm, something amazing happened for Stanley. Three sisters who ran a popular blog called ‘The Buy Guide’ saw a new potential market for Stanley, and they ran with it.
They advertised the Stanley Quencher to their mostly female audience, and the product went viral, and instead of restocking in their own stores, they tested a different market, having The Buy Guide place a wholesale order for 10,000 Quenchers to sell directly to their followers.
It was a success, and when they stocked the next 5000 cups, they sold all in an hour.
And then came the new primary market - Gen Z and Millenial women.
Once the new market was understood to be a pretty f**king great one, Stanley’s new marketing strategy was slowly rolled out.
They collaborated with popular brands like Starbucks and Target, selling exclusive products in store, and resulting in Gen Z and Millennials alike lining up overnight to get their hands on the new cups.
Not only that, but a Stanley Hunters facebook group launched in April of 2022 with over 30,000 members, and rare colourways are being resold on stock x and ebay for hundreds of dollars.
Just to put all of this in perspective for you, Stanley’s average revenue doubled from $94 million in 2020 to $194 million in 2021, and doubled again to $402 million in 2022.
All this over a CUP? What is going on!
No, not all this over a cup, all this over a sense of community.
The first thing you should know about people is that they want to fit in.
They want to be able to walk down the street and identify fellow girlypops via the brands and products they use.
As Hannah Shamji puts it: “You don’t stampede in Target for a tumbler, what people are buying is a sense of belonging.” (Huffington Post)
Stanley’s quencher has become more than a cute cup to sip your bevvy from - it’s a symbol of who you are. People aren’t lining up overnight to buy a CUP - they’re lining up, meeting like minded people in the line, and connecting with an online community that makes up for the overwhelming loneliness epidemic that’s running rampant right now.
So what can we learn from Stanley?
The quencher is a simple product, but it WORKS.
Let’s be clear - there are a million water tumbler brands out there, and not all over them are seeing this level of success - this wouldn’t have worked if the Stanley Cup was a bad product.
But once you have your product sorted, your audience is your priority. Nurture your current audience, but consider who else could benefit from your product.
And finally, I'll preach this until the day I die, but your customer base should feel like a community. Create a lifestyle that accompanies your product, and watch sales fly through the door.