Stanley Looks to Replicate the Water-Bottle Hype Among Guys
Company wants to widen consumer base and product lines after its blockbuster growth among thirsty women
Company wants to widen consumer base and product lines after its blockbuster growth among thirsty women
Stanley has spent the past few years turning a vacuum-insulated, 40-ounce water bottle into one of the most-desired womenswear accessories on the planet. Now it is widening its focus to include the customer it was first designed for more than 110 years ago—men.
The company, which is owned by Chicago-based HAVI, next year plans to release new products geared toward guys beyond its current male audience of outdoor enthusiasts.
The new Stanley man might not require a steel canteen to take into the wilderness, but he might want a sleek water bottle to take from the office to the gym to date night in a wine bar, according to Jenn Reeves, Stanley’s vice president of global brand marketing.
“He’s not a fashionista, but he cares about how he’s put together. He’s into grooming and how he looks, and into sports,” Reeves said. That hypothetical male customer wants water bottles that are a little sleeker and subtler than the brightly coloured giant flasks coveted by Stanley’s female audience, she said.
The bid for diversification comes as Stanley looks to hold on to the brand equity it has accrued in a remarkably short time.
Stanley’s annual revenue jumped to around $750 million in 2023 from $73 million in 2019, and scores of articles and think pieces have in the past year been written to explain how a company originally targeting construction workers became one of the trendiest brands of the moment. Much of the success comes down to the recent rise of the brand’s 40-ounce Quencher, which it introduced in 2016. The $45 metal cup with a straw and a handle has become a status symbol among women and tweens, caused new-product frenzies in stores, and generated a “Saturday Night Live” skit lampooning women who drink out of comically “big dumb cups.”
Imitators and competitors for thirsty consumers are hot on Stanley’s heels. They include cooler-maker Yeti , which last year introduced a 42-ounce straw mug similar in design to the Quencher.
Stanley’s latest release is a collection of cooler bags and a carryall holder for its 40-ounce Quencher bottle, slated for release in April. The wearable coolers were developed in response to women’s complaints that the market’s existing offerings were too heavy, too clunky and too ugly, and the crossbody was designed to ease the burden of carrying a water bottle and a purse around all day.
The Stanley customer only became known internally as a “she” in 2020, when Terence Reilly, the former chief marketing officer of Crocs, joined as president. Reilly, who liked to say his team had turned Crocs’ divisive shoes “from a meme to a dream,” learned that the Quencher was becoming popular among a group of women in Utah, a few of whom ran a shopping blog called the Buy Guide , according to one of the blog’s co-founders.
The group, along with a female Stanley sales account manager, suggested that the company start selling its cups in colors outside of black, white and its signature hammertone green, and it did. Sales lifted, while the company began to lean more on real women to spread the word about its products.
The Stanley marketing team has grown slowly since Reilly’s arrival but is still tiny by industry standards: only seven full-time staff members across advertising, brand, marketing, media and social media, said Reeves, who joined in 2022. The company spends money on traditional direct marketing, such as email campaigns, but its biggest focus is social media and working with real women and influencers who promote Stanley to their followers.
Stanley got a big, unexpected break in November, when a TikTok user named Danielle Lettering posted a video claiming that the only item to survive her car fire was her Stanley Quencher. The clip went viral, and Stanley bought her a new car and covered related costs including taxes.
Many of Stanley’s male consumers are already Quencher fans, Stanley said, and guys sometimes feature in its ads. The company heading into 2025 has to translate its social-media momentum among women into a marketing strategy designed to attract more men with the planned sleeker range.
The typical male consumer is also swayed by the recommendations of influencers, but he often spends time on different platforms than his female counterpart, said Chris Anthony, the chief revenue officer of media company Gallery Media Group, which works with social-media content creators. He is likely to track interests, teams and channels, as opposed to following specific influencers across all platforms the way some women do, he said.
“Guys rely more on their feed versus the people,” Anthony said. “And letting the influencers tell their stories, and not being so prescriptive, will especially resonate with guys in the right way.”
Some of those influencers might be Stanley’s current best customers, Reeves said. “We have the women, and they love us,” she said.
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Money worries are having a cascading effect on stress levels, conflict and even the rate of ageing
Worrying about the cost of living is causing accelerated ageing, household arguments and creating significant stress, according to new research. More than half of Australians say they have experienced personal setbacks due to financial strain over the past year. Almost 20 percent say that have suffered a stress-related illness, 33 percent have lost sleep and almost one in five are seeing signs of early ageing.
Household hostility is also rising, with 19 percent of Australians admitting they have argued with their partners about money, and a further one in 10 have argued with family and friends.
The Finder survey of 1,070 Australians reveals women are bearing the brunt of financial stress, with 62 percent reporting they have worried about money compared to 42 percent of men.
Younger Australians are struggling the most, with almost 7 in 10 Gen Z respondents reporting financial strain compared to 58 percent of Gen Xers and 24 percent of baby boomers.
The impact of cost-of-living pressures among different age groups and income levels is reflected in new data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). The selected living cost indexes show employee households are under more strain from inflation, with the CPI measure for this population group at 6.5 percent today compared to the official overall CPI figure of just 3.6 percent.
The discrepancy is due to higher mortgage interest payments – which make up a higher proportion of expenditure for employee households — as well as an increase in primary and secondary school fees, and the indexation of tertiary education fees at the start of the year. The official CPI does not include mortgage payments, so the living cost indexes provide a more accurate picture of how rising interest rates are impacting households with mortgages today.
The inflation rate is much lower for older Australians, who have often paid off their mortgages. The inflation rate on living expenses for age pensioner households is below the official CPI level at 3.3 percent, and it’s only slightly higher at 3.4 percent for self-funded retirees.
Graham Cooke, head of consumer research at Finder, said that despite cooling inflation, Australians were still under significant financial pressure.
“This can be seen in Finder’s Cost of Living Pressure Gauge, which has been hovering in the extreme range for the past year and a half,” Mr Cooke said. The gauge returned a reading of 78 percent in March this year compared to 47 percent in March 2021, when inflation was 1.1 percent and the Reserve Bank’s official cash rate was 0.1 percent.
Interestingly, Australians’ cash savings are higher today than they were in 2021, likely reflecting stimulus payments received and saved during the pandemic. The Reserve Bank has cited pandemic savings as a factor in keeping mortgage arrears low despite much higher interest rates. The Finder research shows Australians have an average of $37,206 in cash savings today, up from $24,928 two years ago.
“Money concerns can cause problems in your everyday life and snowball quickly if you don’t get them under control,” Mr Cooke said. “Building financial resilience is as vital as ever as costs continue to rise. Pay close attention to where your money is going so you keep impulse spending to a minimum, and don’t overspend.”
Australians appear to be heeding this advice, with the latest ABS retail figures showing seven straight quarters of declining per capita spending. “Per capita volumes show retail turnover after the effects of inflation and population growth have been accounted for,” explained Ben Dorber, ABS head of retail statistics. “Following an unprecedented seven straight falls, it is very clear how much consumers have pulled back on spending in response to cost of living pressures over the past two years.”
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