Stanley Cups: Quenching Thirst

They’re colorful, coveted, and collectible. On social media, people proudly display those they already own, wax enthusiastic about their next intended purchases, and highlight the limited-edition ones they hope to snare. Dupes of dubious origins and questionable quality are sold online – but the faithful can spot a fake. Woe to she who is spotted with a lesser-known or cheaper but equally useful item.

No, they’re not Birkin bags. They’re Quenchers – formally known as Quencher H2.O FlowState Tumblers, from Stanley. The insulated cups range in capacity from 14 oz. to 60 oz. and promise to keep beverages cold for as long as 15 hours. It’s the 40-oz. model that has most captured the water-drinking public’s hearts, no doubt because that size fits cup holders in most cars. Quenchers have helped propel Stanley’s sales from $70 million in 2016 to an estimated $750 million in 2023.

So how did Stanley – a Seattle-based company started in 1913 by William Stanley Jr., a pioneer in electrical engineering and a prolific inventor – pivot from thermoses and lunchboxes to 2023’s answer to high-end sneakers? The success of the Quencher – and by extension, the rest of the company’s offerings – is a tale of influencers, TikTok, and going after an ignored and overlooked market.

But before the Quencher’s catapult into the realm of influencers, the product seemingly came close to being canceled – not by consumers, but by the company itself. Stanley launched the cups, with their distinctive built-in straws and handles, in 2016. The Quencher didn’t make the hoped-for splash, and in 2019, the company stopped restocking them at national retailers.

If the Quencher went unnoticed, Stanley had plenty of other products that it was known for, such as camping cookware as well as other insulated food and beverage containers. Merchandise and marketing were aimed primarily at men and outdoor enthusiasts.

The Power of Partnerships

But the Quencer didn’t go entirely unnoticed. The Quencher was rescued from obscurity thanks to The Buy Guide, a curated site of “quality, tasteful, useful” shopping recommendations. One of the site’s founders, Ashlee LeSueur, fell in love with the Quencher in 2017. And while Stanley has created lucrative and successful partnerships with Target and Starbuck’s , the Quencher as we now know it might not exist but for the relatively modest, early-days partnership between The Buy Guide and Stanley.

The Buy Guide touted the cup on its blog and Instagram account, sent it to influencers, and fielded reports of it becoming impossible to find. In 2019, their efforts caught the eye of a woman who worked at Stanely. She helped arrange for the site to buy 5,000 cups at wholesale, which they could resell while retaining all of the profits. They sold out in less than four days. The site went back for another 5000 – and those sold out in less than 24 hours.

Seeing Green

The next hurdle: Convincing Stanley to go after the women’s market and manufacture the cups in more female-friendly colors, expanding beyond the company’s signature, utilitarian hammertone green. The initial attempts at persuasion fell flat. "Some of the executives had a really difficult time imagining a more female-leaning color palette on the Stanley products," LeSueur told The Wall Street Journal.

A new president at Stanley, hired in 2020, understood the women’s vision – and the Quencher’s potential. Terrence Reilly had been Chief Marketing Officer at Crocs and had seen a similar story play out in Crocs’ journey from quirky clog to cult item. Reilly imagined women accessorizing with their Quenchers, coordinating them with their clothes, shoes, or bags. New pastels were launched, and later that year, the Quencher became the company’s No. 1 selling product, surpassing the company’s sturdy Stanley bottle. It has remained the company’s best-selling item, while casting a halo effect over the rest of Stanley’s product.

Creating FOMO

“My experience at Crocs was fueled by collaboration culture and drop culture,” Reilly told RetailDive.com. Leveraging Reilly’s experience and expertise, Stanley has released limited editions, such as its Lunar New Year cup, and several in different shades of pink for Valentine’s/Galentine’s Day, sold at Starbuck’s and Target. The holiday pinks recently had enthusiasts lining up overnight, store employees violating company policy by putting cups aside or purchasing them before customers had had a crack at them, and resellers hiking up prices from $45 retail to $200 and up.

While encouraging collecting may appear to conflict with offering a reusable water bottle (Stanley has declined to comment), you can’t argue that it’s good for business. According to CNBC, more than 10 million Quenchers have been sold.

The Quencher is Fire

The Quencher recently came under some fire because the cups are sealed with lead as part of the insulation process. As the story gained traction, Stanley highlighted its lifetime guarantee, pointed out that the lead is inaccessible, encouraged anyone whose seal had broken to return the cup, and assured consumers that it was looking into alternative materials.

Among the many viral videos for Stanley Cups, a standout was the one in which a woman claimed that her Stanley Cup survived a fire in her car – with some of the ice still unmelted. In less than two weeks, the video had been watched some 84 million times. Stanley responded with a video that not only offered the woman replacement cups (which she didn’t need) but a new car (which she did). That video racked up a quick 32 million views of its own.

Not bad for the price of a few Stanely cups and a car.