How the Stanley Cup became a cult object – Business

It’s often said that you were in the right place at the right time when you can’t quite explain why something or someone is particularly successful. Unforgettable Gerd Müller, who was said to have always stood correctly on the football field. The successor to the name Thomas at least has the addition “Raumdeuter”. When it came to the legendary Gerd, you wanted to ask all the “he’s always right” people: How did he actually get to where he’s always right? And why isn’t anyone else there?

You have to keep these questions in mind if you want to know how the 110-year-old US company Stanley increased its annual sales from $73 million (2019) to $750 million in the last financial year. Why the thermal mugs that this company sells are suddenly collector’s items and are even considered climate and health status symbols.

It has little to do with this video that made headlines last November: A woman filmed her car, which was completely burned out after an accident; only the thermos cup with the name Stanley Cup remained intactand as shaking showed: even the ice cubes were still cool.

The video may have been fuel for the fire, but it was ignited in the spring of 2020 by a guy who had previously made ugly shoes a cult object. In 2015, a share of the shoe manufacturer Crocs cost just $13. The products of the same name were considered bulky and ugly. Then Terence Reilly became head of marketing. He terminated all contracts with external marketers and tried out a modern version of the legendary Volkswagen campaign from 1960, when the company advertised its “Beetle” model as a “Lemon”, a dirt car. On online platforms, Reilly self-deprecatingly blasphemed about design and asked, given the sustainable production and collaboration with entertainer Post Malone: ​​Aren’t Crocs also incredibly cool? People’s answer: They are, Crocs stock price climbed to more than $180.

Reilly put the Stanley Cups in the right place

After that, Stanley and the cups that I’m talking about January on the pop culture portal The Atlantic was to be read, that they are just containers of water, that no one can explain their success – and that it therefore has to be a right-time, right-place moment. Nothing could be further from the truth, rather Reilly put the Stanley Cups in the right place, so they were there at the right time. Whether Gerd Müller or a thermo mug: If you are often in the right place, you increase the chance of being there at the right time.

“We were this sleepy $73 million brand with the dark green cups that hardly anyone knew about,” Reilly said of the beginning. The “Quencher” with a capacity of 1.2 liters kept drinks cold for eleven hours or warm for seven hours. However, other manufacturers could also promise that, and their products were cheaper than the $45 for the Stanley Cups.

So how did Reilly get to this right place with the Stanley Cup?

He told stories. The Stanley Cup was introduced as a product and was generally known, and Reilly now re-introduced it as a product that his great-grandparents had already used – so uncool that it’s cool again.

Second, environmental awareness. In times when people came out of coffee shops with paper or plastic cups and carried plastic water bottles with them, he presented the Stanley Cup as a status symbol for those who didn’t want exactly that, but a reusable version with a lifetime guarantee – and also showed that: Look, I am the person who is doing my part to save the world!

Fights over special editions

Third, hydration as part of the health and wellness trend. Stanley’s message: fill up the quencher three times and drink it, and you’ve got your ration for the day. Reilly’s story: People with Stanley Cups are nostalgic, cool, environmentally friendly and take care of themselves.

Of course, the tongue-in-cheek play with the names helped. Stanley Cup is the name for the ice hockey trophy in North America, the cup actually has a bit of a similarity to it. However, the manufacturer marketed its products with it not to be this trophy – it worked because the company is almost as old as the trophy (120 years) and the comparison came across as authentic rather than intentional.

As with Crocs, collaborations with celebrities such as country singer Lainey Wilson and companies such as retail giant Target and coffee house chain Starbucks helped. The special editions in Valentine’s Day pink (Target) and peach pink (Starbucks) were sold out immediately – keyword: shortage of a bulk productthey are now being auctioned off for hundreds of dollars.

Stanley no longer offered cups for sale, but rather a lifestyle that included early adopters, i.e. all those who recognized the trend early, participating in other people’s sales via social media codes. It’s something to behold that Reilly managed to get a decades-old product from a 100-year-old company to have people bragging about discovering it.

It worked, as Reilly discovered with his “airport analysis.” In his opinion, a product has entered the mainstream when people walk around with it at the airport: “When I left Crocs, I saw hundreds at the airport.” Now he saw hundreds of people rushing to their gates with Stanley cups. The airport of the digital world: Tiktok, where the video of the intact Stanley Cup in the burned-out car was viewed almost 100 million times. Incidentally, the company bought the owner a new vehicle – and thus made the headlines again.

So Reilly was the spatial interpreter who brought the company to the right place. The products were there at the right time when the marketing measures (nostalgia, self-care, environmental protection, celebrity collaborations, special editions) condensed into a perfect storm three years ago. 2020 revenue: $94 million. 2021: $194 million. 2022: $402 – and $750 million last year.

What Reilly plans to do now? This week it came out that he will be returning to Crocs. There he will be responsible for the “Heydude” brand, which Crocs bought in 2022 for $2.5 billion. 33 million Heydude shoes were sold last year. “We want the brand to be recognized, that the products are wanted and relevant,” says Reilly: “I see great growth opportunities.” This means nothing other than: As with Crocs and the Stanley Cup, Reilly wants to tell a story to lead Heydude to the right place and then be there at the right time.