brand genius
The Stanley Tumbler: Trendy Fad or Branding Genius?
BY EMMA MARTENS
Who would have guessed that the latest viral product from TikTok would be an insulated cup?
From being featured in nearly every 20 year old’s A Day in the Life Instagram reel to being the top wishlist item for tweens this Christmas, and now even causing Black Friday level frenzy at Target stores around the country, the Stanley Quencher is one hot product.
But how did this 113 year old brand, who primarily catered to the retired cop or avid fisherman, manage to create last year’s most iconic products among women?
Marketing to the Man’s-Man
Up until the last few years Stanley, founded in 1913, was completely geared towards making products for the rugged man.
Outdoorsmen, blue collar workers, and former military personnel were Stanley’s target audience. Their brand was cemented in adventure, high durability, and products that managed to balance functionality with sleek design.
They valued tradition and simplicity, as it was common for their classic thermos to be passed down from generation to generation. From the grandfather heading off to the construction site to the grandson packing up for a big camping trip.
Not exactly the MO of a millennial camping out at Target for a Valentines Day mug. And in fact, Stanley had no plans to tap into the women’s market. That was until The Buyer Guide launched them into social media stardom.
The Quencher is Born
The now iconic Stanley Quencher mug first debuted in 2016. But it didn’t have its first wave of dedicated millennial consumers until The Buyer Guide.
The Buyer Guide is a Utah-based retail blog created by three women and in 2017 they took to Instagram to tout that the Quencher was *Of all the insulated cups... this is the one. Just trust.”
And “just trust” their audience did. With murmurings that Stanley was slowing production of the Quencher, The Buyer Guide urged its followers to buy the tumbler while they could. Seeing the popularity of the product, the group approached Stanley in hopes to set up an affiliate agreement.
Instead, the centennial brand showed its age and pushed them towards placing a wholesale order instead. With a 10,000 mug minimum. Yikes. But The Buyer Guide decided to roll the dice.
With a rented warehouse and 10,000 tumblers on hand, the women behind The Buyer Guide really weren’t sure if they could pull this off. Would they be stuck hocking mugs for the rest of their life? But when they launched the first 5,000 Quenchers, they sold out within four days. And their second launch of the remaining half sold out in an hour.
At the time Stanley, like most large name-brands, were not tapped into influencer marketing. Even now, in 2024, there are still plenty of big-named, old hat brands that discredit influencer and social media marketing as a strong funnel for success. In 2017, the Stanley sales model was focused on stocking Dick’s Sporting Goods rather than setting up affiliate links with mommy blogs.
Tapping Into a New Brand
The Buyer Guide and their audience was a whole new world for Stanley. Like I mentioned earlier, they were focused on the town handyman who looked forward to deer season, not the stay at home mom of three who looked forward to getting Starbucks before picking the kids up from soccer.
But the success that The Buyer Guide had with the Quencher wasn’t a fluke. In fact, it’s a testament to how dedicated (and profitable) their target audience is. Women ranging from 25-50 dominate The Buyer Guide’s following, and have proven to be one of the most influential consumer demographics on the market.
Ashlee LeSueur, one of three founders of The Buyer Guide, even says, “if you are not finding a way to speak to this 25-to-50-year-old female, you’re missing the mark because those are the buyers of our economy. They buy for their families, they buy for their husbands, they buy for their businesses.”
But millennial women and their Gen Z cousins who spent most of their time scrolling TikTok for inspiration on how to become ‘That Girl’ and filling their children’s playrooms with beige toys were not the type of buyer Stanley had built their brand around.
Very few rugged blue collar men with grease stained hands were interested in the cream-colored accessories that these women bought.
However, the success from the Buyer Guide proved to be a worthy case study into this untapped market. And so they took a chance and developed a new buyer persona, then dove in deep.
A New Era Emerges
Changing your target audience after spending over 100 years establishing yourself elsewhere is a huge risk. Embracing social media and influencer marketing tactics when your competitors still think TikTok is a fad is another huge risk. But Stanley decided to lean into this new direction.
As an astrologer, I couldn’t help but get curious about what was going on with their business chart. Through the power of Wikipedia and patent records I was able to find a date for when Stanley’s founder, William J. Stanley, Jr. filed the patent for his all-steel vacuum bottle (the first of its kind btw). And thus, an untimed chart for Stanley was born.
What I find most striking about this chart in comparison to one from 2016, the year the Quencher was launched kick-starting this pandemonium, is that Stanley was experiencing a few note-worthy oppositions.
Firstly Saturn was in Sagittarius, opposing the brand’s natal Saturn in Gemini. Saturn, the last visible planet in our solar system via the naked eye, is often known for its affinity of systems and tradition.
Being so far away from the sun, the planet moves at a noticeably slower pace than the inner planets, giving it significations for aging, old or inflexible. And when we experience our Saturn oppositions, once every 14 years, we’re really being asked to face our boundaries and routines head on. Meaning that doing something just because ‘that’s the way we’ve always done it!’ will be brought into question.
A second note-worthy opposition is a nodal reversal. The nodes represent the continual push and pull that we experience through our lifetime. It’s what we are reaching towards but never quite achieving, being counter-acted by what comes easy that must be shed. And when these points are in their reserve signs, it again can leave one questioning how it operates and what its goals really are.
Adding to this energy was expansive and opportunistic Jupiter. In 2016, by being present with the nodes in Virgo and causing some friction (aka squaring) the Saturn placements, Jupiter only expanded these tensions of systems and renewal. Shining a bright spotlight on what needs to shift and where.
Meaning, that whatever changes Stanley enacted, they would create a sustaining impact. And an impact was what the Quencher sure did have.
A Juicy Case Study
I strongly believe that if Stanley didn’t reinvent their primary buyer persona, they would not have seen as much viral success with the Quencher. This 100+ year old company is an excellent testament that prioritizing your active buyers, and targeting your efforts to deeply understand who they are, will always benefit you in the long run.
If you know that receiving clarity around your primary buyer persona is going to take your business to the next level, ala Stanley, then you need to tap into your business astrology chart.
Because branding is all about crafting a deeply resonate and juicy identity and astrology is an incredibly powerful tool for discovering yours. That’s why I offer my AstroBranding readings.
To start your business astrology journey and to claim your AstroBranding reading, just set up a free exploration call with EMMA! Or shoot HER an email for more details.