Originally designed for adventurers, this water bottle has become a trendy accessory that youngsters absolutely want to own. Decoding:
Most of us have experienced this as teenagers. A birthday or a good report card was a great occasion to ask our parents to give us the latest fashion accessory. A Longchamps bag for some, cheap Monday jeans for others… This social marker was finally an entry ticket to the popular world. The go-to accessory for the youngest generation these days is none other than a water bottle, the Stanley Quencher, renamed the Stanley Cup on TikTok.
Designed by Stanley, an American brand that sells coolers, thermoses and mugs, these XXL cups have sold more than 10 million copies by 2023, reports CNBC. Such a coveted item that some spend fortunes to collect them and then show off their arsenal on social media. The other side of this coin success story American style? If one of the brand’s main selling points is the ecological aspect of its products, in reality they remain another symptom of overconsumption. Decoding:
An unexpected revival
The history of the Stanley Cup begins more than a century ago in Seattle, USA. An entrepreneur named William Stanley Jr. invents a thermos that he calls vacuum flask, a creation that appeals to workers who want to enjoy a hot beverage at work. Decades pass, and the silent success of the brand continues. If her destiny seems clear, things will change in 2020 thanks to a group of Utah women who started a shopping blog called The Buying Guide.
Its co-founder, Ashley Le Sueur, regularly praises the Stanley Quencher, Stanley’s latest creation. The bottle is available in a 1.2-liter capacity, retails for $35 to $55, depending on its size, and can keep drinks cold for 11 hours and drinks hot for 7 hours. This innovation imagined in 2016 has not yet enjoyed the success the brand envisioned. The failure is even such that in 2019 this XXL cup, which is designed to be carried by hand and fits into the cups of our cars, was withdrawn from the market.
Ashlee LeSueur openly disputes her marketing termination, but Stanley makes another offer. new brand director Terence Reilly, a fierce marketer at the start of Crocs’ shoe renaissance, entrusts him with 5,000 copies to sell to his community. A successful bet. a group of influencers manages to sell them at lightning speed, and the Stanley Cup enters the TikTok scene.
The power of influence
The Stanley Cup phenomenon is having a snowball effect on TikTok. Its Instagrammable pastel colors, its sleek designs and storytelling The healthy and environmentally responsible lifestyle that accompanies the bottle attracts millions of young people who buy it as the latest fashion accessory. His success is dizzying. Its annual turnover is $73 million in 2019, $94 million in 2020, and $194 million in 2021, according to CNBC.
It must be said that Stanley does not miss the opportunity to ride the wave of success with new colors and limited editions that multiply one after another. And it works. young fans flock to stores selling the new holy grail of the water bottle, camping out for hours outside their doors. Some even almost collide, inform our New York Times colleagues. enough to force stores to limit the number of items per person.
Other cases are extreme, like American Amelia Awad, 16 years old. According to the Wall Street Journal, the teenager’s parents spent nearly $3,000 on 67 Stanley Cups. A phenomenon that is not isolated, as evidenced by the various collections displayed by their owners on TikTok under the hashtag #Stanleycup. Overconsumption that is light years away from the values espoused by the brand.
Green washing
Indeed, the brand’s website is paraded with photos and videos of adventurers enjoying the great outdoors with their trusty Stanley Cup. a storytelling which boasts of its ecological ambitions; “Whether cycling through the high plains of Kyrgyzstan or swimming wild in the winter, the Stanley is designed for all adventures. These stories celebrate people who put nature and adventure at the heart of their lifestyles, and how our products fit into that world,” says the brand’s homepage. Made from recycled steel, the bottle is truly a product “designed for life”. As evidenced by this recent viral video of a young woman filming her burnt-out car, except for her Stanley Cup, which still contains ice cubes. Whatever the case, the race to consumption encouraged by the brand actually makes it a disproportionate number of people responsible for the ecological footprint.
Source: Le Figaro
