STANLEY CUP CRAZE

Here's your daily breakdown of how one company made a great strategic decision.

BACKGROUND: Stanley Cup is a company founded in 1913 that makes food and beverage containers. Before 2019, they earned around $70M in revenue but in 2023, they were poised to earn $750M, driven by one product: the Quencher (See image below)

DECISION: Stanley introduced the 40 US ounce (1200 ml for anyone else) Quencher in 2016 but the product flopped. They decided to partner with a women-run blog called Buy Guide, which helped drive new sales. They expanded this strategy to eventually include partnerships with Lainey Wilson (country music star), Starbucks and other influencers. People now camp outside Target to buy the latest version.

LESSONS: Putting aside the luck in going viral on social media, the company did several things right.

1) You need to experiment with drastically different promotion channels. If your customers are primarily men, then look for channels just for women. You never know what kind of hidden customer is out there.

2) Think bigger. Increasing revenue by 10% is great but run through thinking exercises where you're forced to devise ways to 2x, 5x or 10x revenue.

3) Hire for your future. In 20202, Stanley hired a former Crocs executive as its president. Crocs was also a brand that went viral and Stanley is clearly looking for expertise in how to handle the newfound fame.