How Stanley 1913 is diversifying beyond its viral Quencher tumbler

Perhaps nothing signifies being a cultural fixation as much as a skewering on Saturday Night Live. SNL came for the Quencher, Stanley 1913’s big-handled straw tumbler, in a January 2024 commercial parody that featured that week’s host, Dakota Johnson, along with cast members Chloe Fineman and Heidi Gardner.

“Are you like us, a pretty lady who drives a big car?” Fineman asked at the top of the sketch. “Now we’re all about them”—and here all three hold up pastel-colored Quenchers and speak in unison—“big dumb cups.”

Stanley itself was all about them cups, too. At its height, the Quencher, which was introduced in 2016, accounted for more than 75% of Stanley’s global business, according to the brand. But Stanley has pursued a yearslong diversification strategy to expand into more categories and draw more men to the brand, with a subhead in a 2024 article in the Wall Street Journal noting the brand “wants to widen consumer base and product lines after its blockbuster growth among thirsty women.”

Those efforts have included expanding into categories such as totes and backpacks, and entering into sports partnerships including those with Lionel Messi, the PGA Tour, and the Utah Jazz. The Quencher now accounts for roughly 40% of Stanley’s business, per Stanley.

Kate Ridley, chief brand officer of Stanley’s parent PMI WW Brands, said that, along with continuing to innovate with what she called “hydration” products like Quencher, the brand is continuing its expansion into other categories, including products for hot beverages (“cafe” in Stanley nomenclature), coolers, and bags.

“We certainly focus on hydration and what that represents of our business, but we see huge growth opportunity in the categories of cafe and also mobility and storage, which include things like bags and coolers and food containment,” Ridley told Retail Brew.

School assembly: Stanley’s latest effort to promote its broadening product assortment takes the form of a retail partnership with Dick’s Sporting Goods focused on back-to-school shoppers.

In what the brand is calling a “Show Up Like You” tour, it is holding events in July and August at Dick’s House of Sport locations in North Carolina, Florida, and Texas. The events, which along with hydration products highlight Stanley’s backpacks and lunchboxes, offer free engravings, charms, and stickers for Stanley products.

The first event, held in Durham, North Carolina, from July 25–26, drew more than 375 attendees with over 80 laser engravings, per Stanley.

Just four weeks after its back-to-school displays went live in Dick’s stores, Ridley said the retailer sold so much of Stanley’s Vitalize collection, which the brand debuted in February and features backpacks and totes, that the retailer had to reorder. Since Dick’s is no slouch when it comes to planning, Ridley took it as a win that the collection sold more briskly than the retailer had expected.

“They’re unparalleled merchants in the industry,” Ridley said of Dick’s. “Demand planning and forecasting is their specialty. They do not want to miss the sale, so the fact that they had to reorder in four weeks is significant.”

Libate and switch: Stanley competitor Yeti also has pursued a diversification strategy, but it’s in many ways the inverse of Stanley’s. While Stanley’s business had been dominated by its Quencher tumbler, Yeti was founded in 2006, and expanded beyond coolers with the introduction of its Rambler drinkware line in 2014.

In 2016, Yeti’s drinkware sales overtook what the company calls “coolers and equipment” sales, with drinkware accounting for $447.3 million and coolers and equipment for $349.5 million, according to a Yeti Holdings Inc. filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In May, Stanley released a 55-quart stainless-steel cooler that retails for $550—a premium cooler squarely in the category that put Yeti on the map. (Yeti also sells a 55-quart stainless-steel cooler that retails for $800.)

Stanley’s new premium cooler, which also is available in 26- and 84-quart versions, has a boozy name, The Lifted Spirits. Stanley sees sports occasions as opportunities to sell cafe, hydration, and bar products.

Golfers, for example, may meet up for coffee, then “they’ll drink water while they’re playing 18 holes, and then they’ll go to the clubhouse and they’ll drink a beer,” Ridley said.

The insight, according to Ridley, drew on a Stanley consumer study of more than 5,000 people across five countries, and it applies to many sports and has become a sort of mantra at Stanley.

“We like to say, ‘They caffeinate, they hydrate, and then they libate.’”