Just before Thanksgiving 2023, a viral TikTok video showed the aftermath of a major car fire. In the center console among the destroyed seats, roof debris and water from firefighters’ hoses sat a bright orange tumbler with a handle and straw – blackened with soot, but otherwise unscathed. Miraculously, the ice inside was still intact.

The item was the popular 40-oz. Quencher H2.0 FlowState tumbler from Stanley. It certainly made a great ad for the company; the video garnered millions of views and tens of thousands of comments (many of them indicating they were soon to become first-time customers). Terence Reilly, president of Stanley, offered to replace both the tumbler and the car.

It was also an apt image of both Stanley and the Quencher’s remarkable recent success. Despite fears of a recession, slashed corporate budgets, cash-strapped households and a nearly saturated product category, this $50 tumbler became the must-have status symbol of 2023 in both retail and promo.

What’s even more remarkable is this unlikely resurgence is over a century in the making. Stanley, founded in 1913, was known for decades for its classic steel vacuum bottles and lunch boxes in its signature Hammertone Green, mostly used by the workers who first built the country’s infrastructure. The company’s items and its clientele were both suited to spend time outside in the elements.

That changed in late 2022, when a combination of brand flexibility, new executive faces, image retooling, earnest influencers, savvy affiliate marketing and swoon-worthy lifestyle shots – plus a bit of luck – launched the 40-oz. Quencher into the stratosphere. The tumbler is an object of adoration, lauded by millions of social media users and so worshipped that consumers this holiday season camped out in tents outside Starbucks locations to try to score the special-edition Stanley x Starbucks style, many with plans to resell them online for huge markups.

Meanwhile, Stanley and the promotional products industry have long been intertwined, and the Quencher mania arrived this year in full force, with supplier partners like Top 40 firms HPG (asi/61966), Starline USA (asi/89320) and PCNA (asi/66887) doing everything to keep up with demand. (Countless similar styles too have flooded the marketplace.) ESP data shows that searches for Stanley increased over 4,500% through November 2023 compared to 2022. By the end of November it was the fourth most-searched term in ESP.

In this Promo Insiders episode, ASI Media Executive Editor Sara Lavenduski interviews Nick Lateur, brand director for HPG (asi/61966) about the runaway success of Stanley and what the future holds for drinkware.

The success of Stanley puts an exclamation point on an incredible run for promo drinkware, which has nearly doubled its market share since 2008. Drinkware in 2022 accounted for almost 10% of all promotional products revenue at almost $2.6 billion in sales. It’s no surprise that the hottest product resides in the hottest product category.

By now it’s obvious: the Stanley Quencher is ASI Media’s 2023 Product of the Year. It’s been a wild ride. So what’s behind the unquenchable thirst for this must-have product?

The Year of the Quencher

It was over 12 months ago that Steve Williams, president of Proforma Signature Marketing (asi/300094), remembers visiting his largest client’s offices, where many of the female employees were showing off the Quenchers they’d just gotten as Christmas gifts.

That proved to be the tip of the iceberg.

E-commerce retail intelligence company Stackline reported that Stanley’s market share on Amazon had grown from 2% to nearly 16% between June 2022 and June 2023, “turning the market into a two-horse race” between Stanley and YETI. And Matt Navarro, senior vice president of global commerce at Stanley, recently told Retail Dive that Quencher sales increased by 275% year over year in 2023.

Amid all the hype, it would be easy to believe that the Quencher is a new product for Stanley. In fact, it’s been around since 2016. The dominoes started to fall when The Buy Guide, a popular shopping recommendation and review site, lauded it as a must-have item the following year.

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In 2019, at Stanley’s behest, the three female influencers behind The Buy Guide (Linley Hutchinson, Ashlee LeSueur and Taylor Cannon) cautiously placed an order for 10,000 cups – all of which they promptly sold. Their success and subsequent conversations with Stanley convinced the company to re-prioritize the Quencher and, at the same time, add a focus on drinkware for women. Stanley also brought on Terence Reilly as president in 2020; the brains behind the Crocs phenomenon, he would also help take Stanley to new heights.

The brand’s pivot fit right into cultural shifts in a world changed by COVID – more focus on self-care and wellness among consumers meant a renewed emphasis on maintaining daily hydration levels with large drinking vessels (the Quencher comes in five sizes, though the 40-oz. is the most popular). Nostalgia among the pandemic-weary led to an emotional connection with a time-honored brand once carried by many of today’s buyers’ relatives. And drinkware is no longer solely utilitarian; it’s become a statement item to show off, now that people are gathering again in person.

That set the stage for the end of 2022 into 2023, when – through a combination of word-of-mouth and aggressive influencer marketing – the Quencher went supernova on TikTok and other social media platforms under the hashtags #StanleyTumbler and #StanleyCup. The product has accrued hundreds of millions of views on TikTok.

A viral video in November on TikTok showed a Stanley Quencher that survived a car fire – and still had ice inside. Stanley President Terence Reilly offered to replace both the tumbler and the car.

Stanley has doubled-down by mastering the art of FOMO. It regularly launches new Quencher colors, collabs (like Stanley x Starbucks and Lainey Wilson Country Gold) and limited-edition runs. Vying for one is akin to scoring Taylor Swift tickets. When Stanley teased its Cyber Monday Limited Edition Mistletoe Twist (white with a holly flourish next to the logo and, of course, a candy cane-striped straw) in advance with a date and time, the tumbler sold out within hours.

Navigating the Waters

Top 40 supplier PCNA carries a lot of retail brands (Bose, JanSport and Hydro Flask, just to name a few), and started selling the Quencher about a year ago.

Almost simultaneously, as the Quencher continued to pick up steam in late 2022/early 2023, promo end-buyers couldn’t wait to put their brand on one of retail’s hottest new products. “This has been unlike anything we’ve ever seen,” says Liz Haesler, PCNA’s chief merchandising officer. “We do a lot of branded business, but this has been crazy. We did a pre-sell early on with our best customers, before we even had inventory. The demand was so high, we told Stanley to ship us everything.”

Search frequency for “Stanley” in ASI’s ESP database increased 121% between Q3 and Q4 of 2022. But that was just the beginning. Between Q2 and Q3 of 2023, demand grew 353% ahead of the Q4 gifting season. “Stanley” was the 11th most-popular term in Q3 and had cracked the Top 10 ESP search terms by late August.

“Supply then was almost non-existent,” recalls Proforma’s Williams about finding Quenchers at the beginning of the craze a year ago. “It was harder to find inventory than it is now [in November 2023]. Stanley had to ramp up to handle the volume.” For now, Stanley has given its partner suppliers access to two colors they can officially market – cream and charcoal. And that stock disappears quickly. “More Quenchers Are On The Way!” promised PCNA’s website after Thanksgiving, with the company adding that it “secured additional shipments throughout Q4 to meet your year-end order requirements.”

“Distributors and their clients push hard for the Quencher,” says Haesler. “We carry the inventory and we’re aggressive to make sure stock continues flowing.” She adds that the Stanley IceFlow flip straw tumbler in 20-oz. (1603-04) and 30-oz. (1603-03) sizes, is also popular, and the 40-oz. Hydro Flask All Around (1601-99) comes in more colors than the Quencher. Meanwhile, the strawed and handled 40-oz. Corkcicle Cruiser, offered exclusively at retail, has a similar look and is billed as being lighter than competitors’ offerings.

“Sometimes, a similar style works,” says Haesler, “but other times, they really want the Quencher.”

HPG has carried Stanley products for nearly 20 years through its Beacon brand. Stanley used to carry the Quencher in one color – Hammertone Green – and it wasn’t very popular, says Nick Lateur, brand director for HPG. But as more colors became available and #StanleyCup took off on social media in early 2023, demand skyrocketed. It’s become popular for corporate gifting and team incentives, particularly among female recipients.

Inventory is still hard to come by, he says; lead times in mid-November stood at about 45 days. Stanley has honored requests for other colors besides cream and charcoal when they can. And while other Stanley styles sell, the 40-oz. Quencher continues to outpace them. “Demand has been on an upward trajectory all year,” says Lateur.

“I’ve never seen passion and enthusiasm for a brand like this before.” Liz Haesler, PCNA (asi/66887)

Since Scott Hulbert, managing director of ideavation (asi/229801), started fielding requests for the 40-oz. Quencher earlier this year, he says there have been times where end-buyers actually change their minds once they see and handle one in person.

“It’s massive,” he says. (The 40-oz. Quencher weighs nearly a pound and a half empty.) “It’s great for drinking water at your desk, but it can be hard to take it anywhere. We’ve actually been doing more orders for smaller Stanley styles, like the IceFlow. It has a built-in straw and top handle, and the price-point is lower.”

Constant stock issues are another challenge for an events-driven industry like promo. Some end-buyers are willing to wait for the inventory to become available, says Brian Porter, CRO of Starline USA, while others move on to comparable non-Stanley styles. “They see the quality of similar pieces and recognize that the value is worth the lack of a brand name on the front,” he says. “ROI is their top priority – no one wants something that will get tossed.”

In some instances, Williams has had to steer clients away from the Quencher and toward another Stanley style or a piece similar to the Quencher – particularly if the event is date-specific. If the client still pleads for the Stanley and is willing to wait, stocking a company store is a better option, he says.

Melissa Pecoraro, senior director of strategic accounts at Top 40 distributor PromoShop (asi/300446), says chasing Stanley stock has become almost a full-time job. One customer ordered 40-oz. Quenchers two months ahead of time (a generous timeframe that’s a rarity in this industry) and delivery was still pushed out another two weeks.

“When a customer asks for it now, we just say it’s not available,” she says. “They may just buy them at retail and hand them out blank, or they’ll ask for something else, either brand-name drinkware or a tech accessory.”

One of Pecoraro’s customers in the early stages of the Stanley journey ordered the comparable Denali from ETS Express (asi/51197) and needed it quickly. Besides being able to accommodate a multi-color logo (a no-no with Stanley imprinting restrictions), it was easy to source and get it drop-shipped in time for a specific event date. The customer has since placed the same order twice over.

Still, Stanley demand shows little sign of waning. Buyers with patience can be rewarded with the “it” product of 2023 and beyond. “It’s been challenging, but it’s been so much fun,” says Haesler. “I’ve never seen passion and enthusiasm for a brand like this before.”

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