The Stanley 1913 company has seen a groundswell of sales for its 40-ounce tumblers, leading some news stories to share that the large cups have been subject to being stolen around the nation. 95.5 WSB host Mark Arum believes the topic is a fascinating one for news/talk radio circles.
“This story fascinates me,” The Mark Arum Show host said, noting that the cups have seen a resurgence in popularity due to new exclusive colors being released at Target and Starbucks, among other new promotional moves.
However, it isn’t necessarily the story of the Tumblers and their newfound popularity that he finds so enthralling. It’s the shift in the company’s focus that has him interested in the story.
“What fascinates me about this story, and we can all learn a lesson from this…Stanley has been around for 110 years. They’re basically geared toward blue-collar workers, outdoorsman lunchboxes, you know,” said Arum. “They’ve been making it and they were the green. They were traditionally great. And they were doing fine. They were making $70 million in sales from their Hammertone green products, which is great. They’ve been around for 100 years, and they make a fine product.
“This woman who was — I don’t want to call her an influencer — but she basically had a network of folks. And there was a new design to the Stanley, instead of the old green one, it was this new one that fit in a cup holder, whatever, and she loved them. And she was telling all her friends about them. Stanley wasn’t moving enough of these cups. So they were going to discontinue it and she wrote (the CEO) a letter.
‘You can’t discontinue this. People love them.’ So they cut a deal with her. They made 5,000 of them for her. And she basically risked her life savings on this and bought 5,000 of the Stanley tumblers, rolling dice thinking that her fan base was going to want this. And they did. They sold out almost immediately. So this CEO’s like ‘Well, listen, we’ve got a market here.’ And so he started, strategically going after influencers. They were averaging $70 million a year in sales which is no small potatoes. That’s amazing. They’re up to now $700 million a year.”
Mark Arum argued that the lesson everyone should take away from the anecdote is that you can be a great employee, teammate, spouse, or whatever role you need to play, but you can always evolve, get better, and find new ways to contribute and make an impact.
