When Ashlee met Stanley
Stanley's recent success is an example of ESG and stakeholder capitalism
In high school, I worked at a co-generation plant that burned culm, the byproduct of coal, heated water, and spun giant turbines to generate electricity.
My job was to organize the plant’s inventory in the warehouse and fill maintenance requests for equipment. Yes, during the summers, I became Matt the Warehouse Guy (and still have the hard hat to prove it).
If you’ve met me, you’ll know I am not very built, but the men I worked with were tough. I remember a few of them would carry giant green Stanley mugs full of coffee. As a result, like many, I associate the Stanley brand with hard-working blue-collar workers.
Imagine my surprise to see hot pink and red Stanley mugs selling out at Target stores all over the US last week!
The story of Stanley is an ESG story that shows the power of new stakeholders and shifting Social preferences, so much so that media outlets are missing it in the same rush to focus on social media’s viral nature and power.
For companies, there’s something to learn about ESG and listening to your stakeholders.
A brand built on tradition
The Stanley brand has been around since 1913, and its stainless-steel mugs have been associated with blue-collar workers and rugged outdoor adventures.
As reported in RetailDive, Stanley’s customer stakeholders were pretty specific.
As recently as 2012, Stanley mentioned that its products resonated with “a 30-year-career veteran policeman” and “a retired Army soldier.”
The mugs keep your “warms warm and your colds cold,” as proclaimed on their About page. While everyone needs this, Stanley definitely had a type of customer. In 2014, the brand launched a #Stanleyness campaign, which expanded into protecting vices like coffee and alcohol.
There’s a short profile review by Luke Perkins, an Art Director, Executive Creative Director, and Director for the brand at the time. In the imagery, there’s more than a hint of a “Stanleyness means manliness” connection, even though moms and daughters are referred to in some images.
Today, you can still buy that massive green 'hammertone’ Stanley mug in various sizes under the “Legendary” moniker.
Growth around the Social and Governance
One of the funniest refrains about ESG is that it is focused on long-term growth, so boards and the management team should already be doing it. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. It takes a unique combination of attention to these issues, persistence, and courage to address risks and capture opportunity.
For Stanley, the recent shift was less about managing risk than capturing a market opportunity. That meant listening to a new stakeholder group, or what I call a dynamic stakeholder, in my upcoming book, ESG Mindset. This is a stakeholder you don’t even know you have yet. As it turned out, Stanley had a tiny group of dynamic stakeholders that would change its direction and grow its revenue tenfold in a few short years.
You may have heard this story reported recently about Stanley’s growth, but I will reframe it here for our review.
In 2016, two years after the Stanleyness campaign, Stanley launched the 40oz. Adventure Quencher. This new style travel mug easily fit into car cup holders, had a handle and a straw, plus all the ruggedness and lifetime warranties that all Stanley mugs come with. The mug grabbed the attention of Ashlee LeSueur, who raved about them on Instagram and sent some to her friends.
The story of Ashlee, Taylor, Linley, and the Stanley mugs is worth reading in The Buy Guide for a few reasons. First, it is fascinating to learn about the path. Also, their excitement about the brand and opportunity is evident, and they are primarily credited for kicking off the brand’s newfound attention, even though they point to sales as the real jumpstart.
In summary (because you really should read the story), Stanley began to discontinue the Quencher, but the trio of female entrepreneurs saw potential. They invested in proving the mug’s marketability through their site and social media, finally capturing the CEO’s attention.
Here’s an ESG reframe of the story: The Social (a group of diverse stakeholders) met a quality Governance decision (the chance to pivot by a contact at the company who championed them) to result in a new approach to new customers and a new market.
From The Buy Guide story:
We asked them to give us the chance to show them what women selling to women looks like.
Not only that, but these stakeholders shifted Stanley’s business model.
We advised Stanley to create a new site, join an affiliate platform, and that we would introduce them to an army of influencers who love the cup and would sell it to their followings.
By June 2020, Stanley’s e-commerce site couldn’t keep up with the orders and needed retooling. Over the past three years, the mugs have found partnerships with Starbucks and Target, which leads to the latest round of news about the mugs and their obscene eBay auction prices.
As a reminder, Target was plagued with anti-woke attention during Pride Month in 2022 in a short-lived hit by conservatives. This story isn’t much different, as value (financial) was found in values (listening to diverse stakeholders).
The Quencher, which runs counter to the traditional consumer of Stanley but not necessarily its purpose (warms/warm and colds/cold), has helped the company expand into new colors and styles. It is the foundational shift by which the company’s insane revenue has grown over the past few years:
2019: $73M
2020: $94M
2021: $194M
2022: $402M
2023 (projected): $750M
You can see the evolution in its products during the same period across its CSR reports. The imagery in 2019 and 2020 primarily focused on the broad product line, with the green hammertone mug making two appearances in the 2020 report. By 2021, the Quencher mug was included in more images than the traditional imagery. The CSR reports aren’t necessarily super informative but focus primarily on a responsible environmental transition and employees. This reveals another interesting observation about ESG, showing how stakeholder attention and a focus on core products rather than disclosure are core to the business.
This statement from its 2022 CSR report is the first mention of stakeholders:
We build deep relationships with our customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders to drive more meaningful outcomes.
If nothing else is apparent from The Buy Guide’s story, it should be that Stanley develops relationships to drive meaningful outcomes. This was also recognized in an interview with Stanley’s President from late 2021, where he stated:
Through 2021, our influencer marketing really helped introduce us to new consumers, mostly a younger female audience, in better ways. That’s been a great evolution for us.
I can’t think of a better example of that than our Adventure Quencher [travel tumbler]. New colors certainly are one of the things that [our new customer] has migrated to.
I can’t think of a better example, either.
Now, as with anything viral, the question is whether or not this momentum is sustainable. Some predict that since the Quencher was the top searched product on Amazon this holiday season, it is only going downhill. Revenues can very much be a finicky thing, especially with stellar growth over a short-term period.
Of course, the latest collaboration with Starbucks, Stanley, and Target has paid off in the near term.
From an ESG perspective, the question for Stanley isn’t how they keep doubling revenue but how they use what they’ve learned about this new market to build sustainable revenue growth. This is core ESG, and we’ll only have to wait to see if the past five years are sustainable or not. It’s a bit of a shame that the success of the mug is overshadowing the role ESG (which was in play but not named) and stakeholder capitalism played in its meteoric rise.
The word ‘stakeholders’ often connotates a negative regarding activist pressures that drive accountability. Sometimes, you need to listen to diverse voices to find the opportunity. Ultimately, Stanley’s story is an example of an ESG success, but not one easily attacked, as the company is not going after a systemic issue but capturing a material opportunity. This is an easy miss in the progression of the woke wars, but don’t let it pass you by!