What do hockey players and suburban women desire equally? The Stanley Cup.
Seen in boutique fitness studios and college dorm rooms, the Stanley cup is a large and expensive tumbler that has amassed an impressive cult following. Customers have camped outside of Target in recent weeks to get the limited-edition Valentine’s Day Stanley, and one man jumped over a Starbucks counter to steal a box of limited-edition Starbucks-branded cups (he did not make it far; a gaggle of women tackled him).
Women often obsess over products. A couple of recent examples are North Face backpacks and Lululemon bike shorts, products that aren’t the best bang for your buck but are trendy enough to have become necessities. Zach Kessel saw many Stanleys at his gym yesterday. I spotted three in the neighboring offices at National Review‘s WeWork this morning, and at my Pilates studio (I know, I know), I feel like a leper carrying a baby-blue HydroFlask instead of a pastel Stanley.
HydroFlask and Yeti are popular brands; it seemed they would maintain dominance over the tumbler market at least for the foreseeable future. Stanley found a way to break through: Women.
William Stanley Jr. invented the brand’s vacuum bottle in 1913. Originally sold to camping enthusiasts and outdoorsmen, Stanley revolutionized its advertisement strategy in 2019 to cater to women with the Stanley Quencher. The Quencher has a handle and, best of all, a tapered bottom that allows it to fit perfectly into a cup holder. The cup now also comes in cute colors, whereas Stanley’s most popular tumblers used to be green (yuck!). Stanley boosted its annual sales revenue from $73 million in 2019 to $750 million in 2023.
Blogger “Carly the Prepster” had a “collection of Yeti tumblers” but had to see what Stanley’s social-media hype was all about. She “couldn’t wait for a restock” of the sold-out cup so she “bought [her] first Stanley cup on a resale site for over 100% markup . . . on Poshmark for $104 with shipping.” Carly loved the cup for many reasons: “The straw is brilliantly wide so you can drink a lot more water with every sip,” the handle feels like a “security blanket,” the cup is dishwasher-safe, one can “switch the side the straw is on,” and “it fits into the handlebars of the Peloton,” which is a huge win “if you’re a big Peloton girly.” The cups are leak-prone, heavy, and cost $45–55 (unless you buy one off the tumbler black market, in which case the cups can cost hundreds), tradeoffs Carly says are ultimately worth it.
If you’ve seen Parks and Recreation, Stanley’s success mirrored that of Ron when lifestyle guru Annabel Porter advertised his handmade chairs on her blog, Bloosh. Stanley sold the cup to a bunch of Utah moms — this generation’s new-and-improved soccer mom, essentially a Lululemon-loving suburban woman who wears wide-brimmed hats and inserts unnecessary vowels into her children’s names — who operated a blog, the Buy Guide. The cups sold out in days.
Suburban women, keep in mind, may be the deciding demographic in the next presidential election. Candidates, take note of this trend.