Forget Yeti: This Classic American Brand Is the New “IT” Girl of Water Bottles

Forget Yeti (YETI): America’s new favorite tumbler is a vintage brand that’s undergoing a renaissance in the social media age.

The new “IT” girl of water bottles is Stanley.

This classic American brand has been making high-quality thermoses, tumblers, and bottles since — get this — 1913. But it wasn’t until 2022, when Stanley’s 40-ounce tumbler went viral on TikTok, that this 100-year-old brand started flying off the shelves.

Stanley’s now-famous stainless steel tumblers come in a variety of beautiful pastel shades like Rose Quartz, Eucalyptus, and Lavender, and go for a relatively reasonable $40.00 — if you can find one.

But good luck… Because these things are so popular that they’re often out of stock within just 24 hours of going online.

Folks are so desperate to get their hands on one that some are willing to pay double the retail price, or more.

This tweet from TD Ameritrade Network’s Jenny Horne sums up this trending product perfectly:

We’ve been tracking this craze since late last year, even putting out a warning in November that Stanley was starting to steal some of YETI’s thunder.

And today, we have a key update that you’ll want to see — because it could spell trouble for YETI…

YETI vs. Stanley: Who You Got?

We dove into Global Web Traffic data for the two brands to see how Stanley stacks up against the reigning drinkware champion, Yeti. And frankly, the story tells itself:

The graph above shows the number of visits to each company’s website, and the opposing trends are undeniable.

While Yeti does have more overall web traffic, its number of visits are declining -2% year-over-year (YoY).

On the other hand, Stanley’s website visits are rapidly inclining by a whopping +233% YoY.
Google Trends data also serves as a mirror when comparing each brand’s tumbler cups:

Just look at that divergence. Searches for “stanley tumblers” outpaced searches for “yeti tumblers” in October, and the gap has only widened since.

We cross-checked LikeFolio Purchase Intent (PI) data to see where folks are actually spending their money — and the results mirror the web traffic surge, meaning these visits are likely translating to real dollars spent.

Is Stanley More Than Just a Cup?

As history suggests time and time again, trends eventually fade but brand awareness lingers in consumer minds.

Knowing that, we took a closer look at how consumers are interacting with Stanley to see if this is more than just a trend.

Using LikeFolio’s extensive database of consumer insights, we compared two key analytics to gain insight: Stanley’s Website Visits, which tell us how many people are visiting stanley1913.com, and Total Page Views, which tells us how many other pages consumers click through when they visit.

Remember how I mentioned earlier that website visits are up +233% YoY for Stanley? Well, page views are up an incredible +400%.

When page view growth seriously outperforms total website visits, that tells us customers are exploring beyond just one single “trendy” product.

They might head to stanley1913.com to find the 40-ounce tumbler, but once they’re there, they want to see what else Stanley offers.

The Stanley tumbler craze is a prime example of just how powerfully social media trends can translate to a company’s bottom line.

Looking at the cup half full, we wouldn’t be surprised if the new consumer preference toward Stanley is here to stay.