Case 41 — Stanley · Terence Reilly · 2020

Three bloggers have proved there is a customer you never marketed to. Do you hand them your least successful product as a wholesale partner and let them tell you what colour to make it?

You have just arrived as president of a 107-year-old drinkware brand that did $73 million last year selling green steel thermoses to men who work outdoors. One product, a 40-ounce tumbler called the Quencher, was scheduled for discontinuation in 2019 because it did not sell. Then three women who run a shopping blog for a largely female readership bought 5,000 of them at wholesale on their own account and sold out in days. They are now asking for a formal relationship — they want to keep buying inventory to sell to their readers, and they want the cup made in colours their audience would actually choose. Your sales team sees a blog. Your retail partners have never asked for a tumbler in blush pink.

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