Few brands have felt the impact of influencer virality as much as Stanley.
Since its invention in 1913, the brand’s vacuum-sealed ‘Quencher’ water bottle has been a mainstay in the rucksacks of outdoor enthusiasts thanks to its hardiness and durability. Over 100 years later, “Stanley cups” took the world by storm.
An unexpected wave of popularity introduced the brand to a much wider global audience as social influencers slowly made the Quencher a must-have accessory.
Mastering new channels and appealing to fresh audiences required support from a completely different partner type. Thankfully, affiliate marketing provided a cost-effective way to engage them.
The challenge
Stanley had no issues with building hype around its brand and product. Its challenge was to close the gap between audiences who had heard about the Quencher and those who had bought one for themselves.
That line of thought led the brand to reconsider its approach in Brazil, where 44% of online consumers have bought products after seeing them promoted by influencers – the biggest proportion worldwide.
Stanley wanted to adopt a smart, social-first approach in Brazil to convert more of the millions of users who had heard about the fabled Quencher. Black Friday was earmarked as a perfect time to make inroads with social commerce and gauge the response.
Acquisition was a core goal over Black Friday, especially in Brazil, where Stanley wanted 50% of its sales to come from new customers. Awin was tasked with contributing 15% of this volume through affiliate partnerships.
After deciding that social affiliates should spearhead its Black Friday campaign, Stanley targeted a 50% increase in revenue from these partners with the additional requirement of building close relationships with key creators to sustain its impact.
Finally, though the previous Black Friday had been a success, Stanley’s newfound popularity created ample room for improvement. The brand targeted a 50% increase in year-on-year revenue from the event while keeping ROI at a flat 15:1 with no increase in costs.
The solution
Awin started by looking into high-performing social affiliates in Brazil over the previous Black Friday. The team cross-referenced Stanley’s brand and goals with countless posts to gauge the correct approach. It then assessed publishers across Awin’s platform, finding three solid matches with a combined 800k followers across Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram, and X.
Recruiting three on-brand, high-performing publishers to push a trending product was a good start, but Awin maximised its impact by taking care of the finer details.
Effective recruitment
Stanley authorised a 3% commission increase to help Awin land its number-one targets. Nevertheless, the team still had to fulfil extra requirements to secure full buy-in.
Awin’s study of the Brazilian market found that social affiliates treat offers like a ‘scoop’ to report to their followers. The quicker they get them out to their audience, the more sales they drive.
Awin pledged to give key social affiliates several compelling offers on multiple product lines, some exclusive to Black Friday. The team also shared these promotions within a robust communication plan that kept the affiliates ahead of other creators.
Communication and planning
With Stanley anticipating its busiest Black Friday ever, the team realised the importance of transparency in campaign planning and communications.
The team’s comprehensive promotional calendar helped the influencers factor Stanley into their plans. For ongoing communication with primary social partners, the team created WhatsApp groups – a masterstroke for promoting discussion, backed by research showing Brazil as one of the platform’s biggest global markets.
Awin’s client team was quick to deliver personalised updates while instantly responding to the creators' questions. The ease of communication fostered close relationships between Awin and its social partners - a key requirement for the brand - which helped Stanley turn its Black Friday campaign into a truly collective effort.
Granular reporting
Once the campaign was live, Awin’s product-level reporting enabled the team to direct demand to the right areas.
These insights were factored into daily communications with affiliates to highlight products that were close to selling out. When stocks ran low, the partners used the information to instil a sense of urgency and drive even better results. When they finally ran out, the agility of Awin’s communications made it easy to shift the focus to other lines.
The results
Through considered campaign planning, recruitment, and communication, Awin maximised the impact of a tight promotional window, harnessing the buzz around the Quencher to produce a series of positive outcomes. Results included:
- Awin delivering 20% of all new customers (vs target of 15%)
- Revenue from social affiliates growing 105% (vs target of 50%)
- Revenue over Black Friday increasing 78% year on year (vs target of 50%)
Stanley also reported numerous wins for social affiliates outside of its core goals. Sales and traffic for the partner type increased 101% and 201% respectively as social affiliates contributed 66% of Stanley’s total programme revenue over November, marking a 150% increase on the previous month.
These goals were achieved while keeping Stanley’s ROI at 15:1 and without increasing costs.
To make things sweeter, Awin and Stanley went on to claim Best Affiliate & Partnership Strategy (LATAM) at the 2024 Global Performance Marketing Awards for their social commerce success story.
Looking at the bigger picture, Stanley unearthed a new way of distributing promotions, leading to the diversification of its audience, partners, and marketing strategy. This development could not have aligned more perfectly with a new era for the Quencher.
