On Dec. 31, 2023, Target announced the release of a new limited edition Stanley Cup in collaboration with Starbucks as part of their “Galentine’s Collection.” A description of these popular tumblers on Target’s official website reads, “Made to gift, a card label is included while a tiny heart adorns the Stanley logo. With a pop of pink and the perfect shade of red, let’s celebrate your gal pal by spreading the love.” These may not sound like words that come right before disaster, but the upcoming madness upon the release of this product proved otherwise.
The highly anticipated release came with long lines of people waking up hours before the store even opened to acquire the limited edition cup (coming in Cosmic Pink and Target Red! How exciting.) Some even broke out the foldable cots and lawn chairs, and camped out overnight even in inclement rain and wind– in the case of a few eager shoppers from Bakersfield, California.
This was something that occurred in many Target locations, with fights breaking out even as they were standing in line– and in one case escalating to the point of a store manager having to come out to resolve the argument. If the situation was already so heated outside, one can surmise how much worse it progressed once the doors actually opened, with groups of people making a mad dash to the Stanley Cup display, causing a full on stampede.
Once there, customers took as many cups as they could get their hands on, first come first serve, with people literally pouncing on the displays according to videos shared to social media. And then those lucky few rang up their purchases and left peacefully, right? Well…not quite. If someone spent their whole night standing outside the store, cold and tired, they might take issue with not getting what they came there for. In fact, many did take issue! And that’s when the fights started breaking out.
In one viral video from TikToker @4rayah.sunshine, a man is shown jumping over the counter to steal some Stanley cups but as he tries to make his escape, he is tackled to the ground by the other customers, one of which who was calling for someone to, “Get him! Yeah, get him!”According to the user, police had to be called to the scene. The mad rush for the Stanley cups left many Target stores sold out in only minutes. The website was also sold out in record time, with people buying not just one or two, but dozens at a time. As with any limited edition product, there is low supply and high demand, which makes it very difficult to acquire first-hand. In turn, this makes the market ripe for resellers to jack up the price as much as they want to.
The Stanley Cups retail for about $45 to $55 in stores, but on resale sights they go for as much as 100 – 200% more. One notable eBay listing sells the Valentine’s Day limited Cosmic Pink cup for $329. What’s more, people are actually willing to shell out this much money for a simple beverage container and likely will. What could possibly be behind this strange phenomenon, this craze that seems so random yet so prevalent?
The Stanley Cup does have its fair share of useful features, with a double walled vacuum insulation that can keep drinks hot or cold for an impressive amount of time, even if it was left in your burning car, as shown in one viral video. In addition, they are made in a wide range of aesthetically pleasing colors and have a tapered bottom that can hold a lot of liquid, yet still fit in your car’s cup holder (even if it has just caught on fire according to a trending TikTok.)
Stanley cups have experienced a sharp spike in popularity in the last few years as they gained traction on TikTok among ‘water-tok’ and are seen as essential for a complete ‘clean girl’ aesthetic (two niches on TikTok.) Funny enough though, the original Stanley cups were marketed to men. The first Stanley cup was made in 1913, when William Stanley Jr. made the first vacuum insulated bottles and thermoses, designed for hiking and camping purposes. It made appearances in dozens of movies and television shows, and even flew with B-17 pilots in World War II.
Cut to 111 years later, camping is still associated with the brand, just not quite how the creator envisioned it. This product flew under the radar for most of its existence, but in 2017, a blog that recommends consumers with products that make their life ‘just a little bit better’, the Buy Guide, featured Stanley’s 40-ounce Quencher cup in an Instagram post. This was a stroke of luck for the brand, but it would not be fully capitalized on until 2020, when Terence Reilly, a former executive at the footwear company, Crocs, became the new president of the company. He launched a total rebrand. Up until then, Stanley was primarily known for being a go-to product for older men. Reilly explained that his goal was to revamp Stanley’s image and appeal to a market that Stanley had been neglecting so far: women. “I heard lots of stories that ‘Oh, my dad had a Stanley. My grandpa had a Stanley,'” he recalled. “If we could turn those stories from dad and grandpa to my mom, my sister, me, then we would be on to something.”
Up until now, the Stanley cup was all about function over fashion, fitting in perfectly with your sleeping bag and Swiss Army knife, but Reilly decided to incorporate brighter color palettes and straws to turn it into more of an accessory, something that looked good to carry around. The next step was to advertise these new changes, and to do this, he went back to the one that had first taken notice of the Stanley Cup, the Buy Guide. The Buy Guide was already a fan of the Stanley cup years as mentioned before, so when Reilly flagged them as a potential partner for social media posts, he knew it was an authentic liking for the product. At the time, the Hydro Flask, a similar stainless steel, vacuum insulated water bottle, was at its all time peak in popularity. Ashlee Leseur, a Buy Guide founder, says that she expected Stanley cups to be the “grown-up” version of the Hydro Flask. “Just as every girl had a Hydro Flask to match their backpack, her mom would have her own color of the Quencher,” she said. Stanley cups soon attracted a large fanbase, not only among grown-ups and parents, but among teenagers as well, as the Hydro Flask craze had hit its peak and was dying down.
It started to go viral on TikTok as influencers showed off cabinets full of Stanley cups neatly lined up, sorted according to color in a way that made your brain tingle happily. Suddenly, people had a new group to fit into, a new form of self expression, a new status symbol to make people feel better about themselves, a new way to categorize people, and even a new way to make money. When thinking about it like that, who wouldn’t be tempted to shell out a few hundred bucks or get out their foldable cots? Of course people would buy it. It’s not like this sort of fame is unprecedented either. To some people, having dozens of Stanley cups is equivalent to having a collection of luxury sneakers, or spending thousands of dollars for a seat at a Taylor Swift concert. Sure, you might have to cut costs for the next six months, survive off of dollar store ramen, but wow, it feels good to be a part of it all nonetheless. And all this is even before Starbucks entered the equation. Starbucks is another company known for having a cup-focused, very persistent fanbase, with people getting up at the wee hours and driving to twenty different Starbucks locations just for a chance to score the limited edition Starbucks tumblers.
Everyone wants to jump in on the latest trend so that they feel up to par with those they see around them, whether it be influencers, friends, family, or rivals. Amir notes, “Water bottles have become a category that symbolizes someone’s identity and status.” Companies add to this by making sure to raise demand while keeping their customers never fully satisfied, and if you miss this latest Stanley x Starbucks collaboration, it only pushes you to do whatever it takes to get the next one, whether it be getting up a few hours earlier, getting trampled, or even body slamming someone who tried to grab and go.
In order to alleviate these issues, some Targets have implemented a ticket system where only people who are in line who receive a ticket may get a Stanley cup. Additionally, they have also set a limit to how many Stanley Cups someone can buy (though some Tiktoks say that this rule is easier said than enforced). Some locations even have cops stationed nearby.
However, these measures may have come too late as the controversy of recent events have put Target employees themselves under scrutiny. Complaints come from Target’s own managers, who cracked down on their own employees with surprising intensity. Catherine Carter, a Target employee from a Miami location, had been working at Target for 19 years, and noted that “she’d never been written up, never called out, never been late”. On January 3rd, during her break, she stopped by her store’s Starbucks and bought one of the limited edition Starbucks x Stanley cups for $49.95. A harmless purchase, or so she thought, until the following week, it cost her her job. According to Business Insider, seven workers spoke out and told them that those higher on the store hierarchy, including HR and asset protection reps, fired them on the grounds of breaching a company policy that prohibits employees from using their position as an employee to gain an unfair advantage over guests, especially when concerning high demand or limited stock items.
Essentially, a product must be out on the floor for at least fifteen minutes before an employee is able to purchase it, and even then it must not be bought during their shift. Like many companies in the United States, Target is an at-will employer, meaning that they have the authority to terminate an employee at any time for any reason, and even for no reason at all. Was this one of those cases? Or was it simply Target enforcing a rule that does seem reasonable so that they can maintain trust with their customers?
Some workers were fired because the cups simply had not been stationed at their rightful place before they bought it, and one team lead from Maryland even said that she did not even buy a cup, but was fired anyway for allowing her coworker to purchase one before the official release date. “I don’t need another Starbucks cup. I don’t need a Stanley. I don’t need any of this,” the employee said. Catherine Carter concluded by saying, “I just don’t think they’re doing right. I mean, for a cup? Come on, a cup?”
Sources:
https://www.theguardian.com
https://www.nytimes.com
https://www.cnn.com
https://www.nbcsandiego.com
https://www.businessinsider.com
https://www.dailydot.com
https://www.inc.com
