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The Cult of Big Water Bottle and the Design of Hydration · Design Darlings

• Allie Miller: Hello, darling. Ro Rich: Hello, darling. I'm Robin Richardson. Allie Miller: And I'm Allie Miller ⁓ to Design Darlings, the podcast where we obsess over what makes, breaks, or bakes a good design in the real world. ⁓ very excited about this week's episode. This week, settle in with your big metal tumblers because we know you have one ⁓ 50 ⁓ nothing says individualism like I say hydrated, but in many colors, sizes, stickers, and styles. So whether you're a Yeti Die Hard or a Stanley Stan, we are unpacking the cult of cups today on the pod. We're also very excited because we have a special guest with us, a true lover of cups. She is a woman in STEM, truly. She's a product manager and design strategist. She is a dancer and lover of classical Indian dance. And she's very educated. She has three degrees that make this topic specifically picked for her. She has a master's of design strategy and research from Institute of Design, an MBA from Illinois Tech Stewart School of Business, and a bachelor's in chemical engineering from the University of Minnesota. Go gophers. And she also loves the bachelor and secret lives of Mormon wives. Will that come up in this pod? potentially. she's a fan of our podcast, which we love. So welcome to the pod, Vidya Montreala. ⁓ Ro Rich: Hello! darling! Vidya: ⁓ darlings, so excited to be here and thanks for the lovely introduction. Ro Rich: We're so excited to have you, we're fangirling you because we've known you for a long time ⁓ and you were talking about this topic with us and we thought what a perfect cultural touchstone because is nearly summer, which means we're moving from hot beverage season into cold beverage season. ⁓ which means Tumblers are out and about, dust them off kids. And you became somehow an anthropologist on Big Cups in grad school. Tell us about that. Vidya: Yeah, I had moved Chicago, I was doing these two degrees because, you know, I love pain I had gotten ⁓ relatively similar assignment from at least three classes, ⁓ So in my business program, I was being asked to talk about the of, ⁓ and like a popular technology that has evolved over the years. ⁓ And then in my communication design class, I was being asked to develop a communication product that compared two similar type objects. And then in my product design, or rather some people know it as industrial design class, we were being asked do our first object study where we learn about like different kinds of shapes and the ergonomics how to draw and how to understand affordances and stuff like that. And here I was trying to accomplish projects in multiple classes, doing two degrees in a new city, and I did not want to do extra work. So I decided I was going to pick one topic and just try to apply these three different lenses across. And so I had to come up with something interesting, couldn't think of an idea. then ⁓ day in my home that I shared with four other roommates, I opened the cabinet. It was probably November so. ⁓ I was looking for my thermos to take some coffee with me to school and I found no less than 20 thermoses in this cabinet for five of us. ⁓ kind of where the lightning struck and I was like, this is going to be my project because why in the world do five people own 20 different types of water bottles slash coffee holders? ⁓ Ro Rich: And they were all metal cups. So you open the cabinet and you see 20, which people call them tumblers. Sometimes they're thermoses. If you can screw the lid on it. Like I feel like lid design is a whole, that's a whole separate conversation. But yes. So here's all these metal double insulated cups. tell me, me, say to me, tell me the proper way to describe this double-walled metal and what Vidya: All metal cups. Allie Miller: Yeah. Mmm. Say more. Ro Rich: where did it come from and like, because I know you studied like the actual design of this. So explain to us the design of the double walled cup and where it came from and how it's taken over our cabinets. Vidya: Absolutely. So engineer in me was really excited about this topic because it is an engineered object. The technical term is vacuum insulated flask, ⁓ which an interesting way to refer to something you typically use to drink coffee or water. I flask has other connotations, which I ⁓ in my ⁓ very much as well. But ⁓ Also in science ⁓ laboratory sort of activities, ⁓ also see a lot of flasks. Like you have your graduated flasks, you have different types of glassware that you use for science experiments. And important because the origin of this particular type ⁓ of holder was in science and chemistry. Use case at that time, there was this guy, think he was Scottish, I think his name was James, Sir James Dewar. ⁓ was to find a way to keep ⁓ gases a liquid state. So gases are not liquid by nature. You have to cool them down ⁓ like lot for them to turn into liquids. ⁓ And were no ⁓ sort containers that could hold gases that were that cold. And so was trying to find ways ⁓ to. ⁓ keep gases cold so that he could do experiments. ⁓ Every type of material has different heat transfer properties. I won't get into that too much, but the sort of main point of it is that you're always losing heat and or gaining heat. ⁓ how do you kind of limit that? ⁓ Dewar's idea was to take ⁓ two pieces of glass, like two glass cups or two glass flasks and put them inside of each other. And then if material transfers heat, then the lack of material might prevent heat transfer. So he tried to basically evacuate the air from in between the two walls order to minimize the heat transfer. So this was kind of the success of losing ⁓ heat gaining heat and keeping these gases really. So that's kind of the history, the science of it is a vacuum eliminates heat transfer or majorly reduces heat transfer. You can never really eliminate it. Ro Rich: Wow. Allie Miller: You know, that makes lot of sense because actually when you were saying the sort of the double pane, like maybe think of double pane windows and even double pane like if in modern office buildings there's a lot of like double pane glass dividers and they basically create a vacuum seal in between two things so it's not only stopping the transmission of temperature but it's also a sound dampener so just the idea that you're literally a vacuum space that sort of stops the movement of heat matter material between those two. those two surface areas. anyways, nerd alert, we love thermodynamics. question, I don't know, ⁓ if you know this, if this is fact or fiction, but in ⁓ at the patent that Dewar had, the information I found was like, yes, eventually we get to the thermos, but it actually started more for like domestic purposes because people didn't have refrigerators or coolers or freezers, right? A lot of people didn't have those in their houses. So it actually started as a way just to keep food safe. Vidya: So the patent history of this is actually quite interesting as well. And it's important. I did listen to one of, think your third episode about just like the history of all technology and all the inflection points. This is very much that second industrial revolution thing, right? Everyone's trying to patent and secure their IP. I think Dewar was a bit late, so he managed to figure out how to do this in a lab setting. Ro Rich: Ha ha ha. Allie Miller: Yes. Vidya: My understanding of the history is that one of his apprentices, one of his glass blowing apprentices actually went to Germany and joined a partnership and patented this glass vacuum technology. they started Thermos company and Dewar I think tried to sue, but he didn't get to the patent fast enough. So he wasn't able to finally hold that patent. So ⁓ little intrigue and business. What is that business intrigue going on there? Allie Miller: Yeah, the growth. Ro Rich: Business escondelo, escondelo. That's a very early business scandal. Did he, ⁓ this only done with glass or what point was metal created as this vacuum style flask or was that what his apprentice absconded with? Vidya: Yeah. Exactly. So. That is, so I don't, will have to go look up when exactly they introduced the metal piece to it. So the thermos duo ⁓ this double walled insulation, but it wasn't, ⁓ was specific to glass insulation. So what they did was ⁓ inside wall was glass and the outside wall was metal. ⁓ then they evacuated the air from in between to create the vacuum. And that was sort of the first patented vacuum sealed flask. But can imagine that that could lead to some problems, right? Because if there's enough pressure on glass, it's going to shatter or implode or do stuff. becomes pretty unsafe. So how do you solve that problem? That is the origin story of another big player in this, which is the Stanley. ⁓ the Stanley ⁓ Cup was a physicist ⁓ America ⁓ he invented the double walled metal. Ro Rich: you. Vidya: insulation and got the patent for that. ⁓ Fun fact in terms of more business intrigue is the Stanley of Stanley Cup was actually the father of the Stanley that many folks might know as the financial Stanley of the Morgan Stanley duo. So ⁓ I learned from another that was kind of talking about this, but it's just like fun fact. ⁓ Ro Rich: Wow. Wow. Interesting. Okay, so we've got Stanley that everyone drinks out of has a really cool origin story. And also Thermos has a cool origin story because that was the scandal of the stolen vacuum from Scotland to Germany. Okay. ⁓ Allie Miller: But I think also too, know, surprise surprise, Europe was not the first country to discover insulation. Talk to us about the international, the multicultural kind of, I don't want to use the word discovery, but talk to us about like innovation in global Europeans were not the first people to figure this out. Ro Rich: Yes. Vidya: No, and sad thing about history is that often a lot of things that were not sort of discovered quote unquote by the dominant culture were not as well documented. However, we do know ⁓ few things. We that people across cultures, across the world have been sort of using this concept of double-walled insulation for a long time. I believe ⁓ There have been instances in Asia, in Africa, in South America, but also, again, medieval Europe around this idea of like thermal, I can't remember the exact technical term, but it's like a thermal cooking vessel. So people would put their kind of earthen ⁓ ⁓ holes in the ground or into bigger earthen pots and fill the gap ⁓ like straw or dirt. ⁓ or clay to sort of minimize the heat transfer and that allowed your food to stay warm when it was cooking over time. I think this idea of how to keep things hot or keep things cold is older and than the idea of like a vacuum insulated flask, right? People have been experimenting with materials around the world. ⁓ One of interesting things is you see in the Neolithic age, like some of the first drinkware came from Japan and China. People were using like bone and wood and stuff to carry water, to carry liquid. The first like portable water bottles were pretty prevalent in like the Roman Empire as like they were trying to conquer everything. People needed to stay hydrated on the road. they, ⁓ yeah. Allie Miller: sorry, I just had this vision pop into my head of little Spartans just walking down the road like, hey, hey Joe, can I have some water? And the Spartan's like, yeah, here you go. Like, Nicolas, here's your water bottle. ⁓ my gosh, thank you so much. And they're just like going their little marches, passing their water bottles around. ⁓ Vidya: Exactly. Exactly. Ro Rich: Are they the OG Stanley girlies with their cups? their, I mean, they use, you know, like pig bladders and things like that. So if you had like a wine skin, you can use it for water as well. I wonder, did you know, sure, we had metal, right? We'd already gone through the Bronze Age. So you could have had a really cool bronze cup. ⁓ Vidya: There's a lot of evidence in ancient Egypt of the gold and bronze cups and royalty and stuff like that. The problem with those is that is great heat insulator, so it can't touch it if it has hot liquid in it. That's interesting. It's interesting to see that the technology has come full circle and now the most prevalent insulated cups are metal, but back then you couldn't ⁓ hold if it was hot. ⁓ Ro Rich: Definitely. And it's all thanks to that little bit of air in the middle of metal. Wow. That's very cool. Vidya: Yeah. But an interesting thing to kind of go back to that global piece, and pottery, great insulator. Pottery were discovered across the world around the same time. So you see evidence of them in like South America around the same time as you see them in China and Africa and like that. So it's interesting to of see that the material exploration was happening all over the place. ⁓ Ro Rich: right even though people maybe they weren't visiting each other and there was there was no internet to like hey girl we've got this pottery wheel popping and we're making these awesome cups Allie Miller: Hey, I see that you posted your pottery wheel on the grid. Send me your tips. Ro Rich: All right, so we got question one. What is this metal cup made out of? We know it's double walled, it's insulated. There's a fancy, there's a fancy industrial process to do that now that we have perfected, hence the proliferation of cups. So we've got all of these cups. when Stanley hit modern culture we know it? Vidya: Yeah, it's kind of a blinding history. There's like a lot of different things going on, right? Thermos was invented in Germany, but I believe there was some kind of American kind of trades person who went and saw it and was like, obviously this is something we should manufacture in America. So Just a couple of dates here, first of all. Thermos itself as a brand came out in like 1902 or 1904, something like that. And Stanley was 1913. It's actually in their brand today. Stanley 1913 is the name of the company or something like that. But I think those dates are important, right? Because World War I started right after that. And you start to see a lot of military applications of this technology. Ro Rich: Mmm. Yeah. Vidya: both in terms of drinking, drinking water and drinking hot liquids, but also in terms of transporting things. it becomes like the key technology you use to transport like medicine and vaccines and stuff like that, because it can keep stuff cold for a really long time. And to Ali's point, prior to mechanized refrigeration, this was the way that you did it. There was something I read, which is that in, World War II, actually became like a government commissioned manufacturer ⁓ military grade, this of stuff, vacuum insulated technology. So I think that the government kind of stepping in and sort of promoting thermos to this high civilian manufacturing status really helped proliferate. ⁓ Ro Rich: Wow. Vidya: both that brand, also thinking about like all the offshoots and the fact that Stan Lee was kind of coming in as well around the same time. It becomes really popular then because of the military applications and it's known for being very durable and stuff like that. I think that's a very kind of Eurocentric way of looking at it. I unfortunately couldn't find a lot of evidence around the world around this other than. World War I and World War II were in fact World Wars. So there was a lot of proliferation across cultures in terms of inventions and both but also all of these kind of supporting technologies. ⁓ So that was kind of maybe the first inflection point. Allie Miller: I wonder then it's like, you know, it- it was sort of this technology being brought to the masses, predominantly a male audience the context of war and industry, And then, like a lot of things post-World War II, you see these inventions or technologies proliferated in the consumer market, and then you see it distributed to very, ⁓ again, much predominantly male audiences, male workforces, you know, bringing it to the factory, bringing it to your blue collar construction job, where Vidya: Thank Allie Miller: you were on a job site for eight to ten hours, didn't have a refrigerator, you had to keep your lunch cold, your drinks cold, your water cold, all these sorts of things, your coffee hot. So wonder how much of just like the, traditionally when you think of Thurmus and Stanley, right, you think about like, you know, dudes on a job site working in the factories has a very sort of masculine connotation. I wonder how much that is related to becoming widespread in a more military context. Vidya: Ruck it. I think we see that with a lot of things, but I feel like rugged is the word that I think of. parents got me my first thermos when I moved to Boston. They're like, you're going to have to deal with winters ⁓ a way that you have never had to deal with winters by yourself in your life. So definitely think that that first kind of wave of popularity was due to that, that concept, that rugged, ⁓ like kind of. Allie Miller: Yeah. Vidya: Work hard. Eat hard. Ro Rich: Do you remember, speaking of, do you remember, I mean, this is plastic, so, but do you remember the old school lunch boxes from the 80s and 90s and they were a lovely square and they all came with matching thermoses and you could take the off and you could push the button and it was a little cup and so it was like the kid version of that thermos that you could pour coffee into, you had your juice or whatever you had in there and you could pour it in your cup or you could just drink right out of the thermos. because we were hot, we didn't have time for cups, we were gonna pour it in the lid. We were thirsty savages and so we had to drink from them directly. But I remember that pairing and going into the factory, yeah, you had the Thermos and you had the lunchbox and those things as a pair were such a really lovely combo. I bet Rosie the Riveter had a Thermos with her lunchbox. Allie Miller: Mmm, yeah. I had a Winnie the Pooh thermos. In lunchbox. Vidya: And that thermos. Ro Rich: with your lunch box. Vidya: a really good point because, that whole pairing ⁓ situation became really in the sixties. And there was like a specific partnership, Thermos and Mattel, ⁓ where they launched Barbie lunchbox and Barbie Thermos together. They still have those ⁓ on sale on but like, ⁓ I think you go on eBay and try to find like the original 1962 one, or I think there were a couple other years that were super iconic. Allie Miller: Mmm. Vidya: and they go for like many hundreds, possibly thousands of dollars. collectors love those things. Ro Rich: amazing. So we've been collecting thermoses for a long, for longer than we've had Yeti tumblers around is what I'm, what I'm hearing. which maybe, maybe ⁓ all can agree or fight me or turn this in a different direction. When did we become obsessed with big cups and the cult of water bottles? ⁓ my gosh. Is this an, is this a nostalgia thing from our childhood where we all need cups and thermoses with us? ⁓ So like our comfort object that we have a hydration with us. Allie Miller: Wow. you Ro Rich: all the time, you don't turn lunchbox Allie Miller: All of our therapists would say this is a relationship to our attachment styles. Ro Rich: ⁓ my gosh. What if it is? Vidya: OCEANAL SUPPORT WATER BOTTLE. I've heard that before. Allie Miller: The emotional support water bottle. ⁓ Ro Rich: That's why you can never have too many because you can't have what you're like, well, ⁓ have coffee in this room from yesterday and I didn't clean it out. So let me go to the cabinet and get my one that I'm feeling for today. You have to have it with you. yes, maybe it's emotional support object. ⁓ my gosh. ⁓ Allie Miller: It is. think to, you ⁓ to question, Robin, when did the cult of water bottle start? Is it start of workout culture? Right? Because when we see, it really wasn't until, you know, obviously we've always been fitness has always... Ro Rich: Mmm. Allie Miller: been a thing, right? Humans we've always needed to stay active and especially in the early 1900s we start to see the creation of like, gins and this sort of idea of body mind, da da da da da. In the 80s, that's when we really started to see, late 70s, early 80s, we started to see like mass consumerism of workout culture. You had workout tapes and, Jane Fonda's videos and athleisure wear, That's where we to see that in pop culture, media, movies, consumerism. Ro Rich: as herself. Allie Miller: is that when we start to become obsessed with water, Because you do functionally need water as you work out. then that was like an accessory. ⁓ American Girl doll is like 80s workout American Girl doll, she's going to have her little water bottle accessory. Vidya: The Meredith Blake Evian Allie Miller: Yes. Yeah. Vidya: ⁓ it's so interesting. I was doing some research for this and thinking about the fact that like hundreds of years ago, water was not like a commonly used thing to drink. think there were probably hygiene issues. were, they didn't always have ways to treat it or have it be clean. ⁓ people opted for things like alcohol or something that, you know, were less likely to make you sick. But when were really, really sick. You'd use water to as like a medicine, water to wash, to et cetera. And this kind of idea of moving from ⁓ as medicine to water as wellness, like generally, I like, I mean, feel like lot of experts started noticing it in that kind of ⁓ 80s to ⁓ 90s era. And where start to see a lot of these kind of. more commercialized, like the Nalgenes the thermoses that are water bottles instead of just thermoses that are for soup or something like that. ⁓ Allie Miller: Well, even, like, when did we start directive of drink six to eight glasses of water a day? ⁓ like, medical directive? Ro Rich: Amen. Hold on, I'll ask the internet. Hold on, please wait. Eight glasses of water a day stems from a misunderstood 1945 recommendation by the US Food and Nutrition Board, which suggested 2.5 liters of water daily, but included water found in food. The recommendation was further popularized in the 70s by nutritionists like Dr. Frederick Steyer, though it lacks strong scientific evidence. So, huh. And then there is the bottled water boom. Also in the nineties, frequently appearing in health magazines and wellness discussions. Okay. This is from McGill University. This is the Google AI view. And it's got, it's got a ⁓ smorgasbord of things that smashed together from McGill ⁓ from of course. ⁓ The official voice of the internet ⁓ that scooped into everything AI, which is so hilarious. And then Healthline. So, I mean, there, but we, we've heard Allie Miller: Of course. Vidya: You Ro Rich: There's science around this today talking about people drinking, you know, six to eight a day and people, people still argue about it. I don't, we don't need this. And then you've got our diet coke girlies who are like, ⁓ will drink eight diet cokes a day. No, I will not die. It will preserve me. So what, what you put in your cup actually it's between you and your cup. can't see in that cup. You can have a vodka soda in that cup. And I have no idea. But it's funny that the idea of carrying water as wellness in a bottle or a Nalgene, I remember Nalgenes in the early 2000s were a big, big part of ⁓ consumer culture and you could take it with you, but it wasn't insulated, so it would sweat. If you wanted ice in that Nalgene, babe, your Nalgene was sweating and that. wasn't cute if you were sticking it in your bag and all of your papers were getting wet. Remember when we used to carry around papers? ⁓ my gosh, that was so cute. What a time. And we'd carry it around and you would get your magazines or your papers wet and you definitely couldn't be doing that. in, let's this makes think of Yeti. So Yeti started as a cooler producer in 2006. Allie Miller: Mm-hmm. Ro Rich: But then it wasn't until 2014, which feels like yesterday in a way, that they started to create their tumblers and they did their 20 and 30 ounce tumblers. And if you're a tailgater, raising my hand here, went to a big state school and you did tailgating or you just lived in the South in a warmer climate, you wanted a cup that could keep your ice, keep everything cold and not sweat and not have that ice just melt immediately. And so I think that shift into outdoorsy-ness, outdoor culture and taking things with you on the go was part of that. so let's see, I'm gonna do some timeline hopping here. If that was 2014, think Hydroflask started in 2009 with their water bottles and what you were carrying and folks had stickers on them. It was a whole thing. That was it. So I guess we're seeing this shift. from wellness into you being an individual carrying your Nalgene or carrying your Hydroflask or carrying your thing that you could put stickers on that was you know what? It was kind of like the new steamer trunk because you would put your last stickers on it from where you had traveled or what shows you had been to. And so I'm going to say, this is my flag I'm planting in this timeline. became an individual marker of your Allie Miller: Mmm. Ro Rich: journey in your culture because you could put stickers on it from things that were relevant to you and places that you had been. Ladies, fight me or agree with me. Go. Allie Miller: Yeah, no, I the, I was also thinking about the sticker, if we just like take a quick sidestep, the sticker as a way to personalize ubiquitous objects. We're taking small, inexpensive objects. Ro Rich: My heart's aching. Allie Miller: that show hyper niche personality traits and putting them on everything. We're putting them on our laptops, we're putting them on our denim jackets, we're putting them on our cars, we're putting them on our water bottles. talking about Yeti, you talk about outdoorsy culture and there's this weird niche subculture that emerges of white collar corporate America tech workers or sort of corporate America millennials with their Patagonia vest taking outdoors, outdoors objects and then making them part of their culture to be like, hey, I sit in front of a computer for eight hours a day and just basically make PowerPoints and send emails, but I'm wearing a Patagonia vest and I have yeti cooler. Ro Rich: with Patagonia guys. Allie Miller: And maybe on the weekends I go hiking for a few hours with my friends. So I'm outdoorsy. the modern yuppie using outdoors gear to justify that they are outdoorsy when really they work a corporate nine to five. There's also like that happening. But then we have the VSCO girls ⁓ are covering their hydro flasks in all of their cute, know, Taylor Swift and live laugh love stickers and like save the whales, save the turtles. Ro Rich: here. That's fair. VSCO girls worth it. This also, does it, when did Instagram drop? I feel like this also coincides with like the Instagram timeline of people posting snapshots of their travels and their places that they went. And so you have this nice little square feed coming into you, into your, into your phone ⁓ that stuff. Allie Miller: think like what, 2010-ish is when Instagram started? Yeah. Yeah. Vidya: 2010-ish is the date in my head, 2009, really? Ro Rich: Hold on. Internet also know this. Hold on, I'll tell you what the Internet says. I'll give you the Google Night overview. Officially released October 6, 2010 for iOS devices. There you go. Vidya: You Allie Miller: Boom. Video, thoughts on stickers. Go. Vidya: stickers. I put them all over the thing. And I also think it's really funny because there's that kind of hyper individualism. But then you brought that point in about the white collar culture and the fact that like, we're all tech workers who work at a computer from nine to five. But isn't that like one of the top swag items for most like, big tech or big management consulting companies is give you a branded water bottle with like Deloitte or Accenture or Allie Miller: You haven't worked in corporate America if your cabinet at some point has not been filled with branded double insulated water bottles. Yeah. Yeah. Vidya: Exactly. Ro Rich: printed swag. I guess so when can you pinpoint when did you get your first I mean we all talked about we had 90s thermoses I wish I wish my parents had kept those lunchboxes with thermoses in them I got I'm trying to think of when I first got my Nalgene I still have it for you know kayaking days and stuff like that but I feel like it was early maybe 2007? I'm trying to remember when I got my Nalgene and then I'm I cannot remember when I first got a metal cup but this is the timeline of this too it's like I feel like now these are so ubiquitous everything just blurs together and and I haven't I haven't met anyone who's anti these cups but oh my gosh they've had they've had viral moments like Stanley had a revival and ⁓ a very, very cool moment in 2023. Vidya, I think you did, you were talking about this earlier, about the Stanley revival and them having their big cultural moment. Vidya: The Stanley revival is fascinating. ⁓ So reason I find it fascinating is because the Stanley revival happened, it happening while I was in grad school, although I was in grad school, so I wasn't necessarily paying attention too much. I was studying, obviously, but it like really took off in the pandemic, a little tiny history lesson around that. prior to, well, ⁓ Instagram was kind of coming up, influencers were getting kind of bigger. Of course, 2010, took a little bit for Instagram to go from like photo sharing to like influencer marketing. But at that same time, you can remember that there were a lot of these kind of consumer blogs, consumer reports, these long form product recommender ⁓ that were coming out. ⁓ so Stanley ⁓ obviously is like one of the granddaddies ⁓ this, of this industry, Stanley Thermos together. in 2017, there was this thing called Buy Guide, which is one of those kinds of consumer blogs, which ⁓ oddly it has like very strong ties to, you know, Mormon housewife culture, According to some that I've heard, Amanda Moll was talking about this on Plain English, which was a Ringer podcast. A of lifestyle trends that we see have really strong ties to LDS culture. I'm not entirely sure why other than it makes sense because ⁓ a of times the influencers in that culture tend to be quite wealthy. It tend to be ⁓ a of the sort of product ⁓ powers the hands of the housewife. Ro Rich: Really? ⁓ Vidya: they're looking for trends that kind of meet that lifestyle. ⁓ So the buy guide had a few founders and they all loved Stanley cups, specifically the Stanley like 40 ounce quencher, which was the one which had like a big top and a tiny bottom and you could stick it in a car cup holder and it had a handle which ⁓ makes it good for multitasking. And so they were trying to put this product on their blog and they couldn't because it kept getting like it had a low quantity and Stanley was going to discontinue it and they were sad about it and got so this is the tie back to both the secret lives of Mormon wise which we talked about and the Bachelor franchise which Ali and I are big fans of they sent like a Stanley Quentcher to Emily Maynard who was the bachelorette in 2009 she was Allie Miller: Yes. Bring it home. Vidya: known as being the first single mom bachelorette and she was like this, she had this reputation of being this like down south, like beautiful girl next door was a widow, had a tragic backstory, had a kid and she was perfect. She was like a perfect person for the bachelor franchise. Loved Emily. So Emily tried the Stanley Quencher. She thought it was awesome. And between the By God ladies and Emily Maynard, they were able to convince Stanley to Allie Miller: Bachelor, Bachelor Nation loved Emily. She could do no wrong. Yeah. Vidya: Restart the product and actually they were able to sell the cups directly to their audience that was just that was pre that was like in 2017 era ⁓ then the happened ⁓ it Were 2019 74 million dollars in revenue it grew ⁓ obviously a The pandemic happened and these lifestyle influencers were making this cup go viral and then a woman's car caught on caught on fire, quote unquote, and they found a Stanley cup in the car that was seemingly intact still ice inside. Ro Rich: Okay. was it still had ice inside that's in everyone she did a video about it and everyone freaked out I mean she didn't have a car anymore but her so her car caught fire there was still ice inside and everyone freaked out about the ice inside and this I think it was the CEO of Stanley bought her a new car Vidya: Exactly. And that was a huge moment, 2023. Ro Rich: Amazing. Allie Miller: Is there anything? Because you said seemingly. I feel like you put air quotes on a lot of that. Ro Rich: I'm like, girl, can't, that fire was real. You know what he'd make you fall. Vidya: Yeah. So the fire was probably real. think that much of this is dark marketing versus like something that kind of happened in the normal chaos and randomness of the world is debatable. lot of internet sleuths ⁓ tried recreate this fire and they're like, there's no way this cup would stay intact because like the plastic top would melt off, the straw would go away, like ⁓ the would melt. ⁓ how can it survive this car fire? Then there's like some people who saying that like maybe if the fire was not co-located with the cup, it could survive, but you can't just throw your cup into a fire and expect it to survive. And that was sort of the marketing that that was happening, ⁓ that your can survive a car fire regardless of the circumstances. There was actually a whole brand agency that worked with Stanley to come up with the response. ⁓ to this woman so it wasn't so organic, ⁓ Ro Rich: Really? was, that's so funny because I was reading an article the other day that was talking about how marketing has to meet the moment. And that if you have a slow response time, you miss the moment. And so that's funny that I feel working with an agency always takes like lots of, ⁓ you have to go through this approval and this approval and this approval. And it seemed like a viral moment because CEO just made that decision on the fly. And you're telling me that is not true. That my lore is not true. what? Allie Miller: conspiracy theories. That's not what I... ⁓ Ro Rich: This is a conspiracy theory. I am shooketh. What? Vidya: You can go to the agency's website and they actually put it up as a case study. I think the response time was quite fast, but it was not as organic as it might seem. But they were using the principles of viral marketing, right? it has to feel authentic. It has to come from someone who's just like you. ⁓ has to be a situation that you can see ⁓ see it affecting you. Allie Miller: Debunked. Boom. Vidya: So kinds of things, those were all the things that were met. I don't, ⁓ I that they did respond fast and it was necessarily in real time, but it was close to real time. But I do think it was on advice ⁓ of an ⁓ So, but mean, it made a huge moment, right? you ⁓ have the CEO of cup promised this woman a new car and more Stanley cups if she wants them. Ro Rich: Ow. Vidya: And it really felt catapulting the revenue. I think I saw 750 million in 2023. that's huge. Allie Miller: Yeah. Well, I think even if the response itself was more intentional than we were led to believe, we do still have to give credit to that CEO. So the CEO, Terris Riley, formerly chief marketing officer of Crocs. So this guy, ⁓ whether or not hired an agency, He understands viral marketing. item. So there's clearly intentionality and sort of intuitiveness in that, you know, the response. But I know, who knew? Yeah, I feel like it's like a, you in marketing school and like design school, you're like, oh yeah, it just happened. The CEO just said, great, we're giving you a car. And then you're like, oh wait, no, you actually. Ro Rich: I know, I'm still sh- fake, I'm still sh- Allie Miller: paid a lot of people a lot of money to help you come up with that idea. ⁓ right, right, right. Vidya: But they were responsive, right? Like the kudos is to your point, the fact that they were able to capitalize on it immediately as opposed to like developing and designing the whole thing. ⁓ Ro Rich: way. Yes, going through approvals and approvals and then the moment dies. Also, I feel like that was around the same time that there was also during the pandemic, there was this really this cool guy. took us. He took a video of himself skateboarding along a freeway, drinking cranberry ocean spray, and it was set to Fleetwood Mac. Yeah. And he was like lip-syncing and everyone's like, what is happening in this video? And apparently something had happened to his truck. And I think ocean spray Allie Miller: Yes. Thunder. Or dreams. Yeah. Yeah. Ro Rich: got him a truck and also gave him like like ocean spray for a year again and everyone there is all these heroes that happened during the brand heroes during the pandemic listen i'm here for it i need to have a i need to have a faux perilous moment where i get a bunch of yeti stuff i would not be opposed i don't need peril just kidding Allie Miller: Right. And so, you know, even going back a few years prior to 2023, right, 2020, we all know what happened in 2020. We're in our homes. We are figuring out what to do. You see this. massive rise in influencer culture, creator content, social media marketing. We're marketing to each other through our phones. that's also where you see this, you know, focusing again on Stanley, you see this massive rise. I their revenue in 2019 was 74 million compared to what used to be in 2023, 750 million. And there's this really interesting cultural shift around water bottles and Stanley specifically where the creator economy is predominantly women. The actual financial breadwinners are women who are producing content and making these brand deals. And so what you see is you see Stanleys and water bottles going from, white collar worker corporate America item or the construction worker to it's the girly economy, It becomes synonymous with the Pilates girl, the customization, all the viral fashion that was happening at that time. you're now instead of keeping up with the Joneses, you're keeping up with the girlies. And then also see the proliferation pastel Stanleys and even just accessories of Stanleys like how ⁓ bag charms really big right now. You have all these charms that you put on your Stanleys and you can put your air pod and you can put your road lip gloss and even I love seeing there's like these big silicone trays that you can put around your Stanleys that you can put Cheez-Its and your skinny pop popcorn and even I saw an attachment that holds a Ben and Jerry's pint of ice cream so you can sit on the couch for your Vidya: terms. Ro Rich: Thank you. Allie Miller: night and you can drink your Dr. Pepper out of your Stanley and then you can eat your Ben & Jerry's ice cream. Like the Stanley becomes just like this sort of this sort of glue that just holds your entire identity together. ⁓ Ro Rich: It becomes the ultimate accessory in a way. It becomes your ultimate, you've got your snack. It's kind of, look babe, here's what happened. The lunchbox just ⁓ deconstructed and now it's your lunchbox on the go. So guess what? The lunchbox has come full circle. We deconstructed it just like any good chef would do. ⁓ this a peanut butter and jelly? No, it's a deconstructed jam, know, nut butter ⁓ Allie Miller: Yeah. Yeah. You Ro Rich: bread accoutrement like Allie Miller: It's the charcuterie board of water bottle. Ro Rich: Yes, and now it is to show. Can we board? Yes, what boo? It's your lunch box now and it's holding your snacks. It's holding your adult Lunchables setup station. ⁓ something that ⁓ mean, I don't think they make Labooboos for them yet. I could be wrong. Could you put your Laboobo on it? Probably so. But it ⁓ this there is a nostalgia and there is I'm I feel like we might have solved this. I know we just figured this out in the moment. There might be a There is a comfort in that, that you've got all your stuff and the world is crumbling around you, but you can drink your drink and eat your Cheez-Its and guess what? At least you can have control over that part of your day. And maybe, maybe that's what it is. That that's something that's really fun that you can, I mean, we're creatures of snacks and So we love where we can put all of this in one place. That's, that's my... Allie Miller: Yeah. And it's all gonna match. And so you're gonna have your pastel pink Stanley and your pastel pink little tray and your pink little road lip gloss, your pink AirPod case, and it's all gonna be aesthetic and cute and match. And then you're gonna have your little match to the side. And altitude just hydration. Everyone now has like three, three different types of beverage. It's just one of your five different beverages that you have at you at any given time. Ro Rich: I mean, in that way. Vidya: I water bottle for water, and I need my water bottle for coffee, and I need my water bottle for my sweet beverage that I like, that's not water or coffee. And I need my water bottle for my smoothie, right? Like, I have to go to the office now and have to bring all my water bottles with me. Ro Rich: You need them all. I mean, the office is the new factory. So guess what? We went from making things to the new machines or your computers. You're sitting there and you have to have your stuff for the day. ⁓ I think I don't see, you don't see guys carrying Stanley, the cups with the handles on them. Dudes carry water bottles and your girlies carry their straw cups with the Kutramal station. I'm going to call it that. This is the Kutramal station. Allie Miller: Yeah. The Coudraman station. Your deconstructed lunchbox. Love that. What? I'm asking a question. I'm trying to think when I'm at the gym, What water bottles are straight men carrying? How do they carry their hydration? If it's not Stanley's. Ro Rich: Kind of is. I think, well, I think Stanley maybe got overrun by the girlies. Although they make really cool black and green colors in Stanley. And I'm sure, I feel like dudes keep their water in the car. Guys are not prone to carrying things. Like if it doesn't fit in their pocket, they're not gonna just schlep it around with them. They're not schleppers. And so I think guys carry, I see guys in the gym with like a water, like a big water bottle. It also has to be big. It's not gonna be little and cute. Allie Miller: Mm. Yeah. Ro Rich: It's going to be, it's going to have heft. It's going to be worthy of 32 to 64 ounces. it's a screw top or it's a really quick, you flip the lid for a quick opening, but they're having those big straws with ⁓ pastels. It's happening. Vidya: I mean, that journalist Amanda Moll that I was talking about earlier, she was making some really good points like the handle is good if you have smaller hands and you can't like, affordances, affordances design work ⁓ we ⁓ have a design degree here, ⁓ but the affordances for small ⁓ less in a thermoflask big but. Ro Rich: full circle. Yeah. Vidya: I mean, think statistically, men have bigger hands, so maybe they can handle like the bigger heft and the more weight and that kind of stuff. So yeah. But like ⁓ Allie Miller: Big man need big water bottle. Ro Rich: That's right, and they're not bringing lip gloss with them. They don't need all those little, they don't need compartments for AirPods, because men have real pockets and they have big pockets. That's a whole nother episode about pockets in women's clothing and how you get big pockets or zero pockets or like faux pockets. Listen, no one's given a man faux pockets on their pants. That would be a Allie Miller: No. All right. Well, Vidya: Ron. Allie Miller: bringing it back to where we are today, where are we currently in the culture of water bottle? Ro Rich: I think we just keep switching. And people just switch for newness and for ⁓ like, ⁓ it's like slight adjustment in features. And I feel like the biggest changes sip feature. you get the straw versus the you get these different little technology switches and people tend to go with those or they'll pick a favorite and they stay in that lane. maybe there's people that try all of them and then they pick a favorite or they have all of them because they're easy to collect we're still cave people. We love to collect things. And that's part of our, our jewel collection is our water cups. and, and you have different ones for different occasions. Allie Miller: I think too, I wonder, there's been an uptake in the past few years, especially around de-influencing culture, So wonder, going to, maybe not, we're not gonna totally stop buying water bottles or using these. the whatever the water bottle is but I think it's going to be more intentional where rather than having 10 of them you're going to say hey I'm gonna have two or three that really meet a specific type of need that I have. This is the one I use for the gym, this is the one I use when I'm in the car, this is the one that's for my coffee. So than us saying hey we're just going to stop using water bottles altogether I think maybe there's going to be a we're not going to like just go ham and buy every single water bottle we're only going to buy a water bottle if it meets an actual need or it meets a gap in how we need to drink a beverage. Ro Rich: so you need I have 29 but I need 30 in this 30 Really Scratches an itch that I just can't hit and so the straw on this one is far superior to my other 29 Vidya: Like there's this kind of anti-consumerism, anti-capitalism backlash to some extent here too, where I don't know if we're ever gonna get to one water bottle per person, but I feel like I have been noticing, and this is just personal observation, so I don't have the data to back it up, but I have been noticing people in my life switching to non-branded things more, or going back to kind of some of these more... traditional brands like getting back to the Nalgene when you're in the gym versus so heavy duty. But like a lot of people I know are just drinking water bottles that are just water bottles. ⁓ They're ⁓ a they're not a Thermos, they're not an Ouala, they're just some unbranded maybe from, you know, the TikTok shop or Amazon, some dupes, ⁓ dupe culture. I have a lot of Stanley Cup dupes. ⁓ Allie Miller: Oops. Vidya: on social media recently where they're like, don't spend $50 for the quench or when you could spend, you know, $15 on this one, which is basically exactly the same. So I wonder if that's also going to be part of it as this kind of move to cheaper unbranded but still functionally the same kind of objects. Ro Rich: I you can see the companies still do color drops. so is there a chase of Stanley and Yeti and these other brands are going to they're going to do color drops and limited editions. And OK, cool. That's fine. have a limited run of those so they can make other colors. And then you see them pop up in home goods and other places. And then you'll still have the dupes dropping. So I guess at what point do we hit a saturation of of the water bottle where you really don't need to keep buying more. And I wonder where that saturation will hit. And like you're saying Vidya, are we really, are people to stop consuming these as much or decide that they have enough of what they are or I don't know, when we'll hit the cup accessory wall, if there's a wall or a cliff drop off. don't know. We're going to have to stay tuned. We're going to have to have you back in a year to see what's happening. Yeah. Is there, is there going to be some cup innovation and you're going to have to come back and we're stuck. ⁓ my gosh. Allie Miller: Stay tuned. Trends. Triple walled. That's just gonna be a marketing term. It's a triple walled, like razors. Five blade razors. It's gonna be quadruple walled thermos. Vidya: ⁓ wow. ⁓ Yeah, like now. you Ro Rich: I hope maybe, I shouldn't say this, but I'll say, are they gonna be the ones? Because I saw some videos probably like three months ago and this girl is in New York and she goes, ⁓ my God, nature's healing. I just saw a girl walk out of Starbucks and she's smoking a real cigarette. ⁓ my gosh, we're healing. We're having real cigarettes again. And are we gonna ⁓ have ⁓ Are gonna go? ⁓ in that direction of I don't need a cup. I'm just going to drink my coffee in a paper cup and throw it away and have my cigarette. I'm going to put lighter holders on cups. Probably not. But I wonder as as pendulums swing through trends and different different sorts of behaviors in consumer culture, ⁓ there be a drop off where people just either companies don't make as many because you're not seeing the purchase demand ⁓ as the economy ⁓ ⁓ The economy, think, will be the indicator because if people have less disposable income, you're not going to go buy a cup or you will because it's a small purchase. That's a whole nother. That's a whole that's the lipstick indicator, right? It's supposed to be that lipstick is purchased when times are hard because it's an easier thing to buy. ⁓ Yeah, stickers. So what are the what is going to be there? Is there a cup recession or expansion indicator for the economy? Damn, we should have. Allie Miller: It's like the stickers, yeah. We buy small little Yeah. Stanley Cup is recession indicator. Vidya: Hahaha Ro Rich: we should have answered that question. I'll ask Claude later, but this has been a really fun, fun excursion into Coplelandia, I would like to say. and so thank you, Vidya, for joining us and giving us some history. We are now at our closeout where we do a Design Darling of the Week and we all share a iconic object, symbol, or something from pop culture that represents the theme, uh, which is Big Ass and Double-Walled Flasks. I will say it properly. Vacuum-Sealed Flasks. I'm gonna go first because I'm talking right now and it's just easier that way. mine is I'm Yeti Gurley and I love the Yeti Metal Colester, which is a fancy way to say they make a metal koozie that you can put a can into ⁓ and put a ring on the top that seals it. It's got a gasket to it. And if you go to the beach often, as I do, you can get in the water and it keeps the keeps your aluminum can from getting the ocean water against it. Because if you just have a regular squishy koozie, then your drink heats up really quickly. And these things are so functionally fantastic. will highly recommend one to you. If you're if you're somebody who's drinking fizzy water out of cans in the summer, you're going to the beach, grab one because it's impressive how well it works. And that I have four, I will admit, I have two short ones that are for 12 ounce cans and two tall ones, tall skinny ones. And it's because when I have friends come to town, I can't be like, hi, I've got a great koozie and you can't have one. So I have to share. So I have companion koozies, holsters for when I have guests and we go to the beach. So there you go. Allie Miller: Okay, follow-up question. Does it allow for buoyancy? Does the cup float? Does Ro Rich: It will not float because you've got the drink inside of it. So just like a can, if you had a diet Coke out there and you were to set it in the ocean to let go of it, it wouldn't float. And so it doesn't have enough air within it to let it float. Although if you have a full drink in there, I'm not going to sacrifice a drink to see if it will float all the way. Allie Miller: Yeah, because I've seen things that are almost like gyroscopes that you can put on your drink. It's like a little floaty pool toy for your drink and then it kind of just lets your drink float. Maybe can we combine those? Ro Rich: Yes. Okay. I feel like that's safer in a Probably. Well, because in the ocean, you you got the waves going. And so I think the waves can rock your drink and rock it out and you can rock the water into the drink, which you don't want. And so if you could make Yeti, if you're listening, please make us the floating version of this. ⁓ That's next innovation is floating your can in the ocean ⁓ or or river, wherever you're hanging out or in the pool so that I can take my hand off of it for a minute. so I can readjust my hat or put on some sunscreen and then pick it right back up. High five, Allie Miller for that collaboration moment. Woo! Allie Miller: Yeah, product innovation. Okay, on that note, I'm just gonna like my full curmudgeonly old man is coming out. I actively refuse branded double wall insulated things. I don't want more things in my house. I don't want more cups. I like purest things. And so my Design Darling of the Week is just the classic go-to camping coffee cup. I just want one cup. I specifically am holding this. My favorite brand is this Mirror Coffee Cup. note, it has a pun on it with birds and it says wing in it. And they're birds. Get it? Wing in it? ⁓ anyways, I've had my brother bought this for me as a cup, M-I-I-R, in probably 2015. Ro Rich: like him. I love it, but we didn't. Allie Miller: I've had this thing for well over 10 years. It's a perfect cup. It's perfectly insulated. The seal, the rubber seal hasn't worn down in all that time. just perfect. It doesn't need anything more. I want to feel like, you know, there's the ⁓ gif of Robert Redford in the movie, Jeremiah Johnson, where he's like, the camera comes in and he goes like, he nods to the camera. I just want to feel like a gruff person in the woods with my perfect ⁓ minimalist coffee cup. Ro Rich: Nice. Allie Miller: and that's all I need. So that's my design darling of the week. Objects that are meant to last decades. Didya, as our guest of honor, please take us home. Ro Rich: Right. Right. That's right, take us home. Vidya: Unfortunately, mine is not going to be so unique, but I today am racking my Hydro flask because I'm a VSCO girlie. I don't know. I put a sticker on it. It's a Trashy.io sticker. Trashy is a company that I'll plug for a second because they help you recycle clothes, everything from clothes to electronics, and they send you stickers and I love stickers. Ro Rich: Yes. Cool. Vidya: This does happen to be branded with my current employer's name on it, so it even has that little element on it as well. But I don't know, it's a good size. I think it's 24 ounces, which if I drink four of them a day, I meet my requisite hydration ounces. And I like it because I just noticed is that it Ro Rich: you Vidya: It the gasket is way tucked up into the top so it doesn't constantly slip off, which is cool. So anyway. Ro Rich: Mm. Vidya: My employer provided Hydroflask ⁓ my darling for this week. Ro Rich: Excellent. Allie Miller: I feel like all those really spoke to our personalities as well. They felt very, they were representative of us and our brands and who we are. So, love it. Okay. Well, on that note, Robin, do you want to close us out? What did we learn today, Robin? What did we take away? Ro Rich: Pig facts. All right. What did we learn today? ⁓ I love these segments and like after school specials. What did we learn? What did we take away? should do like, we need a song like reading rainbow. So I will figure it out. But, all right. So we got a great history on metal tumblers ⁓ as vacuum-stealed flasks. And we got their origin story. ⁓ And there was some scandal involved with some stealing of IP between glass, moving from glass into metal. We also... had a great look at the proliferation of the thermos as a technology that was used during wartime to carry things because it was capable of stabilizing things that needed temperature stabilization, medicine, what have you. And then we talked about the rise of bottles, water bottles and water carriers from wellness culture and how those have morphed into individual identity culture and also the ways that we ⁓ move through the world and carry our things with us. I feel like we we had done some some research right to get us into like all right we want to understand where these came from but I feel like we did some fun excavation around thinking about objects in culture with our childhood thermoses and lunchbox and then us having our childhood thermoses our adult thermoses of today what that says about us as creatures. Creatures who like comfort and familiarity and also preparedness because that's part of feeling prepared. And I don't know if it is a global cultural trend to carry water with you in big bottles or to have Stanley cups. But I think we can re-examine that next year when we bring Vidya back to see what happened to our, what happened to the world of big cups. We had some good predictions in this, so we'll see what happens. Allie Miller: Alright, beautiful wrap up. you, Vidya, so much for your time. We've learned a lot. It's been real. Go grab your water bottle and ⁓ a drink. Ro Rich: Yes. That's right, go stay hydrated friends and we'll talk to you later. Goodbye darlings. Allie Miller: Goodbye darlings!