This is not about the Stanley Cup, either one of them. Not really. I was going to write an editorial about the success of the Stanely Quencher and its historic rise in popularity over the last few years. In fact, I wrote four paragraphs. I started by pointing out that if you do a Google search for the Stanley Cup, the first four links that pop up are no longer about the Hockey Trophy. I spoke a little about that history and a personal story about me watching my Boston Bruins win the championship in 2011….
I already didn’t like what I was writing. I thought it was clever to juxtapose the similar names, but then I started thinking that people who like hockey and people who are into these new beverage containers marketed to women, probably have very little cross-over. I risked losing one or both audiences, neither of which would attract the masses. Also, while I am a Bruins fan, it’s mainly just because I am from New Hampshire. Not really my sport. I only watch them in the playoffs. I like basketball (Go Celtics) and Football (Vikings fan; different story). It made me feel a bit disingenuous to make the reference. I almost trashed my effort right then.
But I reminded myself that I wanted to flag an interesting marketing experience. I recapped that Stanley was established in 1913, how nearly 100 years later in 2016 they started to produce their Quencher line in pastels and colors that would appeal to women. But it didn’t do all that great and they were going to discontinue, but in 2019 these cool women who have a massive social media presence got involved, saved the day, and the fad skyrocketed from there.
The historical paragraph worked and provided solid context. I even shared a cool memory of my Dad sitting on a boulder, opening his Stanley thermos hot coffee, flipping the lid over into a cup and drinking it one day in the early 1970’s. It was a nice moment and I told it well. I also had all the information I need to recognize the critical fulcrum point where the women from The Buy Guide stepped in and saved the day.
But I got stuck before that because I felt it was essential to explain who, what, and why about what happened in 2016. I read seven articles. I went to both the Stanley website and The Best Guide website and the most I found anywhere was a simple sentence about how they were introduced in 2016, after not much fanfare and were about to be discontinued until The Buy Guide women jumped in. That’s it. Somebody had the original idea. Someone chose pastel colors. Then some others were ready to give up on it. I want that part.
This is a great story about success, innovation, failure, luck, staggering success. But I can’t tell it. It is missing the innovation and failure part. I suck at detailed research. If I can’t find something in seven or eight searches, I am done. I think the current story would be more interesting if someone else feels like filling the gap and writing it.
Within seconds of deleting my original draft, I tried to retrieve it. I failed. Maybe it’s for the best. But that was my topic for the day. And now I have nothing to publish. You have to keep producing content to stay relevant. I jot down ideas in my phone’s note app for future editorials. I may or may not write them. One is called Because I Said So. Another more simply titled Dad’s Advice. A third one about Persuasion where I haven’t come up with a title yet. I was really excited to write this one called The One-Minute Employee, a fun play on one of my favorite professional reading books called The One Minute Manager. But when I started to look into it, I found some folks already wrote The 59-Second Employee (where they explain how to keep one second ahead of that boss). They were quicker and cleverer than me, so that is off the table.
A friend of mine suggested to me whenever I am stuck to just start righting stream of conscious. No edits. No outline. Just start writing. It will be genuine, they said. It will be good.
I don’t know about that. The story is still untold.
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Stoneking Strategic Communications (SSC) 