Stanley: responding at the speed of social
When @danielmarielettering posted the aftermath of a scary car fire on TikTok last week, she had no way of knowing how big it would get. You can see her humour come through in the post (linked below), sharing how despite her car being charred, her Stanley Cup was relatively unscathed, and despite the apparent heat of the accident, the cup still had ice frozen inside it. TikTok, and notably Stanley, noticed. The result is a masterclass in responding to consumers on social media. Let’s take a look at what they did right.
Within two days of the post, Stanley's president replied empathetically that they would cover the cost of replacing her car. This was a brilliant move. The original video proved their brand promises (built for life, exceptional insulation) in a way a brand video or claim never could.
We live in a time of rapid information cycles. Most news stories have a 24-hour or less news cycle (what’s relevant today will be old news tomorrow), and social media cycles through ideas and memes just as quickly - unless an idea can hold our attention for longer either by becoming a meme, creating a conversation or unfolding a story or narrative in realtime. If you share a fact or idea, people will be interested in it only the first time they hear it. If you start a conversation, people will want to hear the opinions of others or insert their own opinions. If you create a story, which is what Stanley was able to do here, people are excited about how the story unfolds and what happens next.
The original TikTok post by @danimarielettering has impressive results at the time of writing more than 85M views and over 9M engagements.
Stanley’s stitched response has 33.4M views and almost 500K engagements - far more than any other of their other posts on the platform.
In and of themselves, if you were to pay for an ad campaign resulting in their stats, it would cost more than a car. It would also be far less effective.
But then the value they get from the TikTok conversation and having their story spill over to other social media platforms and ultimately to a mainstream media cycle (resulting in thousands of articles, across top-tier media in countries around the world) is invaluable. At its core, the car was a great way to support a loyal customer authentically. The return has been much, much greater for the Stanley brand than the cost of a car.
What can we learn as communicators?
1) Understand your brand promises and the problems your products or services solve.
For Stanley, their brand promise is simple, durability, and superior insulation. Their customers know they can rely on their Stanley cups to keep their drink cold no matter what life throws at them. Now, thanks to this social media and media cycle, millions of new potential customers have been reached. Understanding what your brand promises and what is important to your customers will help you identify those standout social media moments and stories you may want to consider.
2) Build in flexibility for social wins
You have to empower your social media strategy and team to respond in realtime. For this to work, senior leadership needs to support it. A great way to do this is to have reactive storytelling as part of your overall social media strategy. To authentically identify posts that highlight brand promises and drive a more significant narrative response through your earned media channels. If Stanley had done nothing, or waited several days or weeks to respond (while this idea made its way through approvals), they would have missed this opportunity.
3) Surprise and delight (with emphasis on surprise) with empathy
One of the drivers of this narrative is that it was unexpected. If Stanley had responded with a case of their own products, the customer would have been happy, but no one else would have cared. By understanding the actual impact on the customer, and the effect this had on her life, Stanley was able to create a positive moment for the customer out of a crappy week - and in a surprising way.