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[jamieuowmedia]

Stanley H2.0 Quenchers: What We Can Learn from A Water Bottle Trend

In November 2023, a woman posted a TikTok video of her going out to her burnt down car to retrieve her water bottle. In the video, she strolls up to what remains of her car, pulls out the reusable bottle from the cup holder, and muses to the viewer about how the ice inside her copper orange cup is still intact. This caused a massive craze over a not-so-successful line of water bottles that no one saw coming.

The Stanley H2.0 Quenchers craze really is nothing new. Prior to the Stanley cup trend, we’ve already seen plenty of water bottle brands come and go. From YETI bottles to Hydro Flasks, we’ve been obsessing over reusable bottles for nearly and entire decade. It almost feels like we’re guaranteed to witness the grand rise to prominence of a new water bottle brand every several years. What exactly is causing trends like this to take off?

A Short History of the Stanley Cup Craze

Stanley is not a new brand by any means. In fact, it’s been around for 121 years by the year 2024. For the past century or so, the brand had consistently marketed itself towards blue-collar working-class men and outdoorsy men who enjoy road trips or camping adventures. Its insulation technology and steel exterior has made it very appealing to folks whose water bottles need to pack some resilience for their physical activities. In 2016, Stanley launched a product that was not much different from the ones they put out in all the years prior. They made the tumbler’s bottom fit inside cupholders, added a handle for better grip, but that made little difference to the audience Stanley was targeting at the time, and sales of this bottle just never really took off. In 2019, Stanley stopped manufacturing the cup and stopped marketing for it.

However, cogs in a machine began turning for this unpopular bottle. The cup became a major part of the “WaterTok” trend, where TikTok users posted videos on how they make their water tastier through things like syrups or fruits. But the mug really began taking over the internet because of the video mentioned at the beginning of this article. Reilly posted a stitch of the video, and offered Danielle, the woman whose car burnt down, a new vehicle.

A literal craze over the cup began very soon after. The Valentine’s Day limited edition Quenchers caused fans to line up outside their local Targets and dash inside immediately after the shop opens, just to get their hands on a Stanley tumbler. Many TikTokers showed off massive collections of Stanley Quenchers they own in their houses, walls covered in shelves full of the cup, or continuously pulling out new cups to wash. Though many expressed confusion over the craze as well, unable to understand the rise of the tumbler as it’s just a well-made insulated cup.

What’s the problem then?

While other water bottles have never reached the Quencher’s extremes, trends that implements reusable bottles into a lifestyle’s core has happened before. Brands like YETI, Cirkul and Owala have certainly had each of their share in the spotlight, but the most well-known instance of a hugely popular reusable bottle is undoubtably the Hydro Flask. During 2019, Hydro Flasks rose to prominence through the VSCO girl trend, where teenage girls integrated the bottle into their lives along with an environmentally conscious attitude and an obsession with VSCO, an Instagram alternative where the number of interactions is not visible to the users. Although VSCO girls were mostly not looked upon very highly, they were still highly crucial to the popularity of Hydro Flasks, because reusable bottles were integral to the VSCO girl “environmentally conscious” image.

In our modern society where convenience and efficiency are revered, it’s only natural for disposability to be weaved into the fabric of our reality. Every day we are served coffee in disposable paper cups, sandwiches in disposable boxes, or juices in plastic bottles etc. It’s almost impossible to imagine the amount of waste we create just by going through our day-to-day lives, and reusable bottles provides us with a more environmentally alternative than plastic.

However, the consumerist culture surrounding water bottle trends like Hydro Flask and Stanley Quenchers has brought the opposite effect to the table. The popularity of these bottles is mostly driven by people who are buying into the lifestyle trend they belong in. Many fans of the Stanley cups are not purchasing the Quenchers because they’re in need of a new reusable bottle, but because they’re trying to catch up to the latest TikTok trend, their collection of the cup exists as a symbol of their loyalty to the trends. The wide range of water bottle options on our market is merely consumerism masquerading as the desire for self-expression.  When you’re being constantly bombarded by the latest trends, it’s hard to be rational about what you’re purchasing.

What Remains of the Stanley Cup

Good times did not last long for the Quencher. Very soon after the bottle’s takeoff, customers began posting to TikTok about their bottles being tested positive for lead. While lead-testing kits can produce reliable results, Stanley has released a statement confirming that lead is indeed part of its sealing material. Despite not posing immediate danger for customers, it still caused concern among fans of the company, with recent Quencher releases being of very little hype in both physical stores and internet discussions. After the consumerist dust settles, Stanley will undoubtedly go down in history as a water bottle trends that died one of the most rapid deaths.

[jamieuowmedia]

S1, MC2005, Social Media, Advertising and Branding: Project Retrospect

In this blog post I will be reflecting on the work I have done for this project and figure out ways to improve for future projects.

One problem I struggled with during the entirety of this project was the lack of motivation. In my first blog post of this project, I set out a rough posting schedule for myself to follow. Unfortunately, I was unable to follow up on it due to circumstances out of my control which really affected my motivation to work on all of my assignments.

I also underestimated the amount of effort I needed to put into maintaining a proper posting schedule. In order to have an advantage in the algorithmic competition, Instagram users are encouraged to not only post frequently, but also use all of the posting features they provide. This heavily impacted my desire to post on Instagram at all.

The amount of time and effort I had to put into making my content also played a part in my inability to fulfill my schedule. I usually spend about four to six hours on making the skins themselves, and usually I would have no energy to post them afterwards.

For future projects I will take more time adjusting more workload and learn how to better manage stress.

[jamieuowmedia]

S1, MC2005, Social Media, Advertising and Branding: Marketing Case Study #2

In this blog post I will be discussing and analyzing Tumblr’s recent addition of the Important Blue Internet Checkmarks to the site from a marketing standpoint. (Apologies if this post seems longer than all the other posts, I was having too much fun writing for this subject and the comedic nature of this service did not help with curbing the jokes.)

Description:

Tumblr’s Important Blue Internet Checkmarks are a satirical product at its core. As the name of this service implies, it features two blue checkmarks, reminiscent of ones Twitter awards its verified users, that show up on all posts a purchaser makes next to the username. They cost $7.99 and can stack up to 24 according to some sources, though some have been able to stack up to 44 at the same time.

Background:

The checkmarks are a direct satirization of the the Twitter Blue paid verification badges. I have discussed the Twitter Blue paid verification feature and the chaos that happened during its existence, but here is a quick summary of it: Twitter launched the paid verification feature as part of the Twitter Blue subscription service in an attempt to garner financial support from its users. It did not reach its intended audience, instead it became a tool for trolls and imposter accounts to wreak havoc on the site, posing as actual famous figures and airing their dirty laundry to the rest of Twitter, causing Elon Musk, the current owner of Twitter, to roll back the decision and disable the service entirely.

However, there are other reasons for the existence of Tumblr’s checkmarks as well. Tumblr has been considered a sinking ship for most marketing experts as it has consistently lost money for most companies it belonged to. Despite purchasing Tumblr for an astounding 1.1 billion USD, Yahoo eventually sold it for just 3 million. The culture on the site is also antagonistic towards most brands, and users have made fun of all brands’ attempts on capitalizing on them. When Tumblr was plagued by strange Manscaped ads, a user pointed out the comedic value in a mens’ care product company advertising on a site that has “the smallest male population”, where “the majority of male users do not have testicles”, as most male users on the site are trans and were not born with body traits Manscaped caters towards. To continue running the servers of Tumblr, the staff has come up with merchandise and subscription services for the users to purchase, including one that removes ads (which was widely rejected) and Tumblr Blaze that distributes the purchasers’ selected posts to random users on the site, which initially had the price tag of $4.20 (which was widely celebrated for the simple reason of “forcing others to see your sh*tposts”).

Execution:

The feature was first revealed to Tumblr’s userbase on the staff’s official blog, the post poking fun at Twitter’s paid verification feature by explaining that the Important Blue Internet Checkmarks are a better deal because you get “not one but TWO checkmarks for your blog”. The post also noted that the checkmarks themselves are not a verification status, instead, they are merely “Important Blue Internet Checkmarks, which in 2022 is just as legit”. Furthermore, they are advertized to have the potential of turning into “a bunch of crabs at any time”, a throwback to an April Fools joke feature that gave users a button which, when clicked, spawns crabs on the web version of your Tumblr. The checkmarks began as a web-only feature, but was quickly implemented for the mobile app as well.

In addition to launching the service, Tumblr also set up a pre-order option for stickers and enamel pins of the checkmarks themselves. They are sold at a price tag of $3 and $6 respectively, and also come in pairs.

Effect:

The service was immediately accepted and celebrated by the userbase. Having witnessed the slow deterioration of Twitter, many users found the satirical nature of the feature hilarious. The fact that Tumblr has never offered any form of official verification to even actual celebrities made it even funnier, as now even some random internet citizen can have a supposedly higher status on this site than Neil Gaiman, Taylor Swift and Ryan Reynolds.

The feature also provided a way for users who are not as well-off to financially support the site. Most users are aware of Tumblr’s financial issues behind the scenes, but some may not necessarily have the side change to financially support the site via merch purchasing or post blazing. The $8 price tag of the Important Blue Internet Checkmarks gave users a slightly cheaper option to both indulge in their humor and support the site.

Personal Opinions and Reflection:

Tumblr’s display of its thorough understanding on its userbase really helped propel this campaign to success. It fully utilized its users’ distaste for Twitter’s recent endeavors and their sarcastic humor to create a product that truly caters to no one but its userbase. My takeaway from this is that, sometimes, the best way to sell an impractical product (like the Important Blue Internet Checkmarks) is to cater towards the parts of human brains that crave a good laugh.

[jamieuowmedia]

S1, MC2005, Social Media, Advertising and Branding: Marketing Case Study #1

In this blog post I will be discussing and analyzing Twitter’s recent launch of its subscription service, Twitter Blue and its controversial paid verification feature from a marketing standpoint.

Description:

Twitter Blue is a subscription service that allows Twitter users to pay $7.99 US dollars per month for extra features that enhances the Twitter experience. It was first introduced in 2016, but was soon discontinued due to, according to Twitter itself, the overwhelming amount of applications.This service was later relaunched, These features include tweet editing, bookmark folders, custom app icons, etc. Furthermore, earlier in November, purchasers of the service were awarded with a blue checkmark that is, traditionally, only given to verified users on the platform.

Background:

Twitter as a social media platform is not known for being highly profitable to advertisers due to its poor ad-targeting. For example, in 2021, its annual net loss amounted to 221 million US dollars. This combined with its new ties with Elon Musk, the current CEO of Tesla who is well-known for controversial behaviors, and his newly acquired debt via his various attempts at and backing out of the acquisition of Twitter, has led to marketing experts believing that Musk is currently playing a losing game by taking up what is essentially content moderation, which could easily tank Tesla’s stocks if not handled with care. To counter the financial loss, Musk heavily pushed the Twitter Blue subscription model in hopes of generating income from Twitter’s users.

Execution:

The paid verification feature of Twitter Blue was announced on November 1st this year under the guise of an overhaul of the “bullshit” verification system. The subscription fee of Twitter Blue was at one point $19.99, but this price tag did not last long after Musk’s exchange with Stephen King in which the famous author complained about how absurd it is to pay almost $20 for a vanity blue checkmark that serve no function aside from ego-boosting.

Effects:

Twitter Blue was immediately criticized by users of the site when it was announced. Many considered the $8 price tag too high for features that most would consider useless, and some were disappointed by Twitter’s decision to put the tweet editing option behind a paywall. Furthermore, Twitter’s reputation as a site for users to argue over urged users to make fun of the service, as most users viewed it as a bad investment that served as an embarrassing sign of just how “terminally online” one is.

To make matters more confusing, the service immediately became a gateway for trolls and imposters after the announcement about Twitter Blue checkmarks came out. Countless users changed their profiles to imitate brand accounts and controversial figures, and utilized their now “verified” status to remind other users of the skeletons the brands and famous people hide in their metaphorical closets. An impersonator of George Bush tweeted out “I missing killing Iraqis” and immediately followed it up by pointing out the issues in this subscription model, saying that the $8 is a “small price to make this app completely unusable.”  Another person, while acting as the “official” Eli Lilly brand account, declared that they were “excited to announce insulin is free now.” Twitter Blue was eventually disabled on November 11th.

Personal Opinions and Reflection:

I believe that the reasons for Twitter Blue were its confusion on its audience and the introduction of the paid verification feature. Despite offering potentially useful features like the edit button, most users were not devoted to the site enough to pay. Many have expressed displeasure with the decision to include said features as premium expansions, and the less useful features dominating the list of enhancements did not help to sweeten the deal.

My personal takeaway from this campaign is that we should avoid labeling impractical features as anything more than entertainment.

[jamieuowmedia]

S1, MC2005, Social Media, Advertising and Branding: Project Introduction

For this course we are tasked with creating a portfolio that consists of a social media presence and 4 blog posts related to this course, 2 of which will be about the process of building said social media presence and the other 2 being about existing marketing campaigns.

For this project I have chosen Instagram and Tumblr as my main platforms, and Minecraft skins as the focus of my content. I have prior experiences with both making Minecraft skins and being commissioned to make Minecraft skins, and I believe that refining my skills in skin making (and, by proxy, pixel art) via this project would be an interesting direction to take.

The reason why I decided to pursue Tumblr as one of my platforms is because I struggle with understanding the algorithms of most social media sites, and Tumblr as a site I’m more familiar with would hopefully help motivate me to take more time to perfect the content I will be posting. Instagram, in contrast, is a more competitive site in terms of the algorithm, and I’m choosing it in hopes that it will motivate me to post more frequently.

I aim to post at least once every week, with both image posts Tumblr and regular Instagram posts and video posts for Instagram reels. While I understand that the process of editing videos may prolong the time needed for content production, it is also a great opportunity to challenge myself to create other forms of content.

[jamieuowmedia]

Final thoughts: 

Overall I believe this to be a very productive year. I am most proud of my performance for our third project, which requires us to create a video game review. It was the medium I was most comfortable working with as someone very passionate about YouTube, and I had an enjoyable time editing the video as the PD. Communication with this group also felt the most comfortable. We were all familiar with our roles and everyone seemed excited to be working on this project. 

However, my weakest project, I believe, would be the fourth project, in which we were tasked to build a website. Despite having basically the same role as our third project, this was a more stressful experience for me as I was not familiar with website-building, and the lack of communication between group members did not help ease my concerns at all. I also did not have access to the shared folder one of our project managers created at one point and had to ask my group mates to send a link to the folder. Not to mention that slight confusion I held throughout the entire project due to not understanding how website-building would work and not getting answers from my group mates. I would have pushed harder on communication if I were to redo the project again. 

It seemed to me that communication issues seemed to be a common problem. in all of my projects. Online communication is immensely difficult as people seem to just read messages and forget about them instantly, which is very unhelpful if other members of the group are struggling with their part of the project. I must admit that I am also prone to leaving my group mates in read and this is one aspect I will be working on moving forward. 

In conclusion, I have learned throughout this year the importance of communication for group projects. There were a lot of things I am proud of for achieving and trying out, such as voice acting for my second project and editing a video for my third project. Though I may not be the best website creator or project manager, I still believe I can improve on those aspects as well. I will treasure these experiences and lesson moving forward both in my studies and future pass university. 

[jamieuowmedia]

S2, Week 10 - 12, website

For our fourth project we were tasked with creating a website that revolves around a week in the life of a media student. We were asked to include several different forms of media in the website and create a narrative within it. The roles we were assigned were:

Max and Ella: Project managers 

Jack: Researcher

Me and Toby: Content creators

We were not assigned a PD for this project, so I took on the role of PD. We then discussed what we would do with our website. We decided to include a video, a photo and an audio clip to accompany the text we were to implement onto the website to further illustrate what an average week in a media student’s life would be like. 

I was tasked with putting the website together, so over Easter I created a template for our website and invited my other groups mates to edit the website to their liking. I was also the one who put all of the text and media files onto the site. 

In retrospect I believe one thing we could have improved upon was our communication. It was often frustrating to communicate with my group mates due to a lack of response. I also had to ask them repeatedly for the text of one particular part of the website and only received answers that were not very helpful. 

Another thing of note is that one of our PMs were not available and rarely present during meetings took place during seminars. While I understand that they may have important things to attend to, this makes it very difficult for the group to ask for any feedback from her. 

Finally, I was not very familiar with website-building, and taking on the PD’s job to put the website together was a immensely stressful role for me to take up. Fortunately I succeeded in doing so, though I still do not feel very knowledgeable on this particular medium. 

Overall I believe that this was a successful project. Though I may not have enjoyed the experience, I am still proud of myself for finishing it. 

The website: 

https://jamieaybusiness.wixsite.com/amediastudentsweek

[jamieuowmedia]

S2, week 6 - 8, video review

Our third project of this module asks for us to record and produce a video game review in the form of a video. We were assigned the following roles:

Risa: Project manager

Alex: Researcher

Jake: Content creator

Me and Lizzie: Production and dissemination 

We spent some time discussing what topic we should choose for this project. It was quite hard at first, since none of us had a lot of experiences with video games, but we settled for Sims 4 in the end. 

We then spent the next several days waiting for the researcher’s notes. When the notes arrived and Jake started writing the script, I booked the equipment needed for the recording session and asked our project manager to arrange a time to record. We had some trouble looking for a room to record in, but my fellow producer proposed that we may record in her room. It took us about just over an hour to finish recording all the voice over clips for the video. 

I then asked if anyone can record some in-game footage, and my fellow producer helpfully sent her screen recorded clips to me. I then spent 3 hours editing the entire video from start to finish. 

In hindsight I think we could have improved on our communication. It sometimes takes quite a while before others would respond to my message in the project group chat. However I do understand that a lot of us are busy with other things. 

Another thing that can be improved on, I believe, would be the scheduling of events. The project manager seemed to be more comfortable with going with the flow. While not being a bad thing, it did make the planning of things a bit messier than it could have been. 

Overall I believe this to be a fairly successful project. I enjoyed my time working with this group, and I’ve learned a lot about video editing in the process as well.

 A link to downloading the video under the cut:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1x3ERe6aJ9smRDANEV2ccBs6qiEy7k1-b/view?usp=sharing

[jamieuowmedia]

S2, week 1 - 3, podcast

Our second project requires us to record a podcast episode about a piece of obsolete technology and its history. We were also asked to make the episode sound like it was from a recurring podcast series. 

We were then assigned the following roles:

Megan: Project manager

Me: Researcher

Tom: Content creator

Jake: Production and dissemination

The first possible topic that came to mind when we were given our brief of the project was video game related technology, so I Google searched some related terms and came up with Atari 2600. I presented the idea to the rest of the group and we decided our topic then. 

I then spent the next several days researching the topic. I compiled all of my findings in this Google document. Due to my interest in video games, I was privy to some knowledge of the Atari 2600 even before the project was announced. Though it was still immensely fascinating to read the more detailed recounts of the rise and fall of the console and discover pieces of information I was not previously aware of. 

I then sent my notes to our group chat and the content creator turned in the script a few days later. Due to the small amount of time we have to work on this project, we decided not to look for voice actors. Instead, I and another group member were asked to read out the script for the podcast recording. 

In hindsight I think one thing that can be done better was shortening the amount of time on researching. The Atari 2600 is not a hard topic to research, especially when it was such a popular gaming console back in the days. We had less time to familiarize ourselves with the script, and it showed in the final product. 

We also had problems with the mp3 file the day before our deadline. It probably would not have happened if we were to meet up a day earlier, but we had clashing schedules and we could still do better in terms of communicating that. 

[jamieuowmedia]

S1: week 9 - 11, infographic

For our first official project of the year we were tasked with designing an infographic about one specific media technology and how it impacts both the human body and the environment. It was a bit difficult to determine what topic we were going to tackle, but after an hour of discussion during our seminar, we have decided to talk about Apple's sourcing and manufacturing of materials.

We weren't very sure about what direction we were to take with this topic at first. But our lecturer told us that it's more common for students to take the prompt in a more negative direction, we decided to challenge ourselves with trying to write positively about the topic.

We were tasked with the following roles:

Me: Project manager

Emily: Researcher

Ella: Content creator

Angus: Production and dissemination

In hindsight, I think our biggest flaw was the lack of communication. Although we did set up an Instagram group chat and frequently asked about meeting up and talk about our progress, not a lot of our plans actually went through due to difficulties with our individual schedules. However, despite all the frustrations, this project also provided experiences of working in groups to me. I now have a better understanding of how to organize meetings and communicating with other group members.

Our final final product under the cut:

The infographic: