EoB #11: RTIC's Viral Video Miss

By now you’ve probably seen the viral video of the woman whose car exploded. The vehicle melted down to the metal frame, but her Stanley cup remained relatively intact - with ice still inside.

@danimarielettering

Thirsty after you catch on fire? @Stanley 1913 is like no problem i gotchu #fyp #carfire #accident #stanleycup

This is the kind of viral marketing that brands can only dream about. The cup was already an internet sensation and, truthfully, didn’t need more hype, but this video has catapulted it back into the zeitgeist right before Black Friday.

This is UGC so valuable, you can’t put a price on it. But Stanley did.

It’s estimated that they’ll get over 1 billion earned media impressions. The company President capitalized on the momentum and announced that they are not only replacing her charred cup, but also buying her a new car.

These types of marketing opportunities are once-in-a-lifetime… right?

Well - not really. Two months ago, RTIC was handed a near-identical viral video opportunity on a silver platter and, much to my vocal chagrin, completely muffed it.

In mid-September, RTIC reposted a video from Instagram user @beckytheplumbah_ showing a friend’s cabin that had burnt to the ground, leaving an RTIC cooler intact, full of ice and beverages. She tagged RTIC in the video and mentioned that there was a GoFundMe for the cabin’s owner. RTIC was happy to repost the epic UGC, but did (to my knowledge) nothing else.

rticoutdoors

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The GoFundMe at the time was $8,500 short of its goal. For my non-Ad/PR-major friends, that is nothing in a media budget. It’s 48 coolers. (Maybe 58 if we take manufacturing costs into account.)

RTIC earned a respectable 85k views on the reposted reel. But RTIC didn’t donate, and the cabin’s owner is still short of their goal. Stanley, on the other hand, has generated over 8.5M views on just their stitched response video.

@stanleybrand

#stitch with @Danielle Stanley has your back ❤️

RTIC could have (hypothetically) generated millions of views and earned media for an $8,500 donation. Assuming they reached the same level of virality as Stanley, they would have paid just $0.001 per view. And the level of brand loyalty moments like this can create is truly invaluable.

If, in the future, your company is tagged in incredible UGC like this, here are my 3.5 tips to not completely miss your moment:

1. Don’t nickle and dime. The same way Ramit Sethi talks about letting go of $3 questions and focusing on $30,000 questions, brands need to consider the bigger picture. If the social team asks for $8,500 to donate to a customer who published incredible content, JUST. DO. IT.

2. Act quickly. Unfortunately, even if RTIC donates now, they’re just a copycat. And in the words of Peggy Olson, “I’d never recommend imitation as a strategy. You’ll be second, which is very far from first.”

3. Set guardrails when necessary. The President of Stanley admits this is a one-time thing and they won’t do it again (aka do not burn your car down and tag them). It’s ok to be transparent that this is a bit of a quid-pro-quo. We’re all extremely online - we know how this dog and pony show works.

4. Bonus: Be a freaking human. I shouldn’t have to say this one out loud, but brands fail here pretty regularly. One of the best parts of the Stanley video is how authentic the President is in his message. He’s clearly speaking off the cuff, and while he masterfully weaves in a plug for how resilient their products are, he leads with language of concern for the original poster’s safety.

Happy Friday, EOBers. May your cars remain as unmelted as your ice.

Editor’s Note: Special shoutout to my friend, Jess, who gave me a very kind shove to write this. 😘