How Stanley 1913 is aiming to own the summer of soccer

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Soccer is everywhere this summer. Stanley 1913 hopes to be right in the middle of it.

As part of its efforts to expand globally, the drinkware and lifestyle brand has released a collection of Argentinian-blue tumblers, bottles, and mate mugs in collaboration with Leo Messi, along with additional themed merchandise and pub takeovers centered on matches. The push into the sport goes beyond the tournament: Stanley 1913 has also inked partnerships with football clubs like Arsenal, Paris Saint-Germain, and Juventus.

“Football is one of those components that connect so many people around the world, and there’s this throughline of food and beverage that obviously also connects so many people around the world,” Ben James, Stanley 1913’s EMEA GM, told us. “How do we leverage sport performance, connect it to a premium lifestyle brand like Stanley 1913, and then give the consumers new products?”

James sat down with Marketing Brew at Cannes Lions to tell us about the brand’s sports partnership strategy and pushing the 113-year-old brand forward. Here are a few highlights.

On soccer’s importance in the brand’s growth goals: Football, for most people, is not just a sport. It’s a way of life—and it also supersedes just playing the game. It’s at home watching the game with their kids or their family. It’s at a pub, watching it with their best mates. They’re recording it, they’re watching it after work, or maybe on the metro on their way home…We’ve had the privilege of partnering with Arsenal, PSG, Juventus, and they have a really close connection [not just] to the consumer, but the culture specifically, and they supersede just the sport or a match on a pitch…Football, just the partnerships, it’s the highest-generating new-consumer acquisition partnership group that we’ve created thus far. For one…it gives us a nice expanse into [men] as a consumer. It [also] tells more of a comprehensive story from how they’re watching the game, where they’re watching the game, what they’re eating and drinking during the game. Hopefully, Stanley 1913 can definitely be there in the middle of it.

On being a steward of the Stanley 1913 brand: It’s definitely a value prop…It’s also a responsibility. You uphold the legacy that was built into the world. We’re 113 years old this September, and it really started with one product—one invention, rather. We call ourselves not a heritage brand, but one that is built through heritage—that is, leveraging the heritage of this product, of this invention. But I think it’s really about, how do you continue to innovate and diversify? How do you expand into the right markets? How do you find new opportunities for the brand to reach new consumers through brand partnerships, through international expansion, through new distribution?