Why did Yeti become a globally popular internet celebrity water cup instead of engaging in internet celebrity marketing?

In today's era of the Internet celebrity economy, brands are chasing the dream of becoming an Internet celebrity brand in order to gain huge traffic and sales. However, as the market environment changes, Internet celebrity marketing strategies are also constantly evolving. The sales model that used to rely on Xiaohongshu, Zhihu and top anchors is now facing new challenges and transformation. This article will explore the latest trends and strategies of Internet celebrity marketing and reveal the new opportunities and challenges for brands in the pursuit of Internet celebrities.

Ever since the concept of influencer became known to the public, almost every brand wants to become an influencer brand because it means traffic and sales.

Internet celebrity marketing came from this. Although this concept has no clear definition, there are similar sayings. A few years ago, a well-known success formula for a new consumer brand was: new brand = 5,000 articles on Xiaohongshu + 2,000 Q&A on Zhihu + top anchors bringing products.

Nowadays, there are not many people on Zhihu, and the top anchors are not as popular as before.

But the concept of internet celebrity marketing has not disappeared. Generally speaking, today's internet celebrity marketing = endorsements by popular stars + recommendations by internet celebrities + live streaming by big anchors.

Brands that have become popular in recent years, such as Yuanqi Forest and Huaxizi, are basically inseparable from these marketing methods.

But there are exceptions.

For example, Apple’s marketing is mainly based on advertising and content, and it rarely does so-called grass-planting because its products are so strong that there is no need to plant grass at all, and everyone will want to buy them.

For example, Tesla did not do any paid promotion when it was at the peak of its popularity, and its cars were still hard to come by on the market.

There are also lululemon, Arc'teryx, etc., which mainly relied on word-of-mouth marketing in the early days.

Today, let’s talk about another consumer brand, Yeti, which has risen to prominence through product and word-of-mouth marketing rather than influencer marketing. Let’s see how this brand has managed to maintain its own characteristics and gain extreme market recognition even as influencer marketing has become increasingly popular.

1. Product Story: The Rise of Yeti

In the southern United States, the long summers are always accompanied by rolling heat waves, and ice is an indispensable necessity.

Brothers Roy and Ryan Seiders, who live in Texas, are avid fishing and hunting enthusiasts, and a cooler is of course a must-have equipment for the summer outdoors.

However, they are always troubled by a problem: the refrigerators on the market are either of poor quality and break down after a few uses, or the refrigeration effect is not good and the ice melts within a day.

In this situation, they came up with the idea of ​​starting a business: to create a durable, high-quality cooler that could keep food cold for days rather than hours.

Roy and Ryan often say, “If a product like this existed, we would use it every day.”

By chance, they discovered a refrigeration device in Thailand that met almost all their requirements for outdoor refrigeration.

The brothers began distributing for the Thai manufacturer, but soon they were no longer satisfied with just distributing and wanted to manufacture products exactly to their own standards.

To achieve this goal, Roy and Ryan traveled to Southeast Asia and found a manufacturer in the Philippines that was not only willing but also able to produce their ideal reefer.

In 2006, after multiple designs and tests, the Seiders brothers launched the first Yeti cooler, priced between $250 and $300, much higher than the average $30 cooler on the market at the time.

Few thought they could succeed.

When the Seiders brothers launched this high-priced cooler, they considered the durability and quality of the product. However, they inadvertently avoided the red ocean competition and positioned themselves as a high-end product in a vertical niche field.

Imagine the market at that time. Fishing and hunting were relatively niche activities. These people were in urgent need of durable refrigerators. If there were products that could meet their needs and last longer, they would not mind a higher price.

It's like Arc'teryx is a better jacket for outdoor sports enthusiasts, and lululemon is a better yoga pants for yoga enthusiasts.

After Yeti's first product was launched, it quickly spread among fishing and hunting enthusiasts. These early users helped Yeti build a strong brand reputation among these core groups through word-of-mouth effects.

To further increase product awareness, each cooler box also came with a Yeti hat and T-shirt, which undoubtedly accelerated the spread of the product among these groups.

By 2011, six years after their founding, Yeti's revenue had reached $29 million. By 2014, that number had grown to $147 million, and just one year later, it nearly tripled to $450 million.

In just four years, Yeti grew an astonishing 15 times, thanks in large part to word-of-mouth marketing from hunters and fishermen, who became free promoters for Yeti and made it the best-reviewed refrigeration product at the time.

By 2023, Yeti's revenue had reached $1.659 billion.

In addition to the original cooler, Yeti's product line has expanded to a variety of drinkware, backpacks and outdoor equipment, and its consumer base has also expanded to other outdoor activity enthusiasts such as mountaineering, camping, skiing and cross-country, making it a successful lifestyle brand.

2. Yeti’s marketing strategy: pursuing long-term and deep impact

The biggest factor in Yeti's success is the uniqueness of its products, but marketing also plays an important role. However, compared with most popular brands, Yeti did not take the Internet celebrity route, but instead seemed somewhat traditional.

1. Word-of-mouth marketing: Spontaneous spread on social networks

Yeti did not do any marketing at first; all their marketing came from word-of-mouth among users.

In 2009, Wittenbraker, Yeti's former head of marketing, met the Seiders at a fly-fishing film festival and offered some suggestions for increasing product awareness.

One of the suggestions was to use social networks, but Yeti had neither the manpower nor the relevant market knowledge to implement these ideas at the time. Roy Seiders even thought that Facebook was just a tool for teenage girls to chat.

At the time, Yeti had annual sales of just $3 million, and the company was so small that the entire team shared a single Gmail account and had just eight employees, including warehouse staff.

With the rise of social media, Yeti began to realize its importance in brand communication and gradually opened social accounts.

Today, Yeti has more than 600,000 fans on Facebook and Instagram. On these platforms, Yeti posts content that focuses on outdoor lifestyles, such as fishing, hunting, and sitting around a campfire enjoying coffee or bourbon. These healthy, back-to-nature contents are well-loved by users.

When Yeti expanded into the thermos product line, it quickly gained wide recognition among college students and became one of the products that students aspire to own. In this group, various creative emoticons of Yeti products became popular on social networks.

At one point, the hashtag #yetibutts became an unexpected hit on social networks, often featuring photos of women sitting on Yeti coolers with their backs to the camera, some even wearing revealing clothing. The picture below is one of the most conservatively dressed pictures.

This kind of content, which goes some way to showcasing the Yeti cooler’s durability and refrigeration capabilities, currently has nearly 100,000 related posts on Instagram.

Faced with the popularity of #yetibutts, Yeti did not choose to make extensive use of and spread it, but instead adopted a cold treatment approach.

“We have nothing to do with the label,” said Maynard, now the marketing chief.

In contrast, another boutique brand, Stanley Cup, is very good at using social network content to drive sales.

In November 2023, a TikTok user named Danielle posted a video showing her car being destroyed in a fire. Amazingly, despite the car being completely destroyed, her Stanley thermos was not only intact, but the ice cubes in the cup did not melt.

The video quickly went viral, garnering more than 84 million views and numerous likes and comments. The popularity of the video attracted widespread attention, especially the amazing performance of the Stanley thermos bottle that remained intact in the fire.

Two days later, Stanley's global president Terence Reilly responded to the video via TikTok, in which he said the company would send Danielle a new thermos and a new car.

This response video once again sparked heated discussions, garnering over 32 million views and becoming one of the most heartwarming stories of the season.

The way Yeti and Stanley handle unexpected events reflects two completely different marketing concepts. Stanley focuses more on seizing every opportunity to quickly increase brand awareness, while Yeti sticks to its brand concept and refuses to ride on the popularity, even when faced with the explosive label.

2. KOL and social marketing: from niche to full-scale

Yeti's marketing strategy initially relied on the spontaneous spread of interest communities, especially among fishermen and hunters. These core users helped Yeti build a strong brand foundation among these professional groups through word-of-mouth effects.

By 2014, Yeti realized it needed to expand its brand’s reach and began developing strategies to appeal to other market segments that work or play outdoors, including farmers, ranchers, snowboarders, mountain bikers, and even tailgaters.

Yeti's product line began to become richer. In order to better attract new target users, Yeti also improved its brand positioning, striving to become "the preferred cooler for outdoor enthusiasts, professionals, tailgate party enthusiasts and backyard barbecue masters."

This positioning not only expands the brand's potential market, but also makes the brand image more diverse and inclusive.

Yeti has taken a different approach to KOL marketing. Rather than working with traditional social media influencers, it invests in its more than 170 brand ambassadors.

These ambassadors come from a variety of fields, including rodeo performers, spearfishers, grill masters and winemakers, who are well-known in their respective niches but are not celebrities in the traditional sense.

For example, winemaker Averies Wanson has less than 10,000 followers on Instagram.

Yeti believes that working with these ambassadors represents an opportunity to build deeper relationships with the community, enabling the production of higher quality, more lasting content, laying the foundation for long-term growth for the brand.

In terms of cooperation, Yeti does not force ambassadors to post specific content on social media, but encourages them to integrate products into their daily lives and outdoor activities in a natural way.

For example, use a Yeti Cooler to preserve food and drinks while fishing or hunting, and carry a Yeti bottle to stay hydrated while skiing or mountain biking.

Even with such content, Yeti does not impose any mandatory requirements or quantities, but it is entirely determined by the wishes of the ambassadors.

By allowing consumers to discover the brand organically, often through someone they know or an influencer in a particular outdoor community, Yeti maintains authenticity to its brand.

Although this marketing strategy seems random, it is actually based on careful consideration. It allows Yeti's products and brand image to be deeply rooted in people's hearts without appearing too deliberate.

Yeti's marketing strategy embodies a unique philosophy: don't push too hard.

Rather than opting for traditional advertising bombardment or deliberate social media promotion, the company is letting real people and real stories infuse the brand with a cultural cachet that money can’t buy.

This strategy allows Yeti to remain unique in a highly competitive market.

3. Content: Pursue depth rather than explosion

Since Yeti does not pursue internet celebrity-style marketing, it must have its own way of content marketing. Its strategy, simply put, is to pursue depth.

Yeti's content marketing strategy is centered on real stories and high-quality visual content, and is committed to building an emotional connection with users. By telling real user experiences and stories, Yeti conveys the brand's core values ​​and lifestyle.

Yeti’s content marketing is led by Arlo Rosner, executive producer and senior content manager. As an in-house agency and production company, Yeti’s content team consists of about 10 people, including a two-person camera team. They travel around the world, from the United States to Europe and New Zealand, to capture authentic and moving stories.

Yeti is well aware that simple product display cannot resonate with users.

Therefore, Yeti's content creation focuses on the following aspects:

• Real user experience: Yeti tells the outdoor experiences and stories of real users, showing their joy, challenges and insights when using Yeti products. These stories can narrow the distance between users and the brand.
• Reflection of brand values: Yeti's content rarely showcases the functions and performance of its products, but mainly conveys the outdoor lifestyle and values ​​advocated by the brand, such as the courage to take risks, the pursuit of freedom, and the love of nature.
• High-quality visual presentation: Yeti attaches great importance to the visual presentation of content. They work with professional photographers and videographers to create exquisite and stunning visual effects to bring an immersive experience to users.

Yeti’s content marketing strategy is particularly evident when launching new color products. Every spring and fall, Yeti launches four new limited edition colors and looks for brand ambassadors or friends to match the colors with the stories through engaging stories.

Arlo said. "This isn't just a new color hitting the shelves, there was an inspiration behind our choice of color."

For example, during its recent spring campaign, Yeti introduced two new colors.

When promoting the color Granite Gray, they invited legendary rock climber Beth Rodden to shoot her climbing in Yosemite National Park, showcasing the toughness and strength of Granite Gray.

When promoting the color King Crab Orange, they invited a Bering Sea crab fishing couple to shoot. The couple caught king crabs in the ice and snow, showing the vitality and enthusiasm of King Crab Orange.

If you look closely at Yeti's videos, you will find that their content does not pursue the so-called "viral video" at all, but simply tells real stories, which is definitely a breath of fresh air in the marketing industry.

Conclusion: In today's era of fleeting hot spots and fast-consuming information, Yeti, with its unique marketing philosophy, has proved that you can succeed without following the crowd. It did not choose short-term influencer marketing, but insisted on deepening its content and establishing a deep emotional connection with consumers through real stories and in-depth visual experiences.

Its core features can be summarized as follows:

• Focus on product quality and create the ultimate user experience: Yeti always puts product quality first, continuously innovates and develops products to create more durable, powerful and user-friendly products. This has won it a loyal user base and a good reputation, and also laid the foundation for its brand success.
• Adhere to word-of-mouth marketing and focus on in-depth user experience: Yeti does not pursue Internet celebrity marketing, but focuses on establishing emotional connections with users and conveying brand values ​​through real user experience and high-quality content creation. This word-of-mouth marketing strategy not only helps Yeti establish a good brand image, but also gains recognition and support from users.
• Deeply explore content and pursue emotional resonance: Yeti's content marketing is centered on real stories and high-quality visual presentations, aiming to establish emotional resonance with users. They deeply explore user needs and create high-quality content that resonates with users, which makes Yeti's marketing effect more lasting and deeply rooted in people's hearts.
• Adhere to long-termism and do not rush for success: Yeti's marketing strategy is not achieved overnight, but adheres to long-termism, continuous accumulation and precipitation. They believe that only through long-term efforts can the brand's competitiveness and influence be truly established.

Yeti's CEO Reintjes described the company's growth strategy as a depth and breadth strategy, and these marketing strategies are the embodiment of this strategy.