Stanley 1913, the drinkware brand with more than 100 years of heritage, has spent the past few years riding a wave of viral growth. Now it is building the marketing infrastructure to sustain it.

In the latest episode of The Marketing Week Podcast, chief brand officer Kate Ridley speaks with work and careers editor and podcast lead Molly Innes about how she built out the company's global marketing function as it prepares for its next stage of growth.

Ridley joined the brand last year, initially as a consultant tasked with building the global marketing function, before taking the role on a permanent basis. She brought more than 20 years of experience at Adidas with her, and in the episode she shares lessons from the sportswear giant that she is applying at Stanley.

The timing matters. While Stanley's heritage stretches back over a century, it is the last few years that have delivered what Marketing Week describes as "mammoth growth", driven by mega viral success online. The challenge now is converting that momentum into durable, structured growth.

Part of the strategy involves expansion. The business is entering new categories in sports and fashion, and aims to welcome new consumers to the brand. Crucially, Ridley explains, Stanley is pursuing this expansion without alienating its longstanding fans — a balance many viral brands struggle to strike.

Ridley is candid about the pressures that come with rapid growth. "Anyone who's been through a period of growth knows that you're kind of strapped onto a rocket ship and you are keeping up with the demand," she says.

"You're listening to your consumers and you're really learning a lot about where you can take your business and your brand. And you don't always have the time to pause and set up infrastructure, and foundational platforms for future growth."

That tension — between meeting demand in the moment and building the foundations for the long term — sits at the heart of her remit at Stanley. Her arrival signals the brand's effort to formalise a marketing operation capable of supporting category expansion while preserving the consumer relationships that fuelled its rise.

For marketers at other consumer brands navigating post-viral growth, the episode offers a practitioner's view of the organisational questions that follow overnight success: when to bring in senior marketing leadership, how to scale a function from scratch, and how to broaden a brand's reach without losing its core audience.

The Marketing Week Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Acast.

Source: Marketing Week (https://www.marketingweek.com/marketing-week-podcast-viral-brand-stanley/)