The drinkware brands the internet can’t stop talking about

Walk into any office, gym, or coffee shop, and you’ll see the same thing: someone clutching a Stanley. Someone eyeing up an Owala. Someone with a Fellow mug who takes their morning flat white very, very seriously. 

These three different Drinkware brands are all built around the idea that good design matters. That’s something MOO has always believed, too. 

So, what separates cult favorites from forgotten freebies rattling around at the bottom of a tote bag? We dug into the brands behind the hype, and why they’re the ones worth putting your logo on.

Key takeaways

• Stanley didn’t chase the culture – culture came to it.
• Owala solved one specific problem for two types of drinkers and built a cult following without trying to be everything to everyone.
• Fellow proved that caring obsessively about one thing is a viable business strategy.
• Good design becomes part of someone’s daily routine.
• Each piece of branded Drinkware generates over 3,000 impressions over its lifetime, making it one of the highest-ROI merch investments you can make.
• Stanley, Owala, and Fellow are all available at MOO, fully customizable with your logo.

Stanley: from building sites to a TikTok sensation

Stanley has been making things since 1913. For most of that time, it was the workhorse of the Drinkware world, built for workmen, campers, hikers, and outdoor adventurers. 

Then the internet got hold of it. 

When The Buy Guide – an online shopping blog and Instagram account – launched in 2017, their second-ever post featured a 40oz Stanley Quencher. “Of all the insulated cups… this is the one. Just trust,” it read. Their followers did. Every time they linked it, it sold out. 

Then TikTok arrived, and the Quencher became something else entirely with limited editions, pastel drops, and queues outside Target at 7am. The moment that sealed its legendary status was when this TikTok video of a burnt-out car went viral, with the Stanley Cup still upright in the cupholder, ice rattling inside, racking up nearly 95 million views.

The hype didn’t create Stanley’s quality, but it did give it a new platform to reach a completely new audience. And for any brand wondering how a 110-year-old flask ended up on a Gen Z wishlist, the answer is simple: build something genuinely good, and the rest has a way of taking care of itself.

Owala: engineering the perfect sip

Owala didn’t have a century of heritage to lean on. It had something else: seven years of obsessive work to get it right.

The FreeSip was born out of a simple observation: people were either ‘straw drinkers’ or ‘wide-mouth drinkers’, and no bottle on the market truly served both. So, Trove Brands CEO Steve Sorensen set out to fix that. 

The FreeSip lets you sip through a built-in straw or drink from the wide opening (depending on how you tilt it) with a push-button lid, integrated carry loop, and a genuinely leakproof seal.  TIME named it one of the Best Inventions of 2023.

But it wasn’t even an overnight success. The first launch failed, but the relaunch in March 2020 turned out to be everything. While the world was in lockdown, videos of nurses raving about their FreeSip bottles spread across TikTok. Fans started calling it their “emotional support bottle.” Viral color drops sell out in under an hour, and flip on resale sites for over $100. By 2023, it was America’s top-selling stainless steel water bottle. 

Most brands try to appeal to everyone and end up meaning nothing. Owala did the opposite – they solved one specific problem, for two specific types of drinkers, with one elegantly engineered lid. Sometimes that’s all it takes.

Fellow: the gold standard for coffee lovers 

Fellow started the way the best coffee stories do: with one person who cared too much and couldn’t let it go.

Jake Miller was a Stanford MBA student and self-described coffee nerd when he launched the Duo Coffee Steeper on Kickstarter in 2013, raising nearly $200K in pre-sales in 30 days. It then cost over $300,000 to fulfil the orders, the product flopped, and when Miller went looking for investment to keep going, he collected 73 rejections before finally making a breakthrough.

Fellow treats coffee as a craft worth obsessing over. Ceramic-coated interiors mean no metallic aftertaste, no lingering smells. The Carter Move Mug has a snap-in splash guard that keeps coffee exactly where it belongs (in the cup, not on your laptop). It won Best Coffee Design at the SCA Awards, alongside multiple Red Dot Design Awards for Fellow’s wider range. 

Today, the brand has grown into a nine-figure business, with products in MoMA’s gift shop and on the desks of coffee geeks who have opinions about grind size.

The Fellow story shows what happens when someone refuses to compromise on what they love and keeps going long after anyone else would have stopped. That’s the kind of brand energy worth putting your logo on.

Marketing they’ll carry everywhere

Here’s what Stanley, Owala, and Fellow have in common: people genuinely love them. They show them off. They carry them to meetings and post them on their Stories. Putting your brand on Drinkware is one of the smartest marketing moves you can make.

63% of people keep promotional Drinkware for over a year, and a single branded item generates over 3,162 impressions over its lifetime. That’s thousands of moments where your brand shows up subtly and consistently. 

At MOO, we’ve brought together Stanley, Owala, Fellow, and more

All customizable with your logo, all backed by MOO’s quality print and fast turnaround. No hunting across multiple suppliers or juggling quality standards. 

And if you’re working on something bigger, like a client gifting or branded merch strategy, MOO Business Services gives you the dedicated support to make it happen.

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