this is a yeti it's a cooler that costs up to 1 300 depending on the size when the company came public in late 2018 i think a knee-jerk reaction from a lot of investors was who really wants to pay 400 for a cooler it turns out for the right cooler many people do yeti brought in about 914 million dollars in revenue in 2019 by turning a mundane commoditized item into a status symbol in many cases coolers going into the mid-2000s it was kind of a race to the bottom just to see who come up with
the cheapest cooler yeti has since expanded into drinkware and other outdoor equipment for 40 dollars this better come with the cure to the coronavirus the high prices haven't stopped some yeti fans from hoarding the products yeti fans are definitely a cult we love yeti we live and we breathe yeti and we are going to collect as many products as possible you know even if it's pain above retail or finding little tiny rinky-dink fishing shops on the coast and harassing their owners until we find the products that we're looking for the yeti cult includes celebrities like
reese witherspoon sandra bullock matt damon jimmy kimmel and hunting enthusiast joe rogan who prays to the coolers on his podcast in april 2018. you could put ice in them and go to the desert and five days later you have ice in that core here's how yeti reinvented coolers and drinkware and turned conventionally cheap and bland product categories into premium collectors items this is suddenly obsessed never in our wildest dreams do we ever think that yeti would turn in what it is today you know 10 years before we started yeti we were modifying coolers by putting
a half inch piece of plywood on top of the this ordinary cooler and just rigging it out to use it as a casting platform you could point to that picture and say hey that's it that's the origin of yeti yeti was founded in 2006 by brothers roy and ryan cedars who grew up hunting and fishing in texas but the coolers they were using couldn't keep up they fell apart and needed to be replaced every year so the cedars designed a cooler for the serious outdoor enthusiast not just the occasional camper coolers that are virtually indestructible
and can keep ice frozen for days this is actually tundra number one this was the prototype of the tundra cooler yeti coolers are made out of roto-molded plastic wrapped around a few inches of dense insulating foam roto-molding is a manufacturing technique that ensures plastic is molded as durably as possible the average cooler was thirty dollars and we launched a three hundred dollar cooler i think for the first four to five years it was really well known in the fishing and hunting communities in the south and southeast of the u.s yeti ceo matt reinces says yeti
began to capture the attention of the general public around 2014. revenue tripled as the company expanded into drinkware that year now yeti's fastest growing and most lucrative category drinkware now represents about 60 of yeti's business yeti drinkware is made from high quality stainless steel with double walled vacuum insulation the same technology used by the company thermos but does this stuff actually work yeti sent me some products to test including tundra 45 and roadie 24 heart coolers tumblers ramblers and backpacks i'm taking a road trip somewhere hot and i'm gonna need my drinks cold so i'm
testing out some yeti products for the first time and seeing how they compare to products i usually use let's see how they perform what i found is that yeti coolers don't always retain ice for days and days it varies depending on the temperature of the environment of the cooler and of what you put in the cooler all things being equal the yeti performed a lot better than the rubber maid in good conditions the ice in my yeti cooler melted by the end of the fourth day and the water was freezing cold for the next couple
days but there were moments when we chose to use the rubbermaid over the yeti when we needed to keep food and drinks cold for a short time and had to carry a cooler from one place to another the yeti is much bigger and heavier than the rubbermaid even though they hold a similar amount in volume my yeti water bottle kept drinks cold for about 36 hours my thermos actually consistently retained ice for a few hours longer than my yeti but sometimes i used my plastic water bottle on hikes instead because the yeti is so much
heavier yeti wasn't designed for brief casual activities you don't necessarily need one for a light-hearted day trip a short hike in the backyard or at the pool there are other products that get the job done cheaper but yeti is often the preferred brand for those things people aren't just buying yeti for its functionality the number of people that press our products to the absolute edge is uh is relatively small they're paying for the brand and what it represents [Music] fully aware of my obsession yes i have you know drank drink the kool-aid for for yeti
and i understand they're completely overpriced um people on my friends list are like how why monica marquez lives in san antonio texas and uses her yeti products during hot yoga at the pool the lake and the beach marquez says yeti helps her to feel in touch with what she values most it also signifies those values to other people marquez works at an elementary school and keeps yeti products on her desk reminding me that sitting here at this desk is not my life being outdoors and having fun with my family is my life it not only
reminds me that that's who i am it tells other people as well that that's who i am that's because yeti has built a lifestyle brand that feels authentic yeti products have come to represent a way of life that many people aspire to that ideal of i spend so much of my time in an office behind a screen in front of a phone that this idea of getting outside and experiencing a disconnected life and yeti says its success depends on the value of its brand that branding has helped yeti expand far beyond its initial target market
of serious outdoorsmen mostly concentrated in the south and has turned the products into collector's items among moms living in the city as much as avid hunters in the country yeti is now catering to a much broader audience in 2018 the company even risked alienating some of its original core customers when it made a move that angered the nra nra members took to blowing up their yeti coolers after yeti said it was ending an outdated discount program benefiting the nra and other organizations the nra also dropped yeti as its preferred supplier of coolers the conflict took
place in the aftermath of the parkland florida mass shooting as businesses distanced themselves from the nra but yeti has said its decision to end the discount program was not related to this incident yeti products are now sold in stores all over the u.s including in big cities the goods are also available in certain international markets the city slickers they all have it and you know it's funny somebody actually commented the other day and said do any of you actually use your yeti's because a lot of them seem to be just collectors items marquez is part
of a yeti fan page on facebook with thousands of members they show off their collections and rare finds yeti has fueled fan fervor by releasing products in limited edition colors tj lehman founded the fan group marquez belongs to so this is tahoe blue i looked for this thing for like a year and you can find it but it'll cost you uh upwards of 120 is what they're going for there's two things that yeti does really well but better than anyone else in their respective categories they advertise and they market the brand the second thing is
that they they reinvent stale categories yeti doesn't focus on marketing the technical features of its products instead the company aims to establish an emotional connection with consumers through the stories of the people who use the products yeti produces cinematic videos following accomplished outdoorsmen and women on epic adventures a yeti product will make an occasional appearance in stories of true grit bravery escapism and living in harmony with nature a few years ago i nearly lost my life doing what i love since then i've doubled down on my mission making sure we tell the stories of how
the product is used in real life and technical specs i think are quickly forgotten yeti has also built a network of 130 brand ambassadors including elite athletes hunters fishermen and barbecue pit masters they lend credibility to the yeti brand having a yeti and being outdoors and being able to take that photo for social media just it gives you the illusion that you are somehow athletic or on the same level as these expert fishermen or kayakers experts say the strength of yeti's branding has helped the company fend off an explosion in competition numerous brands have piggybacked
off yeti's success making their own premium roto-molded coolers and often pricing them more affordably in the summer of 2020 yeti stock hit a new high investors are bullish on the company as consumers spend more time social distancing in the great outdoors amid the coronavirus pandemic i got a question about yeti i wanted to see if i should still stay in it or get out as you stay in it yeti is having an unbelievable summer it's the summer of outdoors yeti stands to benefit as americans emerge from quarantine aspiring more than ever to be free in
the outdoors
