The makers of cult drink bottle favourite Frank Green are no strangers to managing high levels of demand for their popular products, but the sell-out of its latest product release on Thursday took this demand to new heights.
For founder Ben Young, the development of the new product is simply the continuation of the company’s long-held practice of putting its customers first, and of meeting those customers where they are, including on social media.
So what is this new product that sold out within hours?
It’s a 11.4cm by 7.5cm sized drink bottle attachment, made from silicon, designed to fit within the average sized drink holder in most cars.
The accessory solves a daily problem encountered by owners of Frank Green’s 34oz/1 litre ceramic drink bottles, says Young, but the story of its design is a quirky one that involves TikTok, Bunnings and painted PVC pipes.
Frustrated at not being able to fit their Frank Green bottles in the cup holders in their cars, creative customers were developing their own solution by visiting Bunnings, purchasing PVC piping, and then painting the pipes in bright hues to match their bottles.
@moltok1235 Feel sorry for all the confused plumbers out there 👩🔧🥤 #frankgreen #hacks #cupholder #bunningshack #emotionalsupportwaterbottle #fyp
The TikTok hack proved undeniably popular — it has been seen by more than 5 million viewers — and it quickly caught on, with a wave of Frank Green customers adopting the DIY solution.
It caught the brand’s attention too, and on Thursday, Frank Green released its own car cup holder expander, in six colours, priced at $19.95. Within hours of the announcement on social media, all stock had been sold out.
Young told SmartCompany the Frank Green team have been working on the car cup holder expander for some time after receiving a “groundswell” of emails and messages from customers who couldn’t fit their Frank Green bottles in their car cup holders.
“We’re constantly looking for innovative ways to extend the Frank Green experience,” he says.
“We realised a lot of people spend time in their cars and, as it turns out, people having been loving the emotional support from our water bottles.”
“We just needed to do it … it’s a real natural extension.”
Listening to customers, and having a “constant dialogue” with them, is something Frank Green has always strived to do, says Young, and these conversations have previously led to changes and improvements to other Frank Green products – some of which he says have gone through as many as 14 different iterations based on feedback.
Social media has no doubt accelerated this feedback loop, especially for younger consumers, which are becoming a key part of Frank Green’s wide-ranging customer base. The brand itself has a strong presence on TikTok, but Young says the platform simply provides “another medium” for engaging with customers.
“If you think three or four years ago, we wouldn’t have been talking about it [TikTok] and in three or four years, we’ll probably be talking about something else,” he says.
Young founded Frank Green in 2014 and in the nine years since, the brand has amassed a loyal following of customers with its brightly coloured reusable coffee cups, drink bottles and kitchenware.
Back in 2019, the Victorian-based company was reported to be a rapidly growing, $20 million business, and Young confirms this growth has continued in more recent years. Frank Green grew by 300% over the past 12 months, says the founder, and expects to do the same again in the next 12 months.
The plastic crisis, both here and abroad, shows there is “a lot more work to be done” in encouraging consumers to embrace reusable products, says Young.
Frank Green products are now sold in more than 50 countries around the world, a fact that Young says the team are “astounded” by. But they are equally focused on “securing what we do here in Australia too”.
To that end, the company has recently purchased a 30,000sqm facility in Melbourne’s south east to house its Australian operations. This will allow the company to focus on vertical integration, says Young, including manufacturing, and creating more “clean green, clever jobs” by “investing every cent we make back into more people, new technologies.”
“It’s the secret sauce of the business, that we are really okay with investing a lot of money back in to keep growing,” he says.
“And quite frankly, we ought to, given what we are up against with the global plastic crisis.”
Editor
Eloise is an experienced business journalist and editor, who has held senior editorial roles at SmartCompany since 2014. Prior to joining SmartCompany, Eloise was news editor at Books+Publishing, the trade press for the Australian book industry. Eloise has degrees in media and communications, marketing and business management, and political science. You can follow her on LinkedIn, and Twitter at @ellykeating.
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