By Katie Deighton
The executive credited with turning Stanley's giant metal water bottle into a status symbol is leaving the company to return to his old employer, Crocs.
Beginning April 29, Terence Reilly will lead Crocs's casual shoe brand Heydude as president. Prior to taking the reins at Stanley in 2020, he had been Crocs's chief marketing officer for around five years.
During his first tenure at Crocs, Reilly liked to say his marketing team turned the clog-like shoes "from a meme to a dream," leaning on cultural trends and partnerships such as a crossover with Yum Brands' KFC and collaborations with the likes of rapper Post Malone and Chinese actor Yang Mi.
He repeated that success as president of the Stanley brand, where he converted a company previously known for men's camping gear into a viral sensation among moms and young adults. Hype around the 40-ounce water bottles contributed to Stanley's annual revenue soaring to roughly $750 million last year from $73 million in 2019.
Reilly succeeds Rick Blackshaw, a former Keds executive who left the company on Monday, according to a company filing. Blackshaw, who received 12 months' salary as severance pay, couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
Crocs declined to make executives available for interview, citing a quiet period before quarterly earnings on May 7. Stanley didn't return requests for details on Reilly's successor.
Crocs announced its acquisition of Heydude for $2.5 billion in late 2021, citing the brand's focus on lightweight comfort and casual style as similar to Crocs and promising to grow the business. Heydude's signature "Wally" and "Wendy" shoes have garnered a following in the American South and Midwest, despite some fashion commentators declaring them "strikingly ugly" with "all the elegance of a dinner roll."
But Heydude hasn't taken off under Crocs exactly as planned.
Heydude sales, most of which come from North America, increased 6% to almost $950 million in 2023 compared with 2022, hampered in part by a 1.3% decline in wholesale revenues. Sales of the 22-year-old Crocs brand increased 14% over the full year to just over $3 billion globally, and 8.3% to $1.8 billion in North America.
"In the back half of 2022, early part of 2023, we put too many pairs [of Heydude shoes] into the market," Crocs Chief Executive and Director Andrew Rees said on an earnings call in February. Brand awareness of the label increased to 32% in the second half of the year, according to Rees, a figure he described as "still low by any global brand standards."
Rees described Reilly as the right person to lead Heydude into its next phase.
"Terence has had tremendous success in creating and executing brand-building playbooks at both Stanley and Crocs by leveraging iconic product, scaling awareness, driving brand relevance and ultimately building communities," Rees said.
Write to Katie Deighton at katie.deighton@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 16, 2024 18:57 ET (22:57 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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