Yeti gets a job in a diner

I’m a big believer in cast iron. Specifically, cast iron cookware. Skillets, dutch ovens, griddles…the more casty, the more ferrous, the better. I have little skillets for fried eggs, big skillets for pancakes, dutch ovens for braising and for bread baking. I have new cast iron and vintage cast iron. When I (rarely) go camping, I bring a cast iron skillet to cook on. I’ve given cast iron skillets as gifts. And when I think cast iron, I think of two brands: Lodge and Le Creuset. Not because I think they are necessarily better than any other cast iron (or in the case of the latter, enameled cast iron) manufacturer, but because they’re the only ones I really know and remember. 

You know who I don’t think of?

Yeti. 

Yeti has branched out from mugs, insulated bags and coolers and into cookware. 

That’s right, Yeti, maker of metal water bottles, tumblers, and coolers is getting in on the cast iron game. Which got me wondering about the brand’s growth, change and how it’s managing to expand in a world where whole kitchen cabinets are becoming dedicated to water bottle storage. So, let’s dig into the world of Yeti, its brand portfolio, and see if we can figure out how the brand is able to make a $250 cast iron skillet make sense. 

First of all, a look into Yeti’s annual report (in this case, the 2023 AR) turns up the fact that the product portfolio is structured into three groups: Coolers & Equipment, Drinkware, and Other.  Coolers & Equipment has Yeti’s original product: high end, hard coolers. The type you fill with ice, beverages, and food when you head out to fish, camp or otherwise recreate in the great outdoors. They’ll keep your cold stuff cold for days, even if the sun is blazing above. Drinkware is where Yeti broke through as a brand, setting water bottles, insulated coffee tumblers and a range of other beverage containers designed for less-domesticated living. Other is where you find apparel, merch, and, of course, bottle openers. The revenue split in 2023 was 36%, 62% and 2%, respectively. 

Yeti is a Drinkware-dominated brand

So, that’s the business structure: Coolers & Equipment, Drinkware and Other. Got it? Good. 

Now, let’s look at Yeti.com, and see if we can’t see how the brand portfolio is structured. 

Yeti's website sorts products by clear product categories
Source: www.yeti.com

As it turns out, Yeti.com doesn’t quite follow the business structure to a ‘T’. Instead, we have Coolers, Drinkware & Cookware, and then a few surprising items that seem to fit into the business’s Other category: Bags, Cargo, Outdoor Living, and Apparel. If you’re looking for the cast iron skillet – it comes in 8”, 10” and 12” sizes – you’ve actually got two options to find it. First is within Drinkware & Cookware. Here, the cast iron offerings are the sole line within the Cookware category. Perhaps there’s a plan for more, perhaps the product just needed someplace to land, but either way, it makes sense for a cookware product to be housed within Cookware. However, if you jump over to Outdoor Living, and drop down a bit, you’ll find – yes – the cast iron skillets. Along with dog bowls, camp chairs, blankets and three coffee table books: White Water, Wild Sheep and Ducks. 

What does this suggest about Yeti’s approach to its brand portfolio architecture, product innovation and its customers? Firstly, while Yeti’s primary organizing principle is built around a product category-centric frame, jumping into a new offering category comes with some level of uncertainty. Allowing consumers to find the same product in two different categories suggests that Yeti is willing to experiment to understand where the cast iron skillets should live. Presumably, after a few months, the data will tell us where consumers naturally gravitate, which section yields a better take up rate, and if one or both of the locations are the natural spot for Yeti’s cookware offerings. 

Secondly, this suggests something about Yeti as an organization that isn’t encountered in companies as often as it should be: a willingness to admit that it doesn’t have all the answers. In their annual report, there is a statement about how Yeti develops new products:

“We have a history of consistently broadening our high-performance, premium-priced product portfolio to meet the needs of our expanding customer base and their evolving pursuits. Our culture of innovation and success in identifying customer needs and wants drives our robust product roadmap.”

This customer orientation, the acknowledgement that where consumers are headed is where the brand should head, is the opposite of the “we built it, you sell it” thinking that still dominates too many businesses. 

Combine the two ideas and you end up with a really powerful lesson: sometimes the best way to grow a brand portfolio architecture is to let flex a bit, to experiment with a few different approaches and then let the market, your consumers and your sales data tell you where to go. To do so requires an organization and culture that is willing to try things knowing that a lot of what gets put into market won’t work. But, if one does, then you might just be able to sell a cast iron skillet for 10x the price of the market leader. 

So, here’s the question for you: What are you going to do to use your brand, your portfolio architecture, and your ingenuity to seek out new paths to growth?