The man behind Stanley, Crocs’ virality has stunning advice

Marketing mastermind Terence Reilly is accountable for turning rubber footwear and insulated mugs into cultural obsessions.

In 2011, he joined Crocs as Chief Brand Officer and achieved what appeared not possible: making low-cost foam footwear cool. He left in 2020 for Stanley, the place he turned an outsized water bottle into a must-have item, then returned to Crocs last 12 months to ramp up the model’s partnerships and social media presence.

And he has uncommon advice for executives trying to jolt a sleepy or small model: Spend 50% of your time and nearly all of your advertising money on social media.

““I spend a lot of time on Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok, YouTube … social media in general is just an amazing opportunity for any brand of any size,” he told me. “That’s the place customers are.

Terence Reilly, who handles branding for Crocs, advises other executives to spend a minimum of half their time on social media. EMMY PARK

“A lot of purchase decisions begin on TikTok, and so we want to make sure that we are front and center.”

This 12 months, Crocs has targeted closely on TikTok Live buying, a modern-day QVC the place people store in real time, in addition to the platform’s scrollable Shop. So has Hey Dude, another informal shoe model the company acquired in 2022.

“Both brands, Crocs and Hey Dude, are the number one and number two footwear brands on TikTok Shop,” Reilly said.

Direct-to-consumer income has been up for Crocs, though total revenue for both brands was down — 2.5% for Crocs and 21.6% for Hey Dude — 12 months over 12 months in the third quarter of 2025 as developments modified.

But Reilly is confident he can revitalize with limited-edition drops and by partnering with celebrities including Jelly Roll and Sydney Sweeney, who came on as a Hey Dude global spokesperson in August. (The actress’ controversial ads for American Eagle really helped brand sales soar.)

He’s been right here before.

Sydney Sweeney — who made waves together with her American Eagle campaign this summer time -— was named a global spokesperson for Hey Dude in August. Hey Dude

Sydney Sweeney in Hey Dudes. Instagram/ Sydney Sweeney

On his first day at the Colorado-based company, Reilly put up a poster in his workplace emblazoned with snarky criticism of Crocs: “Those holes are where your dignity leaks out.”

It was a reminder he would need to perform one thing that money usually can’t purchase.

“We didn’t have an awareness problem… we needed to make Crocs cool,” Reilly explained as he gave me a tour of the model’s revitalized mega-store on thirty fourth avenue. “The brands didn’t want to be part of Crocs, or people didn’t want to be part of Crocs because they thought it was uncool.”

That meant years of reaching out to coveted celebrities and influencers, when Crocs ought to have been searching for one thing more natural.

After Crocs noticed Post Malone sporting a pair of the footwear, they partnered with him on a collaboration. Crocs

Crocs collaborated with high style manufacturers including Balenciaga, which charged almost $1,000 for a pair. Balenciaga

“We got a lot of nos for a long time,” Reilly said. That is, until 2016, when he noticed Post Malone sporting a pair of Crocs backstage.

“It was real,” the exec added. “We weren’t paying somebody to wear shoes—he was wearing them already, and his fans knew that.”

By 2017, they’d launched a Crocs and Post Malone partnership.

Crocs now companions with dozens of manufacturers and artists including Disney, Nerf, Nascar, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, SpongeBob, Star Wars, Pringles and MLB.

And while Reilly was grateful that luxurious labels including Balenciaga and Christopher Kane jumped on the Crocs bandwagon a few years in the past, that includes the footwear of their style exhibits, he is aware of that capturing high-fashion lightning in a bottle might be not as seemingly as getting core clients excited again.

Terence Reilly, CMO of Crocs, nearly completely wears Crocs. EMMY PARK

While Crocs stock faltered earlier this 12 months (down 11% over six months), it’s rebounded more than 17% in the last month.

“I think there’s always an element of pop culture, [but] it always comes back to product,” Reilly said.

It also comes back to exhibiting people you really care. Like when, in 2023, Reilly obtained major consideration after a girl posted on social media about her automobile catching fireplace — and her Stanley cup surviving it. He and the model provided to buy her a new automobile.

“This young lady’s car caught on fire. I saw it on TikTok on a Wednesday, and Thursday I recorded a video without a script and posted it. All of a sudden I started getting phone calls saying, ‘Hey, you’re blowing up on TikTok.’ 100 million views later, I’m getting recognized in airports,” he said.

Reilly was also president of Stanley at the heights of the model’s recognition. Getty Images

Asked about the position of luck in his success, Reilly pushed back.

“You make your own luck,” he said. “There’s always going to be an element of luck to anything, but you have to make it. You got to go out and swing, and we swing.”

He paused, gesturing at the Crocs displayed round the retailer. “I mean, there’s nothing like it. It is wonderfully unordinary. We sell shoes with holes in them.”

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