Dragging your Yeti cooler down the street behind your vehicle or using it for target practice might make a good social media splash, but the NRA is offering an alternative to throwing away the $500 you spent on your cooler. You can pick up an “I Stand With the NRA Foundation” sticker at the NRA Annual Meetings & Exhibits in Dallas and use it to cover up the Yeti name.
“Don't blow up your Yeti cooler. Don't shoot your Yeti cooler full of holes. Don't chain your Yeti cooler to the back of your pick-up truck and drag it down the highway,” former NRA President Marion P. Hammer wrote in announcing the strategy. “Put a big ‘I stand with the NRA Foundation’ sticker on your Yeti cooler and keep using it. They cost too much money to destroy to make a statement. Let a sticker make your statement.”
Hammer pitched the idea after hearing about the videos that were going viral on social media after Yeti pulled out of a sponsorship program with the NRA Foundation. Rather than watch people throw away their hard-earned dollars, she wanted to devise a more productive way for people to voice their disappointment with Yeti.
“This serves two purposes,” Hammer said. “First, it covers up the name on the outside of the cooler; and second, it promotes the NRA Foundation.”
An order for 100,000 of the stickers has been made, and they will be available at several places during the NRA Annual Meetings & Exhibits this weekend. People who are in Dallas can pick up stickers at the Wall of Guns display, at the NRA Booth in the exhibit hall, and there should be some available during the Annual Meeting of Members, too, Hammer said. After the Annual Meetings, members will be able to pick up a sticker at Friends of NRA banquets.
The NRA-Yeti relationship came to an abrupt end earlier this month when Yeti backed out of delivering an order to NRA-ILA, citing “recent events” as the reason, a reference to the tragic school shooting in Parkland, Fla., Hammer said.
Since Yeti reneged on its obligation, the company has backtracked on exactly what its intent was, but Hammer calls that a public relations ploy.
“In early March, Yeti refused to place a previously negotiated order from NRA-ILA, citing ‘recent events’ as the reason – a clear reference to the tragedy in Parkland, Florida. Yeti then delivered notice to the NRA Foundation that it was terminating a seven-year agreement and demanded that the NRA remove the Yeti name and logo from all NRA digital assets, as well as refrain from using any Yeti trademarks in future print material,” Hammer said in a release through NRA-ILA. “Yeti is trying to spin the story otherwise, those are the facts. While Yeti can change their story, they can’t change the facts.”
