Solo Stove and Snoop Dogg are back.
When Snoop declared he was “giving up smoke” last November, then revealed the announcement to be a stunt to raise awareness for his partnership with fire pit brand Solo Stove, it caused an uproar in the marketing world.
The brand parted ways with its CEO, president and director of the board, John Merris, shortly after the campaign launched on the grounds that it failed to drive “a substantial revenue increase” — driving debate in the industry about the short window for success.
But Solo Stove and creative partner The Martin Agency can say one thing with certainty: The Snoop Goes Smokeless campaign worked. According to metrics from Solo Stove, the work drove increases of 500% in organic search, 195% on Amazon search, 167% on Google search and 365% in email subscription. It also drove the cost of customer acquisition down by 22%.
Solo Stove’s follow-up campaign, released on Tuesday, doubles down on the success of the original. But instead of a viral stunt, this time, Solo Stove is being much more blunt (pun intended) in its approach.
Titled Blunt Marketing, the work stars Snoop talking about this straightforward approach to marketing with his longtime friend and collaborator, Warren G. In the 30-second hero video, Snoop and Warren G speak directly to the camera, getting to the point quickly that the purpose of the campaign is to sell fire pits.
Snoop even addresses the reason he’s appearing in the ads: “I’m here because you’re more likely to buy this fire pit because I’m Snoop.”
Jerry Hoak, CCO at The Martin Agency, said that the work aims to prove that “this idea of being smokeless and having Snoop as our guy was the right thing to do and is going to continue to work” for Solo Stove.
As one might expect from a blunt marketing campaign, closeup product shots, brand name callouts and logos are abundant; in the final few seconds of the ad, the screen fills with dozens of Solo Stove logos surrounding Snoop and Warren G.
Hoak noted that these elements “added to the joke” and therefore couldn’t be overused. The result is a humorous and unabashedly honest campaign that speaks to its audience without pretense.
“The brand is changing the tonality of the way we are interacting with our audience,” said Luana Bumachar, Solo Stove’s CMO. Rather than hiding the fact that the ad is meant to sell a product and Snoop is in it because of his celebrity status, she added, “let’s embrace that he is here to sell, because Snoop by himself brings that [brand] awareness.”
Doubling down on “smokeless”
Bumachar joined Solo Stove in February, after the Snoop Goes Smokeless campaign and subsequent controversy. Coming into her role, she said, she thought she might need to overhaul the marketing strategy due to the perceived failure of that work.
Instead, she found that the campaign had actually done its job very well and the core elements of the positioning — smoking innuendo, Snoop as the spokesperson — were strong. As the team considered whether and how to leverage Snoop again, said Bumachar, “we found very strong connection points between him and the brand,” as well as its target audience.
Segmentation research revealed that Solo Stove’s target audience held strong interest in sports, especially football, as well as entertainment and comedy — all categories which Snoop fits snugly into.
In terms of entertainment, Snoop will be a coach on the upcoming season of The Voice, where Solo Stove will be advertising. “Where you see Snoop, hopefully, you’re going to see a Solo Stove ad,” noted Bumachar.
And it just so happened that Snoop cemented himself as an unofficial spokesperson for U.S. sports with his Olympics coverage this year — Bumachar noted the alignment was unintentional, “but we’re going to capitalize on it.”
To catch football lovers, Solo Stove will air the campaign during “Thursday Night Football” on Prime Video and “NFL Sunday Ticket.”
Blunt Marketing is the largest campaign from Solo Stove to date, with paid media across video, digital, social, influencer, audio, search, performance and retail. Solo Stove declined to share the budget for the media spend.
Unlike in the previous campaign, Snoop is featured in the full funnel of assets, including custom pre-roll ads — in which he plays up the stoner’s definition of a “pre-roll” — banner ads and influencer tie-ins, in which creators joke about Solo Stove not being able to afford Snoop for any more work.
“We didn’t want to just do another film, because if we did that, we were going to be facing the same naysayers that we had the first time,” said Hoak. “So it was really important that the lower funnel assets didn’t look different than the upper funnel work. We wanted to pull Snoop the whole way through that.”
Bumachar said the campaign’s tone is consistent throughout its media assets, noting, “we are bringing this new tone of voice of the brand — witty and unapologetic and blunt — to every single channel, even performance marketing.”
Snoop the creative
Bumachar said that the creative was driven in large part by Snoop himself, and the media plan evolved as a result. The Martin Agency and Solo Stove wanted Snoop to be himself in the ads, which led to him riffing on the lines he was fed during the shoot.
Hoak noted that the creative team came in with a “bare bones” script and encouraged Snoop to ad-lib, even carving out spaces for him to riff on mic.
“You can write a script for Snoop, but once he gets going, he’s so funny and quick and willing to say whatever,” he said, adding that the rapper joked on-set that “‘I’m gonna say whatever I want so there’s no way any of this is getting on TV.’” (Note to Solo Stove: Please release the R-rated versions!)
“We came in with an idea, and he just takes the idea to the next level,” Bumachar added of Snoop. “And when we got that idea to the next level, we then decided what was the media plan that would fit that idea while fitting the business and campaign objectives.”
As a result, said Bumachar, “the campaign evolved a lot — the look and feel, the mnemonics, the portholes.”
Those kinks are typically worked out prior to the work being shot, said Bumachar, so this method was “messy” and stressful for her.
As a marketer, she said, “you’re trained to show the perfection of the brand — and if you’re working with a guy like Snoop, and you want him to be himself, there are risks of him being himself, as any human being.”
While the process was more difficult because “there is a fine line on what is acceptable and what you should be doing as a brand,” she added, the work ultimately felt more authentic to both Solo Stove and Snoop’s brands.
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