Snoop Dogg to star in another Solo Stove ad after campaign sparked industry debate

Snoop Dog is set for a follow-up Solo Stove campaign, months after his debut for the smokeless outdoor fire pit sparked an industry debate about the effectiveness of ads starring high-profile celebrities. The follow-up, which is expected later this year, was confirmed on Monday during a panel at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity led by Solo Brands Chief Marketing Officer Luana Bumachar and Martin Agency CEO Danny Robinson. Also read: Inside Solo Stove’s viral Snoop Dogg partnership The executives showed a short teaser video that had a close-up of Snoop Dogg saying he’s back and the caption: “Snoop is back and he’s going to sell even more f—king stoves.” “Wait until the back half [of the year],” Bumachar said about the new campaign’s timing. Cannes Lions coverage See all of the Grand Prix winners here Top 5 Grand Prix campaigns During the panel, Bumachar and Robinson broke down the brief for the original campaign, which began with a Snoop Dogg social media post that set the internet on fire last year. He claimed to be giving up smoke (i.e. weed), but it was later revealed he was referring to the smokeless fire pit. The ad from Martin, which came out in late 2023, garnered over $100 million in earned media and 19.5 billion impressions, according to results shared on the panel. But it also led to a conversation around whether the viral moment drove business results. On Jan. 8, Solo Stove’s parent company Solo Brands announced its President, CEO and Director John Merris would “mutually separate from the company,” with then-interim Chief Financial Officer Andrea Tarbox noting in the same announcement that the Snoop campaign did not “lead to the sales lift” the company originally had planned. The sentiment drew criticism in the creative industry, including from ex-Burger King marketer Fernando Machado. Solo Stove later clarified its original statement, saying the ad “inserted our Solo Stove brand into cultural conversations.” Bumachar was named Solo Brands’ first CMO in February. She had been CMO at Beautycounter and previously spent many years at Unilever, according to her LinkedIn. In her first 60 days at Solo Brands, she said she focused on finding out more about the campaign. Overall, Bumachar said that the effort reduced Solo Stove’s customer acquisition cost by 22% and increased sales by 31% in just four weeks. But she wanted to make it known that it wasn’t all luck. “I believe the success of this campaign was the right talent with the right product and brought to life by the right creative idea that took risk-taking,” Bumachar said. Robinson emphasized that long-term business results won’t immediately be obvious, given that Solo Stove is marketing a premium product that can cost hundreds of dollars, so it could take multiple exposures to the product to convert a customer. Bumachar admitted that the business had learned a lot from the campaign as well. “We found out that the business goals and the campaign goals were not necessarily in sync,” Bumachar said. “[We learned] that alignment is not necessarily only between the marketing, finance and sales teams, but it’s also supply chain, and even HR.” Also read: Solo Stove hires PMG as media agency She indicated that immediate goals for the initial campaign might not have been realistic. “What I will say is that our timeline and conversion metrics expected for this campaign were a little bit on the optimistic side,” Bumachar said. “If you decide to roast a marshmallow with a blowtorch, you’re going to get it done, but you’re not going to get a great gooey marshmallow, you’re going to get burned sugar. What we needed is a holistic plan that aligned all the stakeholders from all functions behind the campaign and the business objectives.” Robinson broke down the behind-the-scenes work that went into the campaign and said Snoop had ironically been smoking throughout the filming of the video ad paired with the tweet.

Snoop Dogg to star in another Solo Stove ad after campaign sparked industry debate

Featured Stories