Marketing In The News - Solo Stove x Snoop Dogg
There was a lot of good choices recently for interesting marketing campaigns but in the end I chose the Solo Stove's Snoop Dogg campaign for this weeks blog. Solo Stove, the creator of a premium smokeless fire pit, had a viral marketing campaign in collaboration with the famous celebrity Snoop Dogg, most known for his rap career and his love for marijuana. The campaign began with a cryptic tweet from Snoop claiming he was giving up smoke and to please respect his and his families privacy during this time. This statement came as a surprise to anyone who knows of Snoop and his affinity for smoking. Then Solo Stove released their video ad staring the celebrity. In the video ad Snoop claimed he was "giving up smoke". This of course was a bait and switch as he then revealed he was referring to the smoke from his firepit, not to the drug he is often associated with.
The Solo Brands make more than just fire pits but all of their products are focused on the outdoors - kayaks, coolers, portable air conditioners. They sell premium outdoors products direct to consumers who love the outdoors enough to pay a high price for a high quality product. That is their value proposition to their customers.
With this campaign Solo Stove wanted to reach out and show their product off to more consumers and
while they succeeded in doing so, they actually failed in converting
them to customers. Using a celebrity with a large audience and strong brand as a brand ambassador is a great idea but Solo chose a celebrity that doesn't link very well to their brand or to their customer base. Snoop Dogg and the outdoors - there's not really a link there. So while Snoop Dogg could be a great brand ambassador, he wasn't great for their brand. This led to an undeniable success in going viral and getting a lot of eyes on their product but failed to deliver on making sales. In fact, Solo Brands revealed in a press conference that their revenue for the year is projected to be around ~$500 million, $20-$40 million under expectations.The former CEO has also "mutually" parted ways with the company, only further showing that this massive marketing campaign did not bring in the profits they had hoped.
What I learned from this campaign, and what I would change, is their brand ambassador. As I said earlier, they could have found more success if they utilized a celebrity or pop culture figure that is more closely tied to the outdoors - someone like Bear Grylls. Reaching a larger audience is good but you need to reach an audience that your product is relevant to or else you'll end up with some viral videos and nothing else to show for it. Growing your customers base is a great goal to chase and the wordplay and chosen celebrity certainly led to a high level of virality but in the end it didn't pay off for Solo.
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