Snoop Dogg's Viral Commercial Campaign May Not Have Been Successful Enough
Popping up on X, formerly known as Twitter, in November 2023, iconic rapper and star of "The Underdoggs" Snoop Dogg posted a somber, black-and-white image of his face accompanying text claiming that he was giving up smoke. A few days later, this turned out to be a misdirect promoting a smokeless stove brand called Solo Stove. Unsurprisingly, the implication that the rapper might be leaving behind the intoxicant with which he's so inextricably linked got people's attention; more than a million people viewed Solo Stove's Snoop Dogg commercial once it hit YouTube.
However, while the stove brand successfully engineered a viral internet moment, that virality never quite translated into the sales necessary to justify a pricy, celebrity-driven ad campaign. In fact, Solo Brands, which is the company that owns Solo Stove, ended up replacing its CEO in the wake of the Snoop Dogg promotion.
According to data that business journal The Daily by Outdoor Retailer published, the company's revenue in the fourth quarter of 2023 — when the Snoop Dogg campaign went live — fell well below projections. Specifically, the company adjusted its predicted total revenue for the year from between $520 million and $540 million to between $490 million and $500 million. "While our unique marketing campaigns raised brand awareness of Solo Stove to an expanded and new audience of consumers, it did not lead to the sales lift that we had planned," CFO Andrea Tarbox wrote. "Our fourth quarter results came in below expectations as we experienced softer-than-anticipated sales in our direct channel."
The Snoop Dogg stove ad was a hit at first
The immediate effect of Snoop Dogg's viral promotion for Solo Stove was growth in both awareness and sales for the brand, which might be expected from the man behind one of the greatest movie cameos by a rapper. On social media, for example, the company's following grew by more than 60,000. Meanwhile, a Snoop Dogg-branded stove sold out less than a month after the campaign went live. Snoop's commercial even landed a spot on a list ranking the best ads of 2023 published by advertising journal Ad Age. Plus, in the campaign's immediate wake, Solo Stove debuted a float at the 2023 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
While this major marketing push doubtlessly expanded awareness of the company, it doesn't seem to have translated into sustainable growth. Rather, while online virality put the brand in front of new eyeballs and even inspired a surge in sales of the Snoop Dogg-branded product in particular, that rapid ascent was merely momentary like most viral attention.
New CEO Christopher Metz started on January 15, and while he has yet to reveal explicitly how he'll affect the company, Solo Stove will presumably pivot away from big stunts like its Snoop Dogg ad moving forward, in spite of that ad's initial success.