‘Sometimes, patience is needed’: Why ditching Snoop Dogg’s viral marketing stunt was the wrong move
A US company’s recent viral marketing campaign featuring Snoop Dogg, which saw the CEO step down shortly after, may have just needed a bit more time to be a hit.
Last November, the iconic rapper announced he was giving up “smoke” which turned out to be a marketing stunt to sell outdoor fire pits on behalf of Texan home and outdoor lifestyle brand, Solo Stove.
However, in January, the company’s CEO John Merris stepped down after five years, with interim CFO Andrea Tarbox saying in a statement at the time: “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…”
Speaking to Mumbrella editor Neil Griffiths on Mumbrella’s new one-on-one podcast series, former Nike CMO Greg Hoffman said the campaign may have simply just needed more time.
“Sometimes patience is needed. I actually think within the Snoop Dogg case, it doesn’t look like they’ll have longer runway to be able to test and learn and figure out how to build on that relationship,” Hoffman said.
“It does look like it’s one-and-done, but I would argue in that case… sometimes a campaign is 1.0. And, I do realise, sometimes when the pressure’s on, you only get that shot.”
Hoffman, who will also headline this May’s Mumbrella360 conference, compared the Snoop Dogg campaign to projects he worked on at Nike with the likes of Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods.
Greg Hoffman
“We also understood that sometimes a campaign has to build over time. A lot of the iconic partnerships within those campaigns, it wasn’t always immediate, right? But it’s the commitment to enriching that story and building it over time and pushing the edges of what that is and constantly surprising your audience as well.”
He continued: “We partnered with individuals that maybe didn’t really have a passion for sport, but they certainly had a passion for innovation. Maybe they had a passion for the intersection of art and sport, music and sport, but you have to find that. And that’s where the magic happens.”
Listen to the full episode with Hoffman here.
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Neil Griffiths is the editor of Mumbrella. He joined the company in October 2023.
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