The brief was to raise awareness and make Solo Stove a household name, which we accomplished in a mere 13 days. Having never run a national ad campaign, Solo Stove bought into our vision of a creator-led stunt designed to earn media via social and PR, followed quickly by traditional media (TV, radio, OOH and performance digital). The integrated campaign was born from Solo Stove’s brand strategy; the insight that steered the creative concept was that while some people feel right at home in the great outdoors, others require a familiar comfort to fully relax. The strategy and tagline, “we fixed fire” shed light on the company’s transformation of the earliest human invention: fire. Solo Stove took the smoke out of their pits and made fire into an experience you actually could enjoy, welcoming a broader audience to an outdoor experience the brand was uniquely suited to deliver.

The creative platform centered around “going smokeless” aimed to raise awareness of brand and primary product benefit. We cast Snoop Dogg for his international, multigenerational pop-culture iconicity and synchronicity with “smoke.” Outside of his music career, his endeavors seep into the cannabis industry, from investments to digital media to legal sale of the product itself.

He was an intentional casting choice to appeal to a new audience that had little overlap with Solo Stove’s usual outdoorsy core. He wasn’t just selling an LTO stove; Snoop was selling a lifestyle, one bolstered by his universal appeal, not just among hip-hop lovers, but Martha Stewart lovers and every demographic in between. Snoop broadened the perception of who the outdoors is “for” in our multimedia campaign that lit up social and then spread like wildfire across mass media.

Digital media has impacted traditional publicity models, with generational shifts in how news is generated and consumed. Social media is a news source for a growing number of consumers as well as journalists looking to cater to audiences’ need for entertaining, socially driven, cultural conversation.

Without a paid media budget to launch, we needed to generate widespread awareness for Solo Stove, its marquee product and key differentiator, by hacking this modern news model with an attention-grabbing, two-part strategy centered around an authentic and contextual celebrity partnership and well-coordinated rollout.

To ensure maximum impact, we:

Kept our message simple: “Solo Stove eliminated smoke for anyone looking for a more enjoyable backyard experience.”

Enlisted a “subject matter expert” with visible, authentic voice: renowned cannabis icon, Snoop Dogg

Created social content that was narrative-first and brand secondary

Paid off consumers’ intrigue with a limited-run signature line of Snoop Dogg x Solo Stove products

We executed our strategy in two phases:

The Announcement: We kicked off our external communications plan with a salacious and unexpected announcement via social from our official “smokesman,” Snoop Dogg. The announcement was deliberately vague and free of brand marks or mentions in order to feed consumers’ voracious interest in celebrity news, entertainment and the social-fueled cultural conversation de jour. To let this intrigue and dialogue build, we allowed the announcement to live unaddressed for four days, while executing targeted embargoed outreach to tip off top-tier publications about our stunt.

The Reveal: Four days later, we dropped the brand film in the place culture had been obsessed with following: Snoop’s social feed. A second round of trending conversation ensued as the influencers, outlets and pop-culture obsessives who had been speculating about why Snoop “gave up smoke” circled back to their audiences to explain what was really going on.

The initial announcement earned 5,629 unique earned media placements across 68 countries. The launch video dropped four days later, garnering another 4,317 hits, as brands and individuals alike meme-ified the announcement post in comedic solidarity. Weed stocks plummeted, while Snoop Dogg’s and Solo’s social followings soared. Solo Stove bolstered Snoop’s average engagement rate by 7,527% and Solo Stove’s campaign-specific social posts received 49,775% more engagement than average.

In totality, the campaign garnered 31 million engagements, 19.5 billion impressions and $100 million in earned media value, far beyond what the brand could have afforded to spend. But it wasn’t just wildly successful in building awareness for the brand, it moved the entire funnel. Solo Stove saw a 500% increase in organic search, a 70% increase in revenue, a 20% increase in average order value and a 22% drop in customer acquisition costs.