The archive · Marketing & Growth · Marketing decision · 2023–2024
Solo Stove's 'Snoop Goes Smokeless' tricks the internet — Webby People's Voice 2024
Snoop Dogg announces he's 'giving up smoke', the internet speculates for four days, then Solo Stove reveals its smokeless fire pits — $100M+ in earned media.
Solo Stove
What it had to solve
Solo Stove, a direct-to-consumer maker of smokeless fire pits, wanted to become a household name but had no budget for a broad media campaign. Its core benefit — fire without smoke — was invisible to anyone who had never heard of the brand.
How it works
In November 2023 Snoop Dogg, the world's most famous cannabis smoker, posted that he was 'giving up smoke'. The claim detonated: news outlets ran quitting stories, weed stocks wobbled, and fans traded theories for four days. It was a teaser.
The reveal came from Solo Stove, a direct-to-consumer brand of smokeless fire pits, which named Snoop its official 'smokesman'. The Martin Agency's follow-up film showed him beside a fire pit explaining that the smoke was the thing he was actually quitting, backed by a 30-second broadcast spot and a Snoop Stove product collaboration.
The campaign became one of the year's biggest earned-media plays — over $100 million in media value, 5,629 placements in 65 markets, a 500% jump in shopping searches — and won the 2024 Webby People's Voice Award for Brand Strategy. Solo Brands' financial results, however, showed awareness racing ahead of purchases.
Why it lands
- It weaponized the celebrity's own persona: the last person anyone expected to quit smoking made the claim instantly newsworthy.
- It gave the internet a mystery to solve, so four days of speculation compounded the story before the brand claimed it.
- It dramatized a technical product benefit — fire without smoke — through the one person whose smoking habit everyone knew.
- The reveal stayed on-brand: Snoop praised the product in his own voice instead of performing a conventional ad script.
What it did
The stunt earned over $100 million in media value, 5,629 placements across 65 global markets and a 500% rise in shopping searches, and won the 2024 Webby People's Voice Award for Brand Strategy. Solo Brands' later financials showed awareness growing much faster than sales.
What you can take
Let the audience solve the mystery before the reveal: dramatize a technical benefit through a persona nobody associates with it. Earned attention is the ad — but it does not guarantee sales.
Since then
Solo Brands' fourth-quarter results came in below expectations and full-year guidance was cut from $520–540M to $490–500M; CEO John Merris departed in January 2024. CFO Andrea Tarbox said the campaign raised brand awareness but 'did not lead to the sales lift that we had planned', and the added marketing spend hit EBITDA. The brand doubled down anyway, bringing Snoop back for a 'Blunt Marketing' follow-up later in 2024.
Sources
- 28th Annual Webby Award Winners Announced
- Solo Stove: Snoop Goes Smokeless
- Solo Stove's viral Snoop Dogg partnership fails to spark up sales
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