Mia Fileman 00:05
Are you tired of marketing jargon and empty promises? Me too. I'm Mia Fileman, and this is Got Marketing? on the show, I deep-dive with marketing insiders to unpack successful campaigns. I didn't earn the nickname the Campaign Lady for nothing. Get actionable tips, learn from winning strategies and avoid falling victim to marketing fads and fakery.
Mia Fileman 00:30
Hello Friend. After much difficulty trying to get this episode off the ground, we are here, and we are going to talk about Snoop Dogg, in this episode of Got Marketing? joining me today, I have Campaign Del Mar's new community manager, Lillie Brown, who is also a freelancer, marketer and copywriter. Welcome back to the show, Lillie.
Lillie Brown 00:58
What a pleasure to be talking about my Lord and Savior, the dog father, aka Snoop Dogg. I never thought I would be speaking about Snoop in a professional capacity, so don't give up on your dreams, kids.
Mia Fileman 1:13
Yeah. So, I think we should tell the listener how this episode came about. I created what I like to call a meaty carousel post for Instagram, which spoke about Snoop's involvement in the Paris 2024 Olympics. And then during our weekly campaign Del Mar WIP, I asked you and Kyra whether you thought that this could be a podcast episode, and you went on like a seven and a half minute about all the reasons why it should be and then by the end, I was convinced, and also decided that you should join me as a guest.
Lillie Brown 1:52
Well, I think it's clear from that seven-minute rant that I went on with little prompting that I am a Snoop Dogg die-hard, so I'm very excited to be talking about this through a marketing lens because I think often when people think about Snoop Dogg, they're like, Oh yeah, ‘the drop it like it’s hot’ guy. He's a rapper. But there's so much more going on. And really, I think today's episode, we're going to be looking at Snoop's personal brand mastery and how he evolved from this West Coast gangster rapper to being NBC special correspondent at the Paris Olympics.
Mia Fileman 2:32
Yeah, I have to say I'm a convert. I am not a rap fan. I actually did really like, like Tupac back in the day, but it has been a very long time since I've listened to reggae or rap. And yeah, I just I never thought much of him until he started stepping into his creator era, and now I can appreciate him for the visionary creative that he is. And I can't wait to unpack all of those details with you before we dive in. I would just love to hear a little bit about your creative and professional background up until this point. Lil.
Lillie Brown 3:12
Of course. So, I started my career in the arts many, many years ago when I did an arts administration traineeship for a regional arts organisation, and this role really fostered a deep passion for the arts within me, particularly in rural, regional spaces. And that was kind of the kickstarter, right? Because I have had, you know, lots of ambitions of things that I want to do. It's my ADHD brain. I want my finger in all of the pies. And the creative industries was really a space for me to be able to do that, where it was also accepted and celebrated that, you know, it wasn't seen as doing many things was oh well, she just can't decide on something. It was like, Oh, wow. She's making all these things work. And it really showed me what was possible. And so, since then, I have worked at Creative Plus Business, a national arts organisation for a very long time. I was their marketing manager for many years, until I stepped out on my own just over a year ago now, to start my own business. So doing a combination of freelance marketing, consulting, education, facilitation work, and I'm also a sexologist, just to throw another spanner in the works there.
So as part of my marketing wheelhouse, I do education, workshop facilitation, moderating panel events, strategy work. And I really love consulting. And I stepped out of the done-for-you space about six months ago, and now I'm doing more consulting, and what I have retained is freelance content and copywriting, because I am a bit of a silversmith. I love words, and so that's a really great creative outlet for me.
Mia Fileman 04:53
Me too, yeah, and what exactly does a sexologist do?
Lillie Brown 04:57
That is such a great question. It's something I'm asked almost every time I introduce myself to people. I work with individuals, couples and groups, and it's a combination of sex education, coaching and counseling techniques to support people to understand themselves and their bodies and have toe-curling sex. Because I think that no matter how great the intimacy or the pleasure that you're experiencing is it can always be better. So why would you say no to more pleasure?
Mia Fileman 05:26
Yes, and why would you say no to that? I don't know why you would say no to that. 100% on board with more pleasurable sex. I think that's wonderful.
Lillie Brown 05:34
And what I see in this work is it has such a resonant ripple effect to all the other aspects of our life. Yeah, sure, clients might come to me specifically to discuss sex and that we do, but through this process, we also learn all these other skills, right, learning to identify and articulate what you want, learning to be present in the moment, learning to be in your body, all of these things that have such a beautiful ripple effect throughout the rest of our lives outside of a sexual context, is really affirming, enriching work.
Mia Fileman 06:12
I've got a funny anecdote about sex and my ability to put my foot in my mouth on a daily basis. So, I have a friend, and she was a fairly new friend at this point, and we were out the back of some bar or something, and she was like, ‘Hey, just wanted to, like, check with you. I only have sex with my husband, like, once every month. Do you think that that's like, too long’, and me just being me with zero filter. I was like, ‘yes, that's too long’. I'm sure there was a more tactful way that I could have responded to that question. But I was like, oh, that's way too long. What's going on there?
Lillie Brown 06:57
How did she respond to that?
Mia Fileman 06:59
She was a little bit like, I appreciate your honesty. But do you want to, like, follow that up at all? I was like, yes, yes, yes, yes, of course. What I meant to say, and that's when I tried to, like, you know, take the shoebox out of my mouth at that point.
Lillie Brown 07:15
Soften the delivery a little bit.
Mia Fileman 07:19
But yeah, it's definitely something we should all be talking about more and enjoying more. I think,
Lillie Brown 07:25
Oh yeah, I'm with you on that.
Mia Fileman 07:28
All right, let's get to Snoop. Where do we want to start? Do we want to start with the Olympics and work backwards?
Lillie Brown 07:35
Well, I want to start by hearing what your favorite moment from the Snoop and 2024 Olympic Games coverage has been? Do tell.
Mia Fileman 07:44
Okay, my favorite moment was when he went to an equestrian event with his longtime friend Martha Stewart, and they were both dressed in like full costume, and he had carrots in his like dinner suit, equivalent of equestrian, and he was feeding the horse's carrots, like only he could come up with something like that. I'm sorry.
Lillie Brown 08:13
Oh, truly. And as a long-time horse girl, this is, of course, my favorite moment as well. I was just completely delighted to see him sporting full competition wear and it was embroidered monogrammed with his initial. It was masterful. I love it. And the fact that he just walks around doing his thing is so magnetic and inspiring, right? Like he knows very little about horses. He has, in fact, admitted in the past of being scared of horses, and yet, here he is doing some commentary, coming out, meeting the horses, feeding them apples and carrots. J’adore, I love it. No notes.
Mia Fileman 08:55
He definitely looked like he was having a lot of fun, and he was unequivocally himself. He wasn't turning up as an NBC executive or, you know, a serious kind of commentator. He was himself. So I'm curious to discuss, like, how this came to be. Like, how did he come to be the ambassador for team USA?
Lillie Brown 09:22
And he really has been just an all-round cheerleader for team USA throughout this Olympic cycle. And so, NBC engaged him as a special correspondent. And originally, NBC executives wanted Snoop to do a more formal style commentary. Right? What we commonly see the talking heads very serious. And it was actually a last-minute decision that the NBC executives backflipped on that and decided to allow him to go into the Olympics as himself right the he was able to go in and commentate how he would he did not have to take undertake any media training, or commentary training, he was allowed to go into this space just being himself. And from my perspective, I think that has really made his appearance at the Olympics what it was. Because I don't know about you, Mia, but if I saw Snoop Dogg going into the Olympics, and I guess trying to do more formal sports commentary, it would feel completely bogus to me.
Mia Fileman 10:25
Yeah, it would just feel really inauthentic, like his creativity had been stifled. And as a creative, I just can't abide seeing that. I'm like, Oh, what a missed opportunity to really let someone who is able, who's a veteran creative, who's able to really bring something unique to the table and almost make it up as he goes along, to stifle that would have been a real shame. And so, I actually tip my hat to NBC executives for giving him that rope. You know, they are a massive company with so many layers of approval and bureaucracy and all of that. But somehow this was allowed to happen, I think in part because he did sort of earn his stripes in this space with the Tokyo Olympics, and they saw an increase in viewership, and they were like, okay, we need to just take the reins off and just let him do his thing. And interestingly, the viewership stats of the Paris Olympic are incredible. The opening ceremony, there was 80% more viewers than the Tokyo Olympics. And bearing in mind that Tokyo was a closed Olympics. We all had to watch it on TV, because it was held in 2021. It was still called Tokyo, 2020 which just confused everybody. But it was held in 2021 and there was this. The stadium was empty. There was nobody there. And so, the only way we could watch these Olympics was on TV, and yet the Paris Olympics viewership numbers are substantially higher, and in no small part to Snoop Dogg actually, a lot of the media reports that I've been reading are saying,
Lillie Brown 12:15
Yeah, me too, and it's clear that the network took a risk, right? It was a big risk for NBC execs to make that decision, to let Snoop go in have full creative control over how this partnership was going to unfold and how he would essentially be the Team USA ambassador. But it paid off big time. Those stats like the proof is in the pudding, when we look at those statistics, right?
Mia Fileman 12:39
Yeah, I completely agree. But what's interesting also is that some exec was talking to some exec at a bar, and it was overheard that Snoop is being paid $500,000 per day at the Olympics, which, over the course of the two and a half week major sporting event accounts to about 8.5 million US dollars. And some people are questioning whether that is, you know, appropriate for someone to be earning that amount of money per day. But as my good friend Fiona Johnson says, it is not our job to be affordable. It is our job to be valuable. So, when he's bringing viewers to NBC because of this mash up of Pop Culture and Sport and this beautiful marriage of that, and he's spreading this joy as a cheerleader, then the results are there. So, it doesn't matter how much he's getting paid, it matters what the return on that investment is, and it seems to be a pretty bloody good one. Also, he's probably been preparing for this role for years, right? And yes, he's getting paid $500,000 per day for the actual coverage. But I don't think he just rocked up and decided he was going to have a monogrammed performance jacket like it. That takes some preparation, and so like, he might have been paid $8.5 million for the last three years’ worth of work. The math, just ain't nothing.
Lillie Brown 14:25
Absolutely. Exactly, because, you know, as you said, we're not seeing all the groundwork that has gone into this appearance and that has supported it to become the cracking success that it has been, right? And what I think, what I love so much about this other than the fact that there's a sprinkling of Martha Stewart, right? We're going to speak about Snoop and Martha Stewart's long- time friendship soon, but the like most marketing goes unnoticed as marketers, this is the reality. And Mia, this is something you teach into all the time. In order to make marketing that means something, it needs to have an emotional response. It needs to have something that's ideally a bit of a contrast. And I think this is a really cracking example of anti-marketing. And I think Snoop's appearance at the Olympics has likely extended their audience as well, people who traditionally maybe haven't participated or watched Olympic coverage before and they've seen maybe clips of Snoop at the Olympics doing the rounds on TikTok or on Instagram. They're like, oh, okay, hang on. Let me check that out. And so, I think it's such a smart marketing partnership for so many reasons. And I want to talk a little bit more about why you think this has worked. What is it about this Snoop Olympics collaboration that has really worked and got those viewership stats? I want to break down the inner workings of it a little bit.
Mia Fileman 16:00
Yeah. Um, I could not agree more with what you said about this sea of sameness, and how we are just almost desperate for someone to bring originality and ingenuity to the marketing space. It just it, you know, we are craving that. We're seeing that with the rise of TikTok, that people are gravitating to that platform in droves, not just because it's video, but because it has allowed people to really embrace their inner creative geniuses. So why does this work the Snoop Dogg collaboration at the Olympics, as I, as I've mentioned earlier, he's a veteran creative who can think on the fly, and he is just this, almost this symbol of happiness and enthusiasm. You've seen that throughout a lot of his work, and it was just a culmination, for me, of just a million different great moments. So you know, holding the torch during the open and opening ceremony, or swimming with Michael Phelps, or dancing with Simone Biles, or trying it fencing and all of it just sort of added to it took what was already an entertaining sporting event, and it just 10x it in my opinion. But what do you think, Lil?
Lillie Brown 17:26
Yeah, I completely agree. I just I love how he has a crack at it all. And one of my favorite things about Snoop Dogg is that he is so genuine and honest, right? And he has this real penchant to be able to connect with people and to instantly make people feel comfortable and think. When you're thinking about this world famous rapper who's had an illustrious career, you probably those things don't come to mind, those character traits, but it's true. We've seen it as he's been moving around the Olympics right when he was in the pool with Michael Phelps swimming testing his lung capacity, both of them were just laughing and at ease. And he just has this ability to create an atmosphere of positivity and energy and light heartedness wherever he goes. And I think we all desperately need that in this current global climate, it has been such a tonic and a breath of fresh air. And another thing that we've seen as part of NBC coverage is Martha Stewart entering the picture as well, and her and Snoop have had this kind of Olympic Games offshoot called the lit games. And in the lit games, Snoop is rating Martha Stewart's candle lighting skills as if it were an Olympic sport. And I think it's really tongue-in-cheek and referential to both of them and both of their backgrounds. Obviously, Snoop is associated with cannabis culture. There has been, you know, I guess mushrooms of Martha Stewart being interested in similar things, and, of course, her background as a white-collar criminal. So, it's just, it's really funny that they have been able to turn these kind of what could have been career-ending moments, and now they've transformed it, and they're having fun with it in a tongue-in-cheek way. Doesn't take away from the integrity of the campaign, in my opinion. I think it's really clever, and also shows that people can't be put in a box.
Mia Fileman 19:33
Yeah, one of my favorite quotes in the whole world is campaigns are never-ending stories that like, a campaign is never, really, ever done, and I think that we're seeing that play out with the relationship between Snoop and Martha Stewart. This is not the first time that they have collaborated the Paris Olympics. In fact, this is like the third or fourth time that they've collaborated. But I don't think it was an accident that. She was at the Paris Olympics. They had a super successful campaign for BIC, which is a company that I used to work for. It's a fast-moving consumer goods brand that I'm sure everyone has heard of. They make pens, lighters and Shavers. And there was a now very famous campaign for the EZ lighter that featured both Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg, and they also did something else together. Lil, what else did they do?
Lillie Brown 20:29
They have also done some cooking shows together. So, Martha has had a long running cooking show, and Snoop has been a regular guest on that show, too.
Mia Fileman 20:40
Right. And so then it's coming together at the Paris Olympics as well, and where we're just continuing to connect these dots, which I think is just so brilliant.
Lillie Brown 20:49
Absolutely. And I love that definition of campaigns being this idea of a never-ending story. We've really seen that through the Olympics. And so, this campaign at the Olympics is a total win for me. And I want to speak about another one of Snoop's campaigns that you just mentioned. So the Snoop and lMartha Stewart, BIC campaign that they did to promote the BIC, easy reach light up. And this is one of my all-time favorite marketing campaigns, obviously, yeah, I'm a little biased, but shameless in my bias. Let me tell you why this campaign is so good. So back in 2021 BIC launched this new easy reach lighter, and it has an elongated tip so it keeps your fingers free from flame. The idea is that you can it's intentionally designed to light hard-to-reach places and so Snoop and Martha Stewart were the creative talent in this campaign. And interestingly, in 2024 earlier this year, they did a refresh of this campaign and included Willie Nelson, long-time cannabis connoisseur, and they did a 420 campaign to celebrate the high holiday, if you will. And so, the original campaign messaging sends me every time. So, the original tagline is ‘Pass it’. It's very playful, tongue-in-cheek laden with double entendres about the utility of these sliders. And the original campaign graphic has a photo of Martha Stewart on the left and a photo of Snoop on the right. On Martha Stewart side, it says, ‘Perfect for candles’, and on Snoop's side, it just says, ‘And more’.
Mia Fileman 22:33
Love it so good.
Lillie Brown 22:35
It's so good. And what I love about that there's such simplicity in the copy. It really allows the consumer to tap into their imagination and fill in the dots here. And this was seen throughout the campaign video as well, which will link in the show notes, because I think all of you need to watch it. I digress. So, there's, you know, the campaign itself heavily references cannabis culture, and it is less than subtle. Snoop in one scene is saying, hey, Martha, pass me the BIC, EZ Reach lighter and that bowl. And then Martha, you know, grabs the bowl out of camera side, eyes, Snoop. He goes this bowl of strawberries, like it's so ridiculous and tongue-in-cheek, but it just works. And one of the things that I wanted to discuss with you, that I think is really, a really interesting part of this campaign, is the risk. So, this collaboration, right? Snoop, he is a, you know, has had an illustrious career of being this incredible rapper, this multi hyphenate entertainer. He has, I think, done up to 50 brand collaborations and deals. We'll unpack that more in a second, but this isn't his first rodeo. And so for a brand like big, this could have been quite a risk. There was a real big risk of alienating consumers who aren't Snoop Dogg or Martha Stewart fans by using their celebrity status to drive this campaign. And so again, if you alienate your audience, they could have just gone, oh well, BIC did that collaboration with Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart. I don't like them, so I'm not going to buy from them again. On the flip side, it has actually increased their market share. And I think there's another element of risk that I want to speak with you about Mia, because I see this quite often, and I'm sure you have too. When brands are using celebrities or well-known influences for their marketing campaigns, there's a risk that the campaign can fall flat and actually be detrimental to that brand and campaign when all the focus is on a celebrity. Yeah. So, if your focus is solely on the celebrity, so much so that consumers don't actually realise what that ad or what that campaign was about, you know, the whole thing just falls apart
Mia Fileman 25:16
Totally. And sometimes it's really hard to know if it's going to happen or not. You know, why? Why did Snoop Dogg's collaboration with Martha Stewart and BIC result in an increase in sales? I believe it's somewhere in the vicinity of about 6% increase. Why did Jeremy Allen's white Calvin Klein campaign also result in sales, but a whole heap of other similar collaborations didn't. And you know, as marketers, we don't have a crystal bowl. We don't know exactly what's going to work or what's not going to work, that what we do have is polling our audience and asking them the question. And I'm I used to work at BIC so I know 100% that this happened, they would have asked their audience how they feel about Martha Stewart, how they feel about Snoop Dogg, so then it eliminates some of that risk, and then they would have potentially done a smaller kind of partnership, maybe something on social media, to test the waters before rolling out a major global, multi-channel integrated campaign and throwing millions of dollars behind this. That's what all brands should be doing. Unfortunately, some brands cut corners. They think they know their audience better than they actually do, and then it doesn't all work out that way. Interestingly, when I worked in my professional career before entrepreneurship, so for BIC and for Maybelline, we wouldn't work with just one creator; we would work with several, and knowing that it wasn't going to be a slam dunk home run with every single one of them, and we would spread our risk across a variety of different influences and creators. And then, you know, when there was a clear winner, that's when we would we would back that horse, so to speak.
Lillie Brown 27:03
So it's really about being strategic with the types of influences or celebrity figures that you are using in your campaigns, and doing the due diligence of testing. And it's so critical. And what you said around a lot of brands cutting corners, absolutely, they do. And I think particularly when we're looking at it through the lens of small business those that corner cutting can happen a) either through lack of knowledge, because a lot of small business owners simply don't have marketing training, and that's through no fault of their own. They're just, they've just been figuring it out on the fly. And there's the second part of it as well. Of well, I don't, actually, you know, I don't have the resources to do that level of testing, but you need to, yeah, if you don't, there's often going to be little return in investment, for example, in this, you know, investing in a highly topical celebrity being the face of your campaign, if it means most people can't remember what the product they were spruiking actually was by the end of it.
Mia Fileman 28:06
Yeah, and it has never been cheaper and easier than right now to survey your audience. You don't need to go and spend $100,000 or $50,000 on a big piece of market research. You know there are Facebook groups and Instagram polls and LinkedIn polls that you can focus groups that you can run to get those insights without it having to break the bank. You spoke a lot about the risk in this campaign of like having Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg. I don't actually think it was that risky. What do you use a lighter for I would say about 10% of the audience use it for candles, and about 90% of the audience use it for smoking, and they obviously could not talk about cigarette smoking, even though that's probably the farm. Well, I know that is the majority of uses of a lighter. I mean, there's one in my camping bag, but I don't think that that represents a significant.
Lillie Brown 29:09
My idea of camping, personally, is a three star hotel, so you won't catch the lighter in my camping kit.
Mia Fileman 29:18
I actually would have picked you for a bit of a camper, Lillie.
Lillie Brown 29:21
Look, I love nature. What I don't love is no running like no showers and flushing toilets. I just can't get around that big barrier for me.
Mia Fileman 29:33
So, you know, a lighter is for smoking, and he is the poster boy for smoke, and she is the poster girl for candles, and so like, to me, this one shoots pretty straight, if we're being honest. I think what was genius is that they were able to secure them because neither one would have come cheap, and they could have easily have chosen one over the other. But the genius is in the combination. It's that dichotomy that like she oozes wholesomeness and homemaking, but she's also a felon, and then he's who has gone to jail, right?
Lillie Brown 30:16
Um, federal prison, okay, not just like a chill little prison camp, federal prison, no less.
Mia Fileman 30:22
Correct, and he's a rapper with a sketchy past, and he also went to jail. But he's also a grandpa who has voiced so many Disney Pixar films, like he's the voice of so many beloved characters. He also has a television children's network now, I think. Not a network, a television show. So, like, who is, who is the wholesome one in this relationship, it's really interesting. So much to unpack.
Lillie Brown 30:51
So much to unpack. And I think when we dig a little deeper into the psychology, I think what really works is this cheeky juxtaposition of their personalities, right? So, Martha, on the surface, appears to be this really wholesome homemaker known for her craft, tutorials, cooking, all of those sorts of things. Snoop. On the other hand, he is like the king of cannabis culture. He's a rapper. He has, you know, had associations with well-known gangs in the past. It goes to show that people aren't just being celebrated for the squeaky-clean stuff. And for me, you know, I think that's just amazing because we're people of multitudes. We cannot just be reduced to something that's 2D. So I think this is exceptionally clever marketing in that a lot of this has been left unsaid, right? They're getting the audience to use their imagination, and they're also not policing What the what their product is being used for, yeah, and I think that I really loved by having Snoop Dogg explicitly in this campaign, perfect for candles and more like, it's not policing users behavior of how they actually choose to use that product, which I think is really important from a brand's perspective. You can't be peddling your products and then also policing how they get to be used. And I think it's a really cheeky move from BIC, but a collaboration that was made in heaven. Like..
Mia Fileman 32:23
That's such a good point. Yeah, it's not their job to, you know, be anti-smoking or anti-tobacco. That's that. They're a fast-moving consumer-good brand that creates fire. Like, that's, that's what they do. It's a very, it's a very humble, humble product. What I love about it, especially as you mentioned with the copywriting, is that they don't over-explain it. I feel like a lot of marketing materials, it loses the magic because they give you the punchline like, if they had said, perfect for candles and perfect for smoking, it would have been completely different. It's that what's left unsaid that really makes this and it gives the audience the benefit of the doubt that they can figure it out, and then the audience feels like they are in on this, and that they are part of this sort of cheeky joke, as opposed to, oh, we need to tell you because you're silly and we need to over-explain it.
Lillie Brown 33:28
Yeah, completely they hit the mark with this campaign. I think it's a total masterclass in knowing your audience, and I think it's going to remain on my, on top of my campaign hit list for many, many years to come. It's just the GOAT, in my opinion.
Mia Fileman 33:45
Yeah. So, you know, being the Campaign Lady on a daily basis, I'm sent like, two or three different campaigns. People are like, ‘Have you seen this? Have you seen this? Have you seen this?’ And this one has been sent to me about 20 times, but of course, I had already seen it, but like that's how I can gage the popularity of a campaign, is how many times my audience sent it to me with a Have you seen this, Mia? So that one's high up there.
Lillie Brown 34:12
Iconic.
Mia Fileman 34:13
Iconic, for sure.
Mia Fileman 34:16
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Lillie Brown 34:57
So, the Snoop and Paris Olympics collaboration -clear winner! The Snoop and Martha Stewart BIC campaign -clear winner! In my opinion. I want to talk about a campaign that happened recently. It was at the end of last year by a brand called Solo Stove that, in my opinion, wasn't that much of a winner.
Mia Fileman 35:23
Yeah, I agree.
Lillie Brown 35:24
Total fail. Total fail! There's a brand called Solo Stove. They produce smokeless fire pits, and they appointed Snoop as their ‘smokesman’ last year. This campaign drew global attention and made headlines about Snoop giving up smoke. So, he originally made a tweet on X saying, ‘after much consideration and conversation with my family, I've decided to give up smoke. Please respect my privacy at this time.’ And then he just smoke-bombed in true Snoop fashion for about a week, and the internet went wild. Did you see this?
Mia Fileman 36:02
I did, yes. I'm not a huge fan of like stunts, like stunty marketing. You're like, because I called it pretty early. I will say I was just like this. This is a stunt and not a particularly good one. And I love activations. I just don't love the cheap sort of pull the rug out from underneath you, which is what this was.
Lillie Brown 36:26
Absolutely, and, yeah, the minute I saw that tweet, too, I was like, okay, as if this is some kind of PR stunt, for sure. There is no way that this is really coming from Snoop. Either it's a PR stunt or someone's hacked his account. That was my instant impression. And so, turns out this was part of a PR plan for Solo Stove. They had just released a new smokeless outdoor fire pit, and they had onboarded Snoop to get him to, you know, speak about this and drum up some media attention. And boy, did it drum up some media attention, but perhaps not in a way that really served the brand. Because the internet was wild for about a month with all of these different conspiracies. What could this be? Snoop giving up smoke. This is really wild. But then it was announced that it was a PR stunt for solo stoves, brand awareness campaign for their new smokeless outdoor fire pit. And it just kind of fell flat after that. It burnt out real quick.
Mia Fileman 37:32
Love the pun. Lil, that was that was very well played that, I guess that that did not go unnoticed. Yeah, so if Snoop Dogg was really going to give up Marijuana, even though he has started his own legal dispensary, it would be big news, but he wouldn't be doing it as part of a brand deal. It felt really disingenuous that it was tied to Solo Stove, which is a brand that none of us had ever heard of before this particular campaign. So, this is part of the reason why I called it really, really early, and it just felt really like stunty. Like I said, so many things that went wrong with this campaign. The creative itself was okay, it it was probably more of an example of what you're talking about, where they made it all about Snoop and nothing to do with the product. And so then, as a result, I question how well this was ever going to convert to sales for Solo Stove. Also, there was no call to action or anything about the product that would compel people to buy. So it seems like more of a brand awareness campaign, which is a hell of a lot of money, to engage a creator like Snoop for a brand awareness campaign and then not be able to bank any revenue off the back of that. And unlike the BIC campaign, which was a commercial success, the solo stove campaign was not. Is that what you read, too?
Lillie Brown 39:04
Absolutely, and the whole Solo Stove campaign felt gimmicky and clickbait adjacent exactly as you said, it just gave stunt from the outset. And what I wanted to discuss with you is the idea that this was a brand awareness campaign, right? But their main, the main way they were measuring metrics, was sales. Is that smart marketing from a campaign perspective?
Mia Fileman 39:34
No, it's not. We've got to compare apples with apples like you know, the metric that we use to measure brand awareness is growth in audience. We look at web traffic, we look at, you know, qualitative and quantitative increase in brand mentions. This can sometimes look like you do a Google survey and they're just like, ‘Oh, in the last seven days, have you seen advertising from these brands?’ and people are like, ‘Oh yeah, I do remember seeing an ad for Telstra’ that top of mind awareness. That's how we can measure the success of brand awareness campaigns for small businesses. Just to keep it simple, I usually say increase in LinkedIn followers, increase in Instagram followers or Facebook followers increase in website traffic. That's a pretty good understanding of brand awareness. That's not what we use to measure sales, right? Sales is money in the bank account, conversions, enrollments, actual dollars and cents. So, creating a campaign with a brand awareness objective. I don't know if they did that deliberately, but that was the result. It was a brand awareness campaign in its shape and form, and then measuring it for sales is comparing apples with oranges.
Lillie Brown 40:49
It just seems like there's a complete mismatch between the campaign type and the objective here.
Mia Fileman 40:56
Yeah, yeah for sure, yeah.
Lillie Brown 40:58
And another element of this campaign that ranks it as a fail for me, on many fronts, is that the campaign duration was a mere six weeks, and within that six week time frame, they declared it a failure because of the lack of sales and conversions. Yeah, it's just wild to me that they were spending that much money, right? Imagine what it would have cost to have Snoop Dogg as the brand ambassador for this campaign, to get him on board, to make such a global PR nightmare, almost, of making this public statement that he's giving up smoke and all of the hullabaloo that that generated, to then kind of declare that it was a failure within a six-week timeframe. It seems like they totally jumped the gun here. Campaigns take time to build traction, to generate results. I feel like six weeks was very premature.
Mia Fileman 41:53
Yeah, I think it's both of those things. It's brand awareness. Takes a really long time, even though this campaign generated honestly billions in earned media impressions. So, from my perspective, this was a very successful brand awareness campaign, like I now know who solo stove are, and I know that there's no smoke, and I think that's a home run, right? Like it is a residential, you know, fire pit, but without, you know, you stinking head to toe, you know. So, I think that that's a home run. I think it's a case of a poorly spent marketing budget. I just don't think that this was money well spent. And I think that it's also a case of really unrealistic return on investment expectations,
Lillie Brown 42:39
Totally, totally. And so, I'm curious, from your perspective, the campaigns that we've discussed so far, Snoop and the Paris Olympics, the Snoop and Martha Stewart BIC campaign, and then the Snoop and Solo Stove campaign. All of these campaigns that we've been speaking about are driven by big brands with big budgets, with big audiences. What lessons in influencer marketing can small businesses apply from these campaigns?
Mia Fileman 43:07
Oh, so many, even though, you know this is the hill on which I'm prepared to die, because a lot of people are saying, ‘Oh, Mia, you always share examples from bigger brands, but this can't possibly apply to smaller brands’. Like, of course it does. The lessons are there and like, let me show you how much we can apply. So, the first thing is, is that Snoop Dogg at the Olympics is really an influencer marketing campaign. I don't call him a traditional influencer. He's not doing yoga in a G string on Instagram, but he's still influencing.
Lillie Brown 43:39
Never say never. It's Snoop Dogg. That's one thing I've learned about this man's career. Never say never.
Mia Fileman 43:46
That's a really good point. Actually, he hasn't yet done that, so that's coming. But this makes a case for how successful brand collaborations and creator slash influencer marketing can be when you find the right partner, and he had just the right mix of joy, charisma, experience and pop culture. He is for all time zones, a lot of people like Snoop, Snoop, whether they're young or whether they're old. So he was the perfect choice for the Olympics. So, there's a lesson there for smaller brands, spend just as much time actually finding the right influencer as you do on everything else when it comes to your campaign, like really front load that. Then with the Bic campaign, the lesson there is to, you know, let your audience in on the joke a little bit, you know, like not everything has to be spelt out black and white, like a little bit of innuendo. A little bit of irreverence, a bit of cheek, you know, what's not said sometimes is even more powerful than what is said. So, there's a great lesson there. Also, you mentioned that there was a TVC for the BIC campaign, but it was actually the poster with Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg, the one that perfect for candles and everything else that was, I would say, the most successful element of the campaign. So, another lesson there for small business owners is it doesn't always have to be a huge production. It doesn't have to be a video. It doesn't have to be a campaign film. It can just be a really clever 2D graphic, you know, like, that's essentially a photo with text over it. So not every campaign has to be a video. I think that's another amazing lesson.
Lillie Brown 45:53
Don't over engineer it.
Mia Fileman 45:54
Yeah, exactly. It's still a campaign if there's no video component. I think that's the key thing. And then with the Snoop Dogg and Solo Stove is that make sure that you are measuring your campaign on the KPIs that you originally set. That is a universal lesson for all size businesses. What about you, Lil? What lessons do you think can be applied to smaller brands?
Lillie Brown 46:17
Improve your bloody call to action as you were just speaking about Solo Stove there, I was like, please the call to action in all of your creative that is so important. And I think all of these campaigns, but particularly the Paris Olympics and the BIC campaign, to me, it's just a master class in anti-marketing, and that's one of my favorite marketing strategies, is adopting this more tongue-in-cheek, overt way of playing into, you know, the norms, and particularly when we're looking at BIC, right, that campaign is dripping in irony and innuendo. It is fantastic. It's funny, as you said, it lets the audience in on the joke, which I think accelerates the brick, the level of brand affinity that they feel, the emotional connection, the investment that they have between, you know, them, and the brand. Every time I see that, I'm like, Yeah, okay, that's why I'm always just gonna buy a BIC lighter when I'm at the servo or when I'm needing one, right? No other brand gets a looking. Because I just have that little chuckle to myself in my head of, like, perfect the candles and more like, it just hit the nail on the head for me.
Mia Fileman 47:36
The difference between the BIC campaign and the solo stove campaign for me, and why one was a success versus the other one was a failure, was that the brand was the hero in one and the brand was an afterthought in the other. So, like perfect for candles and more, it's the product. The lighter is the hero. It is the protagonist. The solo stove campaign was I quit smoke, which makes no sense for the brand whatsoever. And so, the stunt, this PR stunt, overtook any mention of the brand, and then it all became about whether Snoop Dogg actually quit smoke or not. And it drew attention away from the product. That's the key difference.
Lillie Brown 48:20
You articulated it perfectly, because after the Solo Stove campaign, I just don't remember anything about it, other than the whole kerfuffle and, you know, media frenzy around Snoop allegedly giving up Cannabis like in what world is that going to happen. But you know, if I wasn't a marketer, I probably wouldn't remember solo stove. The only reason I think I remember it is because I dug into it deeper, and I was like, this is a really interesting campaign that's rolling out. And I don't mean interesting in the good sense of the word. I think there was a lot of things that went wrong during that campaign, but lessons that we can learn and take into our small businesses too. And I think more broadly, there's a few things that we that small businesses can take away, and I think it's really in the mastery of Snoop's personal brand. So, he started as a gangster rapper. He will die a gangster rapper that's not going anywhere, but he hasn't been pigeonholed in this way. Where you started doesn't have to be where you stay. Snoop and his team have really cleverly evolved his image and his brand over the years, and I think a big part of that is that his brand has matured, and that's why he's kind of this audience favorite. And as you were saying, he's kind of the draw card that can appeal to anyone, no matter the demographic, no matter the generation. In Case in point, a couple of years ago, he developed Doggyland, it's an animated series for kids that he launched in 2020. All the characters are a bunch of colorful dogs, one of which is voiced by Snoop himself, and they all teach social, emotional and cognitive skills aimed at toddlers to kids up to about eight years old. And Snoop is a grandfather. He's got quite a few grandchildren, and he could not stand Baby Shark or Coco Melon. He was like, not in my house, like, I just cannot listen to that. And so he developed Doggyland. And there's so I've seen so much commentary on social media and online and website forums and Reddit saying from parents who grew up on gangsta rap, who absolutely loves Snoop, who love artists like NWA and Tupac and Biggy, and now their kids get to watch Nursery Rhymes and these animated this animated series in that style. And so they're getting in on it, too. And so there's that intergenerational buy in about Doggieland, you know, and I think as part of this, he has diversified and kind of gone mainstream by pursuing and creating business opportunities outside of music and outside of his niche of hip hop and rap. And this has had a real flow on effect to the industry as a whole. You know, it's over the last couple of decades we've seen more and more hip hop and rap artists doing this. They have become business moguls, brand tycoons, if you will, like. And as part of that, they've legitimized and brought rap and hip hop into the mainstream, rather than it being seen as this shadowy thing of, oh, you're a DJ, and if you listen to that sort of music, right? Those kind of, well, most of those cultural narratives have disappeared over the last, you know, couple of decades, as these musicians have brought their business now into their brand image. And I just love that again. It's demonstrating that we can grow and evolve. We're not static, right where you started doesn't have to be where you stay. And I think that's particularly important for small businesses, because I don't know about you, Mia, but a lot of creatives and small businesses that I speak to, they often do want to evolve and change their brand, or maybe they started, they did some kind of thing for a few years, and they realized, all right, well, this isn't really working. Or now I've got this new idea, but oh, can I do that? Is that going to alienate my audience? And it can be done. And I think brands need to evolve, right? You can't just create this static branded identity. Otherwise it's not going to move forward with you. It needs to evolve as you do. And I think one of my all time favorite things about Snoop and why he is such a popular draw card is that, you know, we've spoken into this earlier in the episode, but no matter the occasion or the collaboration, it's not an act. Snoop shows up as his authentic self time and time again, and since his first 90s collaboration with a clothing brand called Stussy, he has endorsed 43 brands since then, including a collaboration with Sketchers so that Olympic opening ceremony moment you were speaking about earlier, Mia, where Snoop was carrying the torch. He was actually wearing gold sneakers from his Sketchers collaboration. So, it's like campaign Inception here with Snoop Dogg, right? He's got this amazing Olympic opening ceremony carrying the torch moment, and you look down and he's wearing the shoes from a previous brand collaboration. It's just masterful.
Mia Fileman 53:45
It is you said that, like, you know, his brand evolved. I don't know if that was deliberate or if it was just him evolving as a human and as a person and just growing up and not being so into rap culture and going out to clubs and getting having a family and then having grandchildren, and then, you know, voicing Disney films. But you're right, that takes bravery. I see a lot of other creators personal brands, who are afraid to step out of their the pigeonhole that they've created for themselves because they think that they're not going to find that audience. But I think that it's so disingenuous if you are trying to put on an act that's no longer you, that once you've grown up and you're ready to move on to something else, that you need to hope that your audience are going to come on that journey with you too, and not just be like you know, I think it would have been, um, detrimental to his career, as if he had, you know, I don't know how old Snoopy is now, but maybe 60s, 70s?
Lillie Brown 54:51
I think so, early 60s.
Mia Fileman 54:54
Yeah, and he was still peddling this gangster kind of, you know. It's like we all..he's 52 years old, apparently, right? According to Google, 1971, so he's a young grandfather, but yeah, like, I see some of the Jessica Simpsons of the world and the Mandy Moore of the world, and they're always going to be stuck as those you know, teeny bopper pop artists, unfortunately, like, they never outgrew that. And that's that's devastating, because I loved both of them age.
Lillie Brown 55:29
But I think Snoop has really taken his audience along throughout his evolution, and I think his authenticity and honesty, and I know those words are just bandied around in the marketing space, but it's really, for me, it comes down to his honesty and his authenticity. Through it all, he has included his audience in this journey, and he's been really open about all his brand deals, all of his, you know, defining life experiences and business acumen, right? He openly says, you know, he keeps his mind on his money and his money on his mind. He has never shied away from the fact that he is an individual with big ambitions. He talks transparently about business and brand deals, and there has been times in the past where he has spoken openly about green lighting campaigns just for the money. He's been in those brand deals solely for the check, and particularly when we're talking about marketing to certain audience demographics, in this case millennials and Gen Zs, this honesty and hustling of like, corporate America is respected by those demographics, right? He's not out here bullshitting them. He's saying, yeah, some endorsements. I am just taking that for the cash.
Mia Fileman 56:53
I don't know. I think it's just a really good lesson in just do what you want to do and and don't overthink it. Like, don't over engineer it. Don't over manufacture it. Like, just go, especially if you're a creative just, just go where the blood flows. You know, I think that that's, that's a huge lesson for me, and totally and, you know, don't, oh, but what are the let's do a SWOT analysis on moving in that direction, or let's, let's make sure that this is the right strategic move. Just, just do what you want to do. You want to launch a podcast, launch a podcast. You want to write a book. Write a book. You know?
Lillie Brown 57:27
Yeah, absolutely. The strategy has its place, and it's essential. But you know what is also essential? Sometimes it's just taking a running dive off the edge of that cliff and putting everything into what it is that you want to do. What I find so inspiring about Snoop Dogg is exactly as you said, he's just out here doing whatever the hell he wants to do, and I love it. He is a through and through, multi hyphenate. He is not. He's never been boxed into any identity. I don't think he's always been a man of multitudes, and I personally find that really inspiring. It's like, all right, I don't have to stick to one narrow, you know, scope of practice that I can actually do a lot, and I can make it all work together through this lens of personal brand. Because I think if we were to just, you know, if we were scrolling LinkedIn and found somebody that had a similar kind of rap sheet as Snoop Dogg, we'd be like, what do you how do they make this work? Like, surely, this doesn't work, but what makes it work is his personal brand that he has cultivated, and that is also just quintessentially him, I think. And it's the personal brand that has allowed all of these moves to make sense as a whole.
Mia Fileman 58:46
Correct. Because you can't. There are no rules when it comes to humans, you know, we don't. There's, there's no such thing as like, oh, but a human doesn't have to do it. A brand does. A brand has to jump through certain hoops, and it has to make sense, and there has to be umbrellas, and there has to, you know, has to all link back in. But a human doesn't have to follow those rules. You know, I'm a strategist. We also, like I spend most of my time overthinking and over planning. And I've reached this point in my career, you know, where I think I just want to do cool shit. That's what I want to do. That's my new guiding principle. Of course I will do the strategy. Of course I will do that. But also that needs to be balanced with my desire to do cool creative shit, because that's actually what the world is craving right now. And so like everything in life and business, we have to find that little Goldilocks zone of it's going to make some sense, but also it's also going to light some fire deep within me.
Lillie Brown 59:45
Totally. And I think when you're able to tap into those things that really light the fire beneath you, that's when we're able to access the type of work, the type of creativity and the type of impact that cannot be ascertained anywhere else, right? It is an expression that is so uniquely us that it's undeniable. And I just I love everything that Snoop Dogg has accomplished, and I think particularly for small businesses. I think when a lot of people see the episode title, they'll be like, What do you mean a marketing and small business podcast talking about Snoop Dogg. How does this make sense? I think after everything we've spoken about today, what really sticks out like a sore thumb for me is that it's really about a, doing cool shit, and B, being true to your own values and aspirations and putting a lot of priority on it, I guess.
Mia Fileman 1:00:39
Love that. Such a pleasure chatting with you. Lil we'll definitely do this again. Yay. Thank you for being so generous with your time and your ideas and your commentary. I thoroughly enjoyed this chat. It's a, it's a just ticked over an hour so it was, it's definitely a juicy one, and I shall be seeing you very, very soon.
Lillie Brown 1:01:02
Oh, yes, you will. Thanks for having me. Mia, what a pleasure.
Mia Fileman 1:01:07
Thank you. You listened right up until the end. So why not hit that subscribe button and keep the good marketing rolling. Podcast reviews are like warm hugs, and they're also the best way to support a small business. You can connect with me. Mia Fileman on Instagram or LinkedIn, and feel free to send me a message. I'm super friendly.
