Snoop Fails to Sell Stoves
Nothing sharpens focus like a failed campaign, but most of the time, we don't get to hear about the fails.
However, Solo Stoves ditched its CEO due to its Q4 marketing campaign misfire and went public about the campaign.
Andrea Tarbox, interim CFO (Solo) stated, "Our fourth quarter results came in below expectations as we experienced softer-than-anticipated sales in our direct channel. 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, which, combined with the increased marketing investments, negatively impacted our EBITDA. We believe there is a significant opportunity for us to build awareness and that these new campaigns will expand our reach and benefit our brands over the long term."
The campaign grew awareness but not sales.
As pressures grow on CMOs to deliver the goods, there's a strong temptation to try a "hail Mary" move that allows the brand to break out of the attention trap and become part of the cultural conversation. This is why many new brands spend big to advertise on the Superbowl.
Done right, it can put your brand into the public eye, but is it designed to also deliver sales at the level you need or expect?
The campaigns get the brand recognized and can generate awareness quickly, but brand-building is a long-term game and needs constant and consistent effort over time. Too often, it appears that brands burn through their resources on a one-off hit, that there's nothing left to sustain and build on the initial effort.
The solution is to think about the broad discipline of "Effectiveness."
In August of last year, the World Federation of Advertisers issued a report, "Creating a Global Culture of Effectiveness" (https://lnkd.in/e6BPtXfW). It contains an interesting chart that does a great job of explaining how the breadth of effectiveness that stretches from insight to objective definition all the way through to making the business case. It also shows that we are good at executing and a lot less good at the other critical pieces if we want our work to work.
Building a culture around effectiveness demands commitment, and there's a brilliant example of this from Diageo. It built toolsets and educated its global marketing team of 1,200 on creativity and effectiveness. The result of this effort was a profit contribution over $200m https://lnkd.in/ehfzU5UX
If you are interested in learning more about effectiveness, here are three things you could do
1. Follow James Hurman
2. Attend his WARC course "Master of Advertising Effectiveness" https://www.mae.academy/
3. Attend the Creative Impact session at the Most Contagious event on January 24th https://lnkd.in/edT3KG-e- where you can hear from smart people like Orlando Wood Elizabeth Paul Adam Morgan and the McDonald's marketing leadership.
Industry Solution Architect at ServiceNow – The Enterprise Cloud Company
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