A creativity debate comes full circle

Welcome back to Ad Age Briefly! This week’s edition includes Snoop's Solo Stove reunion, agency sprints, Leading Women insights and much more. —Ad Age Web Editor Mark Fischer

Solo Stove gives Snoop Dogg another hit

The lowdown: Solo Stove is out with another Snoop Dogg campaign after a polarizing stunt with the rapper last fall. Last year’s campaign from The Martin Agency initially gained praise for generating brand awareness after Snoop announced his plan to “give up smoke,” which meant firepit smoke, not marijuana. But the campaign faced criticism when the maker of smokeless outdoor firepits said it failed to move product.

Same Snoop, new approach: The new campaign, also from The Martin Agency, is titled “Blunt Marketing” and plays off the debate. Solo Stove now says last year’s campaign actually did boost sales, but that its new effort is more holistic and better timed to peak firepit season. The tone is also more comedic this time around. Snoop is “here to sell Solo Stoves” and “we’re not going to hide it,” CMO Luana Bumachar told Ad Age’s Tim Nudd of the work.

Tim's view: Solo Stove didn’t do itself any favors with all the confusion around the earlier campaign’s efficacy. And even if that work was flawed, it was still a huge earned-media moment for a little-known brand. Bringing Snoop back validates Solo Stove’s initial instinct that he’s the right endorser with the right attitude for the company. Fleshing out the full-funnel marketing objectives this time will only help.

?? Watch the new campaign here.?

?? Related reading: For more breakthrough ads and campaigns, bookmark our Creativity blog. It’s free for all users.

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How agencies should get paid (and why they're sprinting)

Charging for billable hours “never made sense,” Ad Age Columnist M.T. Fletcher wrote in a follow-up to Lindsay Rittenhouse ’s story about how agencies are shaking up the compensation model. “If marketing works by differentiating a brand, then by definition creativity cannot be a commodity,” adds M.T., who has worked all over the ad industry. “Therefore it shouldn’t be priced as such.”

?? Read M.T.’s full column here.?

Agencies aren’t just rethinking payment models—they're also embracing the sprint model, generating fast-turn ideas for a fixed fee, writes Ad Age’s Brian Bonilla . Sprints are very good for lots of things," says Beers with Friends Co-Founder james wood , though he cautions that "not everything can be done in five days."

??Read more about the growing trend here.

Antitrust this, antitrust that

Elon Musk’s takedown of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media may signal the beginning of antitrust battles for other ad industry and trade organizations, writes our Jack Neff . Earlier this month, Musk’s X sued GARM for violating antitrust laws, alleging that the industry group, owned by the World Federation of Advertisers, coordinated an advertiser boycott against the platform. Shortly after the suit was filed, the WFA dissolved GARM.

? Check out that deep dive here.?

One antitrust case everyone is watching is Google’s, which our Garett Sloane has dubbed “the ad tech trial of the century.” The U.S. Department of Justice is aiming to prove that Google “used its dominant position to cement a monopoly in ad tech services for publishers,” Garett writes in his in-depth preview of the trial. Earlier this month, the feds won an antitrust suit against Google related to its search engine on mobile phones.

? Read more about Google’s upcoming case here.

Insights from Ad Age’s Leading Women

Ad leaders can use a mentor, too. That was among the takeaways from Ad Age’s Leading Women luncheon, which celebrated this year’s class of Rising Stars and Leading Women. Native Tongue Communications Founder-CEO Marissa Nance shared how she received guidance from Alex Cuevas , senior VP and director of talent at BBDO Worldwide, even though they were initially connected for Nance to mentor Cuevas.?

?? Here are other takeaways from the luncheon held earlier this month.?

Nance and Cuevas’ dynamic is an example of reverse mentorship, which “is becoming more critical to the industry today as marketers look to reach younger consumers through new means and navigate an increasingly complex social media landscape,” writes Ad Age’s Lindsay Rittenhouse in a separate story exploring this phenomenon.

?? Read more about reverse mentorship here.?

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?? Hi there, thanks for reading: This newsletter was curated by Ad Age Web Editor Mark Fischer . Have any feedback or tips? Reach out to him at [email protected].