Social Media has created a SNOOPY craze.
GenZ is obsessed with him and Snoopy merchandise is selling out. Here’s a photo from the 1980’s showing Snoopy wearing his ‘puffer jacket’. He was as cool then as he is now.
I read about the latest Snoopy obsession in article on NPR. He’s so hot, people have given blood just to get a Snoopy T-shirt. (The Red Cross gave out 400,000 shirts in 3 weeks) The Charles Schultz Museum has just had its highest attendance in 21 years and the official Snoopy Tik Tok account just garnered 198,000 new followers.
Snoopy is 350 years old in dog years but he’s apparently timeless (like me) and timely. He communicates only in gestures and thought bubbles, shares his emotions easily, and is trying to live his best life! Gotta love him. I’m fascinated but why the surge in interest again now?
I invited Melissa Menta, Senior Vice President, Marketing and Communications Peanuts Worldwide to join me live on The Debbie Nigro Show to get the scoop about out what’s going on.
Melissa said, the universal and timeless appeal of Snoopy is attributed to the character’s relatability and expression of human emotions.
Snoopy, she said, has been incredibly popular across all generations. Snoopy who is a book lover and writer, has always had an unstoppable imagination.
As the Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications at Peanuts Worldwide, Melissa handles global marketing which includes handling the brands social media, and creative aspects. She travels the world to promote the brand. And the world can’t seem to get enough of Snoopy these days.
It was amazing enough that the late Charles Schulz who created the Peanuts comic strip, did it uninterrupted (except for one vacation for his 75th birthday) for 50 years! He created nearly 18,000 comic strips. But just as amazing, is how his work continues to resonate today due to its simplicity and again, it’s focus on ‘human emotions’. (Photo courtesy of The Charles M. Schultz Museum)
The four-panel comic strips are particularly well-suited to the format of modern social media which of course did not exist back when the comic strips were published the old-fashioned way, in newspapers. Social media has everything to do with Snoopy reaching a global audience of new fans and the new demand for Snoopy merchandise.
The Current Snoopy Merchandise Craze
Melissa says Snoopy merchandise is currently available across a broad range of retailers, from Pottery Barn to Uniqlo and H&M. There have also been high-end collaborations with designers like Gucci and Marc Jacobs. Not only with Snoopy, but also other characters too like Woodstock, Charlie Brown, and Franklin who are also popular.
Peanuts Worldwide receives numerous partnership requests involving Snoopy and the Peanuts characters. Snoopy is a global icon with a particularly strong following in places like Japan, said Melissa.
There’s also the ‘Take Care with Peanuts’ campaign, which promotes taking care of oneself, others, and the Earth, with partnerships like the Arbor Day Foundation for planting trees, and the installation of Peanuts murals in hospitals globally.
Melissa says the brand’s even working with NASA. Snoopy was used as a zero-gravity indicator on Artemis 1! She also shared how the brand is creating new content for platforms like Apple TV+.
The Peanuts marketing team, led by Melissa, continually seeks new ways to keep the brand relevant and engaged with current issues and audiences, reflecting the brand’s adaptability and enduring appeal.
Peanuts Worldwide is passionate about maintaining the brand’s legacy while simultaneously innovating and connecting with new audiences.
I think you’ll enjoy the terrific insight about why Snoopy so hot right now in this podcast of a warm conversation on The Debbie Nigro Show with Melissa Menta, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications at Peanuts Worldwide. if you’d rather read than listen the transcript of the audio is below.
PS: Bet you didn’t know I owned a Snoopy watch. Had it since I was a kid.
AUDIO TRANSCRIPT:
0:00:21
Hey guys! Welcome back to my trending Tuesday day of the week, and I will get to that generation that’s going to be relying on their kids to support them, but please, let’s not go there now. Let’s just talk about the generations that have loved Snoopy and how amazingly this current generation is going bonkers for Snoopy merchandise. Hi, everybody, I’m Debbie Nigro. I was blown away when I caught an article by NPR that was talking about how Gen Z is obsessed with Snoopy. He is so hot, smoking hot, he’s so hot that people have given blood just to get a Snoopy T-shirt. The Red Cross gave out 400,000 T-shirts in three weeks. The Charles Schultz Museum I mentioned earlier, I had gotten in touch because I was like, what’s going on over there? They had their highest attendance in 21 years and then I read that Melissa Menta, the Senior VP of Marketing and Communications for Peanuts Worldwide reported in that NPR article that their TikTok account, the Snoopy TikTok account just went up like 198,000 new people. So, how is it that a dog that’s 350 years old in dog years is so timeless and timely? I invited Melissa on to join me and she’s here now. Hey Melissa Menta, how are you doing?
2
0:01:38
I’m very good. How are you? I’m enjoying the snow.
1
0:01:42
Oh, I know. And what timely photos you sent me to use legally showing Snoopy wearing his puffer jacket. That was a riot. Good timing, Melissa. Yep.
2
0:01:51
That’s actually the image I sent you is actually from the 1980s. And so when we say Snoopy is, you know, really super hot now. He was also super hot in the 80s. You just didn’t see it as
1
0:02:05
much because there was no such thing as social media. Right. Yeah, you and I would have had very different trajectories maybe in business had the the world been the way it is now. But you’ve got a very cool job with Peanuts Worldwide. Tell
2
0:02:19
everybody what it is you do every day just as an opening act for you. Well, I’m really lucky and honored to be able to work on such an amazing brand that Charles Schultz created. I’m the head of global marketing, so that includes social media and creative and all of that, and I get to travel the world talking about everyone’s favorite beagle.
1
0:02:45
He’s never in a bad mood, this Snoopy, or if he is, he’s more emotional, he shows his colors, if you will. But he’s living his best life, man. He’s not your average beagle. I read that he’s a book lover, a book writer, collector of fine art, root beer dinosaur, and unstoppable when it comes to his imagination. Is that the feeling that is all of a sudden getting picked up by this new generation of aficionados?
2
0:03:10
I think it’s a little bit about that. Everyone aspires to be Snoopy. But I do think, and I say this a lot, the only thing you have to be to like Peanuts is you have to be a human. Because it’s just about human emotion. It’s not about superheroes or car chases or anything like that. It’s just complexities of human emotion. And we all have them and I think that Gen Z’s just tapped into that Really really successfully
1
0:03:44
You know I was and I and I get that I think it’s I think it’s probably necessary to have an Icon that’s just about that and not about anything dark And and so you know Snoopy is bright. It was um interesting to me How many? It was interesting to me how many Charles Schultz columns or cartoon strips were created. I was reading that he never missed, like for 50 years, right? Every day for 50 years except for one little vacation. But that stopped when he passed away. And he’s gone for some time now. How has Snoopy been kept alive? And the whole Peanuts family.
2
0:04:27
You’re correct. He drew the strip for 50 years and there’s almost 18,000 strips that he created. So we like to say it’s the longest novel ever written. If you think about it, social media is all short messages and the Daily Comic strip was four panels. lends itself really well to social media and again it’s because of the human emotion connection it just really resonates in the US and actually around the world I mean we’re huge in Japan and again it’s because everybody can relate to these short four panel messages. Yeah and it’s and it’s done with you know
1
0:05:09
gestures and there’s no words so that’s another interesting. Not a whole lot, yeah. It’s very simple messages. So the merchandise. So what are people snooping up of Snoopy merchandise? What are they grabbing?
2
0:05:25
Well, this past holiday season they definitely grabbed for the Snoopy in the puffer coat. That was definitely a hot item. But we actually have merchandise in almost every type of retailer. If you go into Pottery Barn, you’ll see Peanuts merchandise there, Uniqlo, H&M, and then we even have high-end collaborations. In the past, we’ve collaborated with designers like Gucci, Marc Jacobs. It’s really kind of amazing how Snoopy and the gang kind of fit into all different types of merchandise.
1
0:06:03
Yeah, it’s great. So is the demand now just for Snoopy or all of the Peanuts characters?
2
0:06:10
Snoopy is definitely one of the more popular characters for merchandise and as is Woodstock and Charlie Brown, but there’s a Franklin collection out there right now, but everyone wants the Franklin sweater that was created. And so it just depends on where you’re looking and where you’re shopping.
1
0:06:42
How many requests a day do you get at your office for partnering with Snoopy or the Peanuts characters?
2
0:06:49
It would be difficult to count. We have an info at Peanuts email and I know that the person who’s in charge of taking care of that is quite busy. I get a lot of emails. I also travel the world and spend time with a lot of different people in different countries. It’s quite extraordinary that Charles Schultz was able to create something that is so timeless and embraced by the world.
1
0:07:20
Do you speak other languages?
2
0:07:24
I was an East Asian Studies major at Middlebury College in Vermont and I did speak a little bit of Japanese, but I wouldn’t say it’s my forte.
1
0:07:34
When you’re traveling around the world, obviously do people speak English everywhere you go? You have a translator, how does that work?
2
0:07:44
In most places, everyone speaks English. I hate to say that, it sounds so selfish, but it’s true. I know, I know. Sometimes we have translators. In Japan, specifically, we might have a translator with us.
1
0:07:57
I’m embarrassed I only speak English myself. I don’t know, I miss the boat and it just doesn’t come naturally to me and I’m on a mission to change that, Melissa, so wish me luck, maybe I’ll learn another language before we talk again. Anyway, tell me about it. I had to convince my dad to let me go to Middlebury College because I’m from California and I told him it’s because it’s an amazing language school. Oh, that’s really funny. In fact, I almost went to school in Vermont myself, I loved it up there, but I ended up going to Ithaca College and still did not learn a language there. So there you go. I’m still talking English. The TikTok account, the Snoopy TikTok account, the 198,000 new followers, what were you doing differently all of a sudden between the second and third quarter of this year that made that happen?
2
0:08:43
To be honest, we really weren’t doing anything too different. It’s just the algorithms on TikTok are, they change and then and sometimes you just never know what’s going to go viral on TikTok, but also people really think about peanuts, especially here in the US around the holidays because we’re so used to watching It’s the Great Pumpkin, a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, and of course a Charlie Brown Christmas. So we always call it our power quarter.
1
0:09:16
Absolutely, man. The Red Cross was smart to tie in with you guys. They got a whole lot of blood donations making Snoopy their icon. That was cool. That was super cool.
2
0:09:29
And also it was a really cool piece of art. So that was a combination of just everybody loves Joe cool, but then
1
0:09:38
With the Red Cross next to him. It just was like something that people were really drawn to Yeah, they got like more than 70,000 new donors gave blood during the period when they did the yeah
2
0:09:49
I have friends texting me asking me for a t-shirt because they would go and Donate blood and they would already have given out all the t-shirts Because it was so popular. It was pretty crazy and impactful. We were really happy that we were able to do such good work for them.
1
0:10:10
Yeah, amazing because most of the people were under the age of 35 who are typically the ones to think about going to stop in the middle of the day and go donate blood. The Red Cross promotion, which was Peanuts themed, rewarded donors with Be Cool, Give Blood t-shirts and they caused a frenzy. They gave out nearly 400,000 shirts in three weeks and I guess it had to be one of the great promotions the American Red Cross has ever done.
2
0:10:35
I think anecdotally, I think we were the number one promotion for them.
1
0:10:40
Amazing. So, it brings up what else could you help with? You know, if this is happening and it’s getting people to react in a really positive way. Like how else can we use Snoopy and the Peanuts family to do good? Have you been thinking about that?
2
0:10:58
Yes, we’re always thinking about that. We have a campaign called Take Care with Peanuts and it’s take care of yourself, take care of others and take care of the earth. So we have partnerships with organizations like the Arbor Day Foundation where we help them plant trees around the world. We also work with the Foundation for Hospital Art where we have peanut murals installed in hospitals around the world, all six continents. I’m still hoping for Antarctica, but haven’t got there yet. Oh, wow. Yeah, we’re always looking for new ideas on how to help and also just to keep PNAS relevant.
1
0:11:43
Are there people in like a relevant department because again without the comic strip being created on a daily basis to address whatever is going on in the world that was so good at doing and reacting to in a very human way, do you watch where you want to, is there a group of people deciding where to go next?
2
0:12:04
Yeah, I mean, I guess that’s probably me and my team. We come up, you know, several years ago, we did a public art project where we work with seven well-known fine artists around the world with public art. You know, we still work on a daily basis with NASA. Snoopy was the zero gravity indicator on Artemis 1, so when Artemis 1 got into weightlessness, Snoopy was floating around the capsule. We regularly work with NASA. And then of course we have regular new content being created and being dropped on Apple TV+.
3
0:12:44
Awesome.
1
0:12:45
You know, it’s funny, I have a dear friend who used to be the head of marketing at MetLife Insurance Company. He always bragged about being the one responsible to bring Snoopy in as a spokesperson back in the 80s. I don’t know what time, but Life Insurance was like, really? Snoopy made it easy.
2
0:13:04
It’s all for the complexities of buying life insurance. We’re still working with MetLife actually. MetLife uses us to sell pet insurance now.
1
0:13:14
That’s crazy fun. We’re at the end of our time, but thank you so much. I know you’re a busy woman, and I really appreciate this time you took with me today. I thought it was very enlightening to share with my audience and everybody who’s loved Snoopy just how great it’s going and how much people still love the characters and what good work you guys are doing. So thank you so much, Melissa. Keep up the great work. Thank you for having me. Yeah, great. Thanks for taking the time. Thanks for taking the time. Peanuts Worldwide, you rock.
Transcribed with Cockatoo
