\u201cIt\u2019s so funny to see him everywhere because I\u2019m like, \u2018Oh, finally!\u2019\u201d Spars said.<\/p>\n
The spike in Snoopy products has been especially pronounced this year with the 75th anniversary of \u201cPeanuts,\u201d a.k.a. Snoopy\u2019s 75th birthday<\/a>. But the grip Snoopy currently has on pop culture and the retail industry runs deeper than anniversary buzz. According to Sony, which last week acquired majority ownership<\/a> of the \u201cPeanuts\u201d franchise, the IP is worth half a billion dollars. <\/p>\n To be clear, Snoopy has always been popular. Despite his owner being the \u201cPeanuts\u201d strip\u2019s main character and the namesake for most of the franchise\u2019s adaptations, Snoopy was inarguably its breakout star. He was the winner of a 2001 New York Times<\/a> poll about readers\u2019 favorite \u201cPeanuts\u201d characters, with 35% of the vote.<\/p>\n This year, the Charles M. Schulz Museum celebrated the 75th anniversary of the \u201cPeanuts\u201d comic strip\u2019s debut.<\/p>\n (Brennan Spark \/ Charles M. Schulz Museum)<\/p>\n But the veritable Snoopymania possessing today\u2019s consumers really exploded with the social media boom of the early 2010s, said Melissa Menta, senior vice president of global brand and communications for Peanuts Worldwide.<\/p>\n That\u2019s also when the company saw the first signs of uncharacteristically high brand engagement, Menta said. She largely attributed the success of \u201cPeanuts\u201d on social media to the comic strip\u2019s suitability to visual platforms like Instagram. <\/p>\n \u201cNo one reads the comic strips in newspapers anymore,\u201d Menta said, \u201cbut if you think about it, a four-panel comic strip, it\u2019s actually an Instagram carousel.\u201d<\/p>\n Then, in 2023, Peanuts Worldwide launched the campaign that made Snoopy truly viral.<\/p>\n That year, the brand partnered with the American Red Cross to create a graphic tee as a gift for blood donors. The shirt, which featured Snoopy\u2019s alter ego Joe Cool and the message \u201cBe Cool. Give Blood,\u201d unexpectedly became internet-famous. In the first week of the collaboration, the Red Cross saw a 40% increase<\/a> in donation appointments, with 75% of donors under the age of 34. <\/p>\n \u201cPeople went crazy over it,\u201d Menta said, and journalists started asking her, \u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n Her answer? \u201cSnoopy is cute and cool. He\u2019s everything you want to be.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCharles Schulz said the only goal he had in all that he created was to make people laugh, and I think he\u2019s still doing that 75 years later,\u201d Schulz Museum director Gina Huntsinger said.<\/p>\n (Brennan Spark \/ Charles M. Schulz Museum)<\/p>\n The Red Cross collaboration was so popular that Peanuts Worldwide brought it back this year, releasing four new shirt designs. Again, the Snoopy fandom \u2014 plus some Woodstock enthusiasts \u2014 responded, with 250,000 blood donation appointments<\/a> made nationwide in the month after the collection\u2019s launch. <\/p>\n In addition to the Red Cross partnership, Peanuts Worldwide this year has rolled out collaborations with all kinds of retailers, from luxury brands like Coach and Kith to mass-market powerhouses like Krispy Kreme and Starbucks. Menta said licensed product volume is greater than ever, estimating that the brand currently has more than 1,200 licensees in \u201calmost every territory around the world,\u201d which is approximately four times the number it had 40 years ago.<\/p>\n Then again, at that time, Schulz enjoyed and regularly executed veto power when it came to product proposals, and licensing rules were laid out in what former Times staff writer Carla Lazzareschi called the \u201cBible.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe five-pound, 12-inch-by-18-inch binder given every new licensee establishes accepted poses for each character and painstakingly details their personalities,\u201d Lazzareschi wrote in a 1987 Times story.<\/a> \u201cSnoopy, for example, is said to be an \u2018extrovert beagle with a Walter Mitty complex.\u2019 The guidelines cover even such matters as Snoopy\u2019s grip on a tennis racquet.\u201d <\/p>\n Although licensing has expanded greatly since then, Menta said she and her retail development associates \u201ctry hard not to just slap a character onto a T-shirt.\u201d Their goal is to honor Schulz\u2019s storytelling, she added, and with 18,000 \u201cPeanuts\u201d strips in the archive, licensees have plenty of material to pull from.<\/p>\n Rick Vargas, the senior vice president of merchandising and marketing at specialty retailer BoxLunch, said his team regularly returns to the Schulz archives to mine material that could resonate with customers.<\/p>\n \u201cAs long as you have a fresh look at what that IP has to offer, there\u2019s always something to find. There\u2019s always a new product to build,\u201d Vargas said. <\/p>\n Indeed, this has been one of BoxLunch\u2019s strongest years in terms of sales of \u201cPeanuts\u201d products, and Snoopy merchandise specifically, the executive said.<\/p>\n BaubleBar co-founder Daniella Yacobovsky said the brand\u2019s \u201cPeanuts\u201d collaboration was one of its most beloved yet. <\/p>\n (BaubleBar)<\/p>\n Daniella Yacobovsky, co-founder of the celebrity-favorite accessory retailer BaubleBar, reported similar high sales for the brand\u2019s recent \u201cPeanuts\u201d collection.<\/p>\n \u201cEspecially for people who are consistent BaubleBar fans, every time we introduce new character IP, there is this huge excitement from that fandom that we are bringing their favorite characters to life,\u201d Yacobovsky said.<\/p>\n The bestselling item in the collection, the Peanuts Friends Forever Charm Bracelet, sold out in one day. Plus, customers have reached out with new ideas for products linked to specific \u201cPeanuts\u201d storylines.<\/p>\n More recently, Peanuts Worldwide has focused on marketing to younger costumers in response to unprecedented brand engagement from Gen Z. In November, it launched a collaboration with Starface, whose cult-favorite pimple patches are a staple for teens and young adults. The Snoopy stickers have already sold out on Ulta.com, Starface founder Julie Schott said in an emailed statement, adding that the brand is fielding requests for restocks. <\/p>\n \u201cWe know it\u2019s a certified hit when resale on Depop and EBay starts to spike,\u201d Schott said.<\/p>\n The same thing happened in 2023, when a CVS plush of Snoopy in a puffer jacket (possibly the dog\u2019s most internet-famous iteration to date) sold out in-store and started cropping up on EBay \u2014 for more than triple the original price<\/a>.<\/p>\n The culprits were Gen-Zers fawning over how cute cozy Snoopy was, often on social media.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople who love Snoopy adore Snoopy, whether you grew up with \u2018Peanuts\u2019 or connect with Snoopy as a meme and cultural icon today,\u201d said Starface founder Julie Schott. <\/p>\n (Starface World Inc.)<\/p>\n Hannah Guy Casey, senior director of brand and marketing at Peanuts Worldwide, said in 2024, the official Snoopy TikTok account gained 1.1 million followers, and attracted 85.4 million video views and 17.6 million engagements. This year, the account has gained another 1.2 million followers, and racked up 106.5 million video views and 23.2 million engagements.<\/p>\n Guy Casey noted that TikTok is where the brand experiences much of its engagement among Gen Z fans.<\/p>\n Indeed, the platform is a hot spot for fan-created Snoopy content, from memes<\/a> featuring the puffer jacket to compilations<\/a> of his most relatable moments. Several Snoopy fan accounts, including one dedicated to a music-loving Snoopy plushie<\/a>, boast well over half a million followers.<\/p>\n Caryn Iwakiri, a speech and language pathologist at Sunnyvale\u2019s Lakewood Tech EQ Elementary School whose classroom is Snoopy-themed, recently took an impromptu trip to the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa after seeing its welcome center decked out with Snoopy decor on TikTok. Once she arrived, she realized the museum was celebrating the \u201cPeanuts\u201d 75th anniversary. <\/p>\n Last year, the Schulz Museum saw its highest-ever attendance, driven in large part by its increased visibility on social media.<\/p>\n (Brennan Spark \/ Charles M. Schulz Museum)<\/p>\n It\u2019s a familiar story for Schulz Museum director Gina Huntsinger. <\/p>\n \u201cLast December, we were packed, and I was at the front talking to people, and I just randomly asked this group, \u2018Why are you here?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n It turned out that the friends had traveled from Washington, D.C., and Las Vegas to meet in Santa Rosa and visit the museum after seeing it on TikTok.<\/p>\n According to Stephanie King, marketing director at the Schulz Museum, the establishment is experiencing its highest-ever admissions since opening in 2002. In the 2024\u20132025 season, the museum increased its attendance by nearly 45% from the previous year.<\/p>\n Huntsinger said she\u2019s enjoyed watching young visitors experience the museum in new ways. <\/p>\n In the museum\u2019s education room, where visitors typically trace characters from the original Schulz comics or fill out \u201cPeanuts\u201d coloring pages, Gen Z museumgoers are sketching pop culture renditions of Snoopy \u2014 Snoopy as rock band Pierce the Veil, Snoopy as pop star Charli XCX. <\/p>\n \u201cWhen our social media team puts them up [online<\/a>], there\u2019s these comments among this generation that gets this, and they\u2019re having conversations about it,\u201d Huntsinger said. \u201cIt\u2019s dynamic, it\u2019s fun, it\u2019s creative. It makes me feel like there\u2019s hope in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n The Schulz Museum\u2019s \u201cPassport to Peanuts\u201d exhibition emphasizes the comic\u2019s global reach. <\/p>\n (Brennan Spark \/ Charles M. Schulz Museum)<\/p>\n Laurel Roxas felt similarly when they first discovered \u201cPeanuts\u201d as a kid while playing the \u201cSnoopy vs. the Red Baron\u201d video game on their PlayStation Portable. For Roxas, who is Filipino, it was Snoopy and not the \u201cPeanuts\u201d children who resonated most.<\/p>\n \u201cNobody was Asian. I was like, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m not even in the story,\u2019\u201d they said. <\/p>\n Because Snoopy was so simply drawn, Roxas added, he was easy to project onto. They felt similarly about Hello Kitty; with little identifying features or dialogue of their own, the characters were blank canvases for their own personification. <\/p>\n Roxas visited Snoopy Museum Tokyo with their brother last year. They purchased so much Snoopy merchandise \u2014 \u201ceverything I could get my hands on\u201d \u2014 that they had to buy additional luggage to bring it home.<\/p>\n For some Snoopy enthusiasts, the high volume of Snoopy products borders on oversaturation, threatening to cheapen the spirit of the character.<\/p>\n Growing up, Bella Shingledecker loved the holiday season because it meant that the \u201cPeanuts\u201d animated specials would be back on the air. It was that sense of impermanence, she believes, that made the films special.<\/p>\n Now, when she sees stacks of Snoopy cookie jars or other trend-driven products at big-box stores like T.J. Maxx, it strikes her as a bit sad.<\/p>\n \u201cIt just feels very unwanted,\u201d she said. For those who buy such objects, she said she can\u2019t help but wonder, \u201cWill this pass your aesthetic test next year?\u201d <\/p>\n Lina Jeong, for one, isn\u2019t worried that Snoopy\u2019s star will fade.<\/p>\n \u201c[Snoopy is] always able to show what he feels, but it\u2019s never through words, and I think there\u2019s something really poetic in that,\u201d said Lina Jeong. <\/p>\n (Brennan Spark \/ Charles M. Schulz Museum)<\/p>\n Jeong\u2019s affinity for the whimsical beagle was passed down to her from her parents, who furnished their home with commemorative \u201cPeanuts\u201d coffee table books. But she fell in love with Snoopy the first time she saw \u201cBe My Valentine, Charlie Brown,\u201d which she rewatches every Valentine\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n This past year, she was fresh out of a relationship when the holiday rolled around and she found herself tearing up during scenes of Snoopy<\/a> making Valentine\u2019s crafts for his friends. <\/p>\n \u201cMaybe I was hyper-emotional from everything that had happened, but I remember being so struck,\u201d that the special celebrated platonic love over romantic love, Jeong said.<\/p>\n It was a great comfort to her at the time, she said, and she knows many others have felt that same solace from \u201cPeanuts\u201d media \u2014 especially from its dear dog.<\/p>\n \u201cSnoopy is such a cultural pillar that I feel like fads can\u2019t just wash it off,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Soon, she added, she plans to move those \u201cPeanuts\u201d coffee table books into her own apartment in L.A.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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