Media Buying Briefing: Despite lingering issues, cannabis marketing is growing as a new programmatic solution enters the fray

By Michael Bürgi

The last few years have proven a bumpy and circuitous journey for cannabis marketers looking to sell their wares, from recreational options like edibles to health-and-beauty aids or even medicinal compounds.

The growing wave of states in the U.S. that have legalized cannabis CBD and THC products certainly encouraged many to increase their marketing — but a lack of federal legalization has impeded any national advertising possibilities, despite potential billions of dollars in marketing and media spend, according to media buyers and marketers.

The patchwork of legal states for cannabis marketers gave rise to programmatic firms representing inventory that accepts cannabis advertising. But almost everyone reached for this story bemoaned the inconsistencies that prevent the market from breaking out more — from inconsistent policies by the major social platforms on what’s allowable to advertise to a lack of data that lets sellers track purchase conversion.

One attempt to bring more rigor and order to what remains a somewhat confusing marketplace in the U.S., Digiday has learned, is a programmatic partnership between MediaJel, a programmatic ad platform for the cannabis market, and Smart, a French ad-monetization platform that’s in both the SSP and DSP sides of the business. Michael Sadicario, Smart’s general manager for the Americas, explained that the aim is to guide cannabis brands into content that isn’t just cannabis-related but to mainstream outlets — but also to attract mainstream brands to that cannabis-related content.

“General market brands and advertisers want to break into this space because the cannabis consumer is also such a lively and valid consumer base that’s frankly a lot of times passionate about their use or their partaking in cannabis,” explained Sadicario. “People are more passionate about their belief that cannabis is a great product than they are for liquor or anything else.”

On a larger scale, though, the effort to mainstream cannabis marketers into the general market could create much more value, given the estimated $65 billion that’s still spent on illicit cannabis sales. “The publisher side needed to better understand what was happening,” said Sadicario. “The cannabis space had a lot of issues for cannabis advertisers around scaled inventory because Google and others are blocking them… There are big national brands that have big budgets that need to find scale placements, and need to find ways to make sure that they are tracking attribution.”

Harrison Wise, president of marketing communications firm Wise Collective and chairman of cannabis content maker The Bluntness, said he welcomes such efforts. “The folks at MediaJel and Smart are certainly at the forefront of the progress that’s being made” in organizing the cannabis space. “Since COVID, the fact that cannabis was designated an essential service certainly contributed to that, and really allowed the industry to thrive during this period — even more so from a marketing perspective.”

Having legalized uses of cannabis nationally a few years ago, Canada can offer some guidance for how it will play out in the U.S. Sean McConnell, managing director at Media Kitchen Canada, said cannabis …read more

Source:: Digiday