You watch TV, right? Then you’ve seen those holiday ad campaigns: Etsy’s “Where’s Waldo?” sketch. Starbucks’ “Red Cups.” Target’s “weirdly hot,” Santa-like sales guy, “Kris K.” And more.
Hooray for the catchy jingles, the gorgeous product shots, the adorable polar bears and twinkly lights. But where oh where is cannabis? demands Ricardo Baca. “My biggest gripe is that most cannabis brands are not taking full advantage of the opportunities presented to them,” complains Baca, founder and CEO of Grasslands, the Denver-based cannabis and psychedelics integrated marketing/pr agency.
“I’m very surprised every holiday season when the holidays come and go,”Baca explained in a recent interview, “and I rarely see either dispensaries or brands taking advantage of the opportunity to latch on to the holidays and the marketing tool that they are.
“So I am a little frustrated with cannabis brands.”
Certainly, cannabis businesses have their challenges, Baca acknowledges. There’s THC products’ Schedule I federal status – grouping them with heroin and LSD, no less. And that fact, apart from websites, puts the brakes on national advertising.
Then there are the budget constraints these companies face because they’re so new and so legally strait-jacketed.
“Foremost of course, all these plant-touching brands are getting their butts kicked by 280E.” Baca points out, citing the federal prohibition against marijuana concerns deducting business expenses. Yet: “That’s all the more reason they should be doing these kinds of [holiday] things” beyond 4/20 and Green Wednesday, Baca argues.
What then, does the executive have in mind? He suggests four strategies:
· Holiday-themed packaging. “Packaging is a major pain point in the industry,” says Baca, who spends considerable time in dispensaries surveying products. “Why not get that holiday-themed packaging so your product stands out on a shelf?”
There’s also the fact that this year’s packaging will be perfectly usable again next year, Baca says.
· Holiday pop-ups. “Everybody loves a good pop-up,” Baca says. This might mean organizing an event at your own dispensary or sending a brand ambassador to the bars and restaurants where your customers hang out. “People are looking for that experience; they want to feel that holiday nostalgia and joy,” Baca says.
“And we in cannabis are not delivering that.”
· Integrated marketing. “Lots of retail facilities, brick and mortar, will put up Christmas decorations,” Baca points out. “[Cannabis retailers] wouldn’t have to do a thing to go overboard on their decorations and rebrand their dispensary from ‘Denver Cannabis Shop’ to ‘Saint Nick Cannabis Shop.’ They’re doing nothing, but they’re changing the experience.”
What’s more, integrative marketing “goes across all your media channels: owned, earned [reviews, social media comments], paid,” Baca says. “‘Owned’ gives us a unique opportunity to go beyond the basic Instagram post that includes a wrapped present, and there’s your product that looks like it does every other day of the year.”
Cannabis companies also need to spread out the goodwill, Baca advises, with holiday-themed visuals for Hanukkah, Kwanza and the cannabis celebrations. Something as simple as a table-tent card at checkout (POS), promoting, say, holiday-time infused chocolate bars, can be profitable. “We need to start acting more like a CPG brand than we have up ’til now.” Baca says.
· Giving a holiday lift to the products themselves. Lots of shoppers are familiar with Starbucks’ Christmas-themed drinks flavored with peppermint or candy cane spice, and with Trader Joe’s Joe-Joes (Oreo-like cookies with red and green filling sold at the holidays). These items are sold for a limited time just once a year. Cannabis brands could do the same, Baca says. Customers would then expect these holiday-time products and come back for them.
Of course, cannabis brands aren’t all slacking off at the holidays, Baca acknowledges. He mentions Kiva Confections, whose home page draws the consumer in with an alluring cup of infused hot chocolate (with marshmallows!) next to the words “Tis the Season to Treat Yourself.” Lower down is a link to “Holiday Recipes,” which range from peppermint bark to truffles to (vegan) s’mores cups, all infused.
H/T: www.forbes.com
