5 Ways Cannabis Marketers Can Build Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) Into Their Workflow
OpenAI's CEO says 95% of marketing tasks will be eliminated by A.I. in the coming years, so how do we prepare ourselves for what's to come?
Recently, the CEO of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, DALL-E and Sora, was quoted in an interview for an upcoming book as saying that 95% of marketing tasks will be eliminated by artificial intelligence (A.I.) — more specifically Artificial General Intelligence (A.G.I.).
First off, if you haven’t been following the A.I. conversation closely, you might be asking yourself — what is the difference between A.I and A.G.I.?
The way I like to explain it is using a Star Wars metaphor:
A.I. is like C-3PO, specialized in languages and etiquette, perfect for diplomatic missions but not much else outside his programming. A.G.I. is like R2-D2, capable of flying spaceships, hacking the Death Star, and always ready with a creative solution, no matter the challenge.
In practical terms, A.I. basically has the functionalities you see built into ChatGPT and other large language models (LLMs) now.
You can input some parameters—like your audience demographics, the type of product (flower, concentrates, edibles), and the vibe your customer is going for (chill, therapeutic, energetic)—and it churns out decently crafted emails or social posts. It's pretty good at what it does, but it's all it does.
A.G.I., on the other hand, would be like having a full-service, highly adaptable marketing agency at your beck and call, staffed by the most versatile marketers in the world. This virtual agency wouldn't just excel at creating email campaigns and social posts; it could pivot to any task you need, from devising a complete branding strategy for a new line of edibles, managing all your social media channels with engaging content, to analyzing market trends and adjusting your campaign strategies in real-time. It would do all this with the insight and creativity you'd expect from top marketing minds like yourself, effortlessly switching gears to meet any marketing challenge you throw at it.
Altman believes that A.G.I. will be capable of handling 95% of tasks currently performed by marketing agencies, strategists, and creative professionals, effectively at nearly no cost. He also thinks this future could be closer than most of us think.
So should we all just give up now and find a new career path so the robots can take over?
Probably not.
But as marketers, who are typically thought of as being on the cutting edge, we should 1000% be figuring out how to utilize A.I. based tools in our businesses and for our clients.
The chances are that you’ve already begun building ChatGPT or other basic A.I. tools into your workflow but if you haven’t, here are five simple ways I’ve already begun utilizing artificial intelligence to make my team at ThndrStrm Strategies more efficient.:
1. Building Out A Content Calendar
Whenever I take on a client, one of the first things I will do is work with them to build out a content calendar. Most people will jump on the content hamster wheel without any strategy or plan to maintain consistency or quality, soon finding themselves tripping over their own feet trying to keep up with the algorithm’s appetite.
You can utilize ChatGPT to brainstorm content ideas and themes relevant to your audience in the cannabis industry and build out months worth of content in one sitting. ChatGPT can help outline topics, potential titles, and (within reason) the best times to publish based on trending topics or seasonal interests, helping you maintain a consistent and engaging content strategy throughout the year.
Benefit: Keeps your marketing efforts organized and ensures a steady stream of content, driving engagement and keeping your audience informed and interested. It also helps you work backwards and plan out the other assets for your content, including photos, videos or infographics that would be necessary. If you’ve already done the work of segmenting your audience, it can also help with more personalized messaging.
2. Writing Educational Content
One of the things I will say to any cannabis operator until I’m blue in the face is that “no matter what vertical you are in, we are all in the education business”. It’s really easy for those of us who have been in the industry for any period of time to get caught up in our own bubble and realize that most people don’t know most of what we know. It doesn’t matter if you are selling flower, packaging equipment or accounting services, every business has to educate their potential customers about the things they need to know before they are ready to make a purchase.
You can leverage ChatGPT's extensive knowledge base to write educational blog posts, articles, and social media content. These can cover a wide range of topics from the benefits and uses of cannabis to legal considerations and industry trends. ChatGPT can help draft detailed, informative, and easy-to-understand content that positions your brand as a thought leader — but make sure you are verifying the information and adding in your own thoughts or context. You don’t want to get in the habit of just copy and pasting without any verification of the information.
Benefit: Educates your audience, builds trust, and establishes your brand’s credibility. Educational content also helps save your sales people (including bud tenders) a lot of time answering basic questions about your product or service. Positioning your company not just as a transactional vehicle but as a trusted resource will help you maintain loyalty over customers who see you as a commodity.
3. Creating Graphics
On a scale of 1-10, I probably have a Level 1 or 2 skillset when it comes to design or anything artistic. I know good stuff when I see it but when my daughter asks me to “draw” on her sketch tablet, I’m definitely still drawing stick figures. The invention of text to image A.I. generators have been a game changer for my ability to think of an image and then bring it to life.
If you have not used DALL-E or similar A.I. like Midjourney to create compelling and unique graphics for your content, prepare to have your mind blown. Whether it’s for social media posts, blog illustrations, or marketing materials, AI-generated visuals can enhance your brand's aesthetic and attract more engagement.
Benefit: Visuals are key to grabbing attention on digital platforms, and unique AI-generated images can help your content stand out in a crowded space even if you don’t have the budget for an in-house graphic designer. My personal favorite is Midjourney because you can create more lifelike images where as a lot of DALL-E images come out looking similar and a bit cartoonish.
4. Alt Text For Digital Images
Although most marketers probably know this, those of us who are privileged enough to not have issues with our eye sight probably don’t even notice that every image on the internet has the ability to be tagged with “alt text”. Alt text is a brief, descriptive text added to an image's HTML code to explain its contents, ensuring accessibility for users who rely on screen readers and improving a website's SEO.
Admittedly, I’m not nearly as consistent with inputting alt text as I should be — but ChatGPT makes it a lot easier because you can actually employ ChatGPT to generate descriptive alt text for digital images used in your content because of the multi-modal functionalities of the platform.
Simply upload any image to ChatGPT 4 and watch it build out perfectly crafted alt-text. Here is a quick video showing this tactic in action:
Benefit: Enhances your website's SEO and accessibility, broadening your audience reach and complying with web accessibility standards. Plus if you were already doing good with alt text, this will save you a ton of time and creative brain power.
5. Script Writing for Video Content
As we continue down the path of TikTokification of social media, more people are realizing that they have to start putting out short-form video content if they want to stay relevant. In the same way you can utilize ChatGPT to build out your content calendar, you can also use it as a thought partner to come up with engaging video concepts — right down to writing the actual scripts.
Use ChatGPT to craft outlines, talking points and scripts for video content, ranging from educational videos and product reviews to behind-the-scenes looks at your operations. ChatGPT can help structure your scripts for clarity, engagement, and impact, ensuring your messages resonate with your audience.
Benefit: We all know that we need to be making videos, but for some folks the hardest part is overcoming a sense that we have nothing to say. Utilizing ChatGPT to help you build structure and script out your main points for each video, will ensure that your video content is highly engaging and shares well on social media, increasing your brand's visibility and engagement with potentially viral content.
Implementation Tips:
Experiment and Iterate: A.I. is a powerful tool, but its effectiveness comes from refinement. Don’t hesitate to adjust your prompts based on outputs and evolve your strategies. A.I. is basically a mathematics probability engine, it doesn’t actually have the ability to think.
Combine Tools: For instance, after creating graphics with DALL-E, use ChatGPT to generate engaging captions or stories around those images. I particularly like to use ChatGPT to build prompts that I put into Midjourney.
Monitor Engagement: Use analytics to see what types of content and strategies are working best for your audience, and tweak your AI-assisted content creation accordingly. As the use of A.I. becomes more ubiquitous, it will become more important to not come across as part of the monoculture that is bound to develop from the mass adoption of A.I. image and video creation.
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‘We’re being set up to fail’: New York cannabis advertising restrictions pummeling dispensaries - Syracuse.com
New York's legal cannabis dispensaries are struggling due to stringent state-imposed advertising restrictions that hamper their visibility and ability to compete with unlicensed shops. The rules set by the Cannabis Control Board ban billboard ads and limit on-site marketing to a small QR code placard, while also forbidding discounts and loyalty programs. As a result, legal dispensaries find it difficult to inform potential customers of their existence, particularly when unlicensed shops have a more prominent online presence and fewer advertising constraints. Business owners are calling for regulatory changes, and while there's some leniency in enforcement, the effectiveness of advertising through permitted channels remains low. There is also a call for action against tech platforms that give visibility to illicit stores, suggesting that easing restrictions and addressing online platforming of unlicensed shops could be crucial for the survival of legally operating dispensaries.
My thoughts:
I’ve said it once and I’ll say it many more times: Weed Doesn’t Sell Itself. It’s even harder to sell cannabis when regulators are micromanaging how businesses acquire customers.
According to a BMC Public Health study there are 184,000 deaths worldwide each year from sugar-sweetened beverages but can you imagine regulators telling Coke or Pepsi that they couldn’t advertise where people could get their products? Anybody remember how tightly Coke and Pepsi tied their marketing to fast food restaurants that are regularly frequented by kids? At one point Pepsi even *owned* a bunch of fast food restaurants before spinning them off into Yum! Brands — but weed stores can’t have a sign out front? Give me a break.
There have been a lot of complaints about the roll out in New York and while I don’t agree with many of the complaints coming from the MSO’s, the criticism leveled in this article against regulations that put legal cannabis businesses at a disadvantage against their illegal counterparts is completely valid.
One could argue that it’s really hard to crack down on all of the illegal shops that line the streets in New York (especially when they are listed on Google), but it’s pretty hard to argue that legal businesses who are unable to advertise their businesses through traditional means (even storefront signage) are going to be able to compete against unlicensed shops that are openly flaunting the regulations.
One of the most ridiculous regulations (and there are many) is that you can’t advertise anywhere that isn’t verified as having more than 90% of those seeing the advertisement as being over 21. Right now I’m working with a client in New Jersey who has to deal with a 71.6% rule which means we can’t even partner to advertise in the BBQ joint.
This article really underlined the need for cannabis retailers to have a marketing plan that is innovative and agile. You never know when a particular marketing channel is going to get cut off, so you have to diversify your marketing portfolio. One operator talked about getting real grassroots by handing out flyers — marketers will do whatever we’ve gotta do to be successful — irrespective of what is available to us.
If you’re having trouble competing against unlicensed shops — start investing in a cohesive content strategy aimed at intercepting their potential shoppers. If they are finding unlicensed shop on google that means, they are searching google to find cannabis and you should become a resource they go to through strategic organic content.
Cannabis retailers should also be looking at solutions like New Frontier Data’s NXTeck which uses a combination of data points to serve up targeted ads to specific users they know frequent dispensaries in your area.
Starbucks drops CMO role - AdNews
Starbucks has elevated Brady Brewer from the role of global chief marketing officer to CEO, opting not to fill the vacated CMO position. The company's CEO, Laxman Narasimhan, explained that this decision is part of a corporate restructure designed to enhance the company's geographical focus while also building scalable functional capabilities worldwide. This move follows a broader corporate trend of phasing out the CMO position, with major companies like UPS, Etsy, and Walgreens recently eliminating the role, a shift that has been observed over the years in corporations such as Lowe’s, Hyatt, and Johnson & Johnson. Despite this trend, Forrester’s VP Mike Proulx notes that some companies, like Coca Cola and McDonald's, have reverted the decision when facing growth challenges. The move by Starbucks suggests a recognition that CMOs with a broad business perspective can transition into top executive roles. Moreover, the coffee giant plans to fill a new role of a global brand creative leader in the near future.
This headline definitely caught my eye but I was interested to learn that big brands like McDonald’s and Coca-Cola have made similar decisions only to go back on them a couple of years later.
I also read this more in-depth article from DigiDay that elaborates more on how the evolving landscape of the CMO role is impacting businesses across various sectors, including detailed case studies of companies that have either redefined or eliminated the traditional CMO position.
As someone who is filling the role of a Fractional CMO for several clients right now, I understand this evolving nature of the CMO role. Brands should consider the evolving nature of the CMO role as an opportunity to redefine marketing within your company. Assess whether a traditional CMO, a diversified role, or a decentralized model best supports your strategic goals.
The most important takeaway, which is made evident by the fact that Starbucks promoted their CMO to CEO is to ensure that whoever is leading your marketing efforts is deeply involved in business strategy discussions. This integration ensures that marketing initiatives are aligned with broader business objectives and can adapt to regulatory and market changes.
With the role of marketing closely tied to business outcomes, it's crucial to leverage data and insights to inform marketing strategies. This approach will help demonstrate the value of marketing investments in terms of bottom-line results.
Whether you have a CMO or a distributed marketing function, fostering cross-functional collaboration is key. Ensure that marketing initiatives are supported and amplified across departments, from product development to customer service
Death of the Follower & the Future of Creativity on the Web - SXSW Keynote
At SXSW, Jack Conte, CEO of Patreon, discussed the transformative role of the internet in creators' lives, emphasizing the shift from passive Web 1.0 to the interactive Web 2.0, which enabled artists to build online communities. He detailed the challenges posed by content-ranking algorithms that diluted the creator-audience bond and hinted at a worrying trend towards the 'death of the follower' due to such platforms. Conte proposed Patreon's vision for a creator-centric internet, advocating for tools that strengthen genuine connections with fans and resist the algorithm-driven dilution of creator-fan relationships. He urged creators to focus on depth and authenticity with their core audience to navigate the evolving digital landscape.
Despite having nothing to do with cannabis, Jack Conte's reflections around Kevin Kelly's "1000 True Fans" philosophy, provides a compelling blueprint for navigating the constraints faced by the cannabis industry in digital marketing.
In this keynote, Conte focuses a lot on this concept of the “Death of the Follower” which he asserts has been happening since 2010 when Facebook started “ranking” content based on what was best for their business model — therefore algorithms have made it harder and harder for our “followers” to see our content online.
Both Conte and Kelly emphasize the power of direct relationships between creators (or brands) and their audience. In the cannabis industry, establishing direct communication channels, such as newsletters or community platforms, can bypass algorithmic restrictions and foster stronger bonds with consumers.
Jack Conte's journey highlights the importance of offering value that extends beyond just products or content. For cannabis brands, this could mean providing educational content, advocacy, and community support which resonates deeply with a dedicated fan base. Don’t just be transactional. Build a relationship.
The concept of "1000 True Fans" suggests that deep, meaningful interactions with a smaller, dedicated group can be more valuable than broad, superficial reach. Cannabis brands should prioritize engagement strategies that deepen the relationship with their core audience, reflecting Conte's emphasis on true connection amidst the "Death of the Follower."
Cannabis Industry Blogs + More Headlines:
Gangsters, Money and Murder: How Chinese Organized Crime Is Dominating America’s Illegal Marijuana Market - ProPublica
Jimmy Kimmel Producing Cannabis Series for Hulu - The Hollywood Reporter
Unlocking the New Green Frontier: Building Brands for the Next Generation of Cannabis Consumers - Rolling Stone Culture Council
Retailer High Tide acquires premium cannabis brand Queen of Bud for CA$1M
How Cannabis Brand Nowadays Could Help Alcohol Distributors Out of a Slump - INC
St. Louis' Triple THC Cannabis Seltzer Brand Hits the Market - Riverfront Times
Mainstream Marketing Chatter:
Why Brands Should Prepare for the Rise of Super Fans - ADWEEK
What to Know About Meta’s ‘Political Content’ Limit—and How to Turn It Off on Instagram - Time
Big brands could pivot easily if TikTok goes away. For many small businesses, it’s another story - AP
Accenture and Adobe to Co-Develop Industry-Specific Generative AI Solutions to Accelerate Marketing Transformation - Accenture Newsroom
15 Questions To Ask Your CMO About Integrating AI In Marketing - Forbes Council
How media agencies are shifting toward generative AI content in influencer marketing - DigiDay
Instagram’s Testing Longer Reels To Maximize Engagement - Social Media Today
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