CannabisCMO Week 6 - Will Twitter save the cannabis industry?
Twitter captured the attention of the cannabis industry but will it be an industry savior or is it too little, too late?
Aloha!
Well, last week was pretty wild.
The chances are that if you read this newsletter on a weekly basis, you already saw the breaking news (originally reported by ADCANN) last week:
Twitter has now changed their cannabis advertising policies to be more friendly to cannabis companies but as Marijuana Moment (and many others) pointed out last week, it does not mean you can advertise cannabis sales — an important (but relatively minor in the grand scheme of things) nuance for cannabis marketers to remember when designing creative and writing copy.
As someone who knew about the Twitter news a week before it broke, I had the opportunity to be quoted in the Marijuana Moment article:
“It’s been a long time coming for social platforms to allow state legal cannabis brands to advertise on the same platforms that have built massively successful brands in other industries,” Kaliko Castille, CEO of ThndrStrm Strategies and author of CannabisCMO, a cannabis marketing newsletter, told Marijuana Moment.
“Twitter beginning to open up their ads policy is finally a step in the right direction—although it seems there is more work to do for cannabis brands to have full access to consumers on the ad platform,” he said. “I hope the legal departments of other platforms start to follow suit and that one day cannabis brands will have the same marketing opportunities as any other business.”
Although I decided to hold off on publishing when I first had the news (at the request of Twitter reps), these type of early scoops will only be available exclusively for paid subscribers of CannabisCMO going forward…so please consider becoming a paid subscriber today!
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Here is the full breakdown of the policy for cannabis companies in the U.S:
Any advertisement for Cannabis (including CBD– cannabinoids) content that is allowed, subject to the above restrictions, must in addition:
Despite a lot of (understandable) celebration, the reactions from the industry have been mixed.
Here is a break down of the sentiments I’ve been seeing expressed on social media over the last week:
Dope:
Twitter is the first social platform to explicitly be open to cannabis brands and every little bit of progress matters as our industry builds momentum.
Green lighting paid advertising means that organic content will also be protected, something that brands can’t guarantee on Instagram and other platforms.
This is a sign of continued mainstreaming of the regulated cannabis industry and Twitter may now provide cover for other companies to follow.
Meh:
Twitter users aren’t thought of as being the target audience for a lot of cannabis companies, compared to Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn.
Not being allowed to directly advertise products/sales makes it harder to measure and determine the ROI of ad spend on the platform — making it only a good investment for some of the largest companies (ancillary & MSO’s) with the largest budgets, looking to cement brand awareness.
This is a naked money grab attempt for Twitter at a time when their ad revenue is down and their new CEO Elon Musk is in debt $44 billion.
Many long standing Twitter advertisers have pulled their ad dollars from the platform after changes to Twitter policies have catered to right-wing extremists and conspiracy theorists.
My thoughts:
Despite the notable restrictions, just the headline that Twitter has opened up their paid ad platform to cannabis businesses is a BFD.
The battle is now on for cannabis content and cannabis dollars, which will benefit cannabis brands and cannabis creators. The early favorites being LinkedIn and Twitter (this move by Twitter feels like a response to the recent SF Gate article).
I think that other platforms will follow suit once the sky does not fall. Facebook used to have a whitelist program for cannabis ads, so I expect them to move eventually. It’s worth noting that just a few months after Elon started charging for verification, Facebook just announced it also will charge for verification.
Companies should treat their Twitter ad budgets like an edible — start low and slow. If you don’t have a lot of money to spend on ads, Twitter isn’t likely going to bring in a deluge of revenue — but if you go in too hard, it might leave you feeling sick.
As a cannabis marketer, I’ve been able to use the Facebook/Instagram as well as the LinkedIn ad platforms for cannabis projects (I’ll touch on that more in future newsletters), but I’ve never spent money on Twitter, so I definitely plan to explore.
Most of the restrictions are reasonable and workable for the industry (especially given the zero tolerance we are used to) as they are focused on protecting minors from ads, but the one that I am curious to see implemented is the one restricting “characters, sports-persons, celebrities, or images/icons appealing to minors” as it seems super subjective.
Where is the line drawn for “appealing to minors” with celebrities? How long does an NBA player like Al Harrington have to be retired before they don’t appeal to minors? Cheech and Chong made an animated movie in 2013 but were at their height in the 70’s and 80’s. Are they good?
The day after the news broke, Trulieve sent out a press release claiming that they were the first cannabis company to launch paid ads on Twitter with this creative:
MJBizDaily also reported that the well known vaporizer company Pax was planning on being amongst the first advertising partners on the platform.
I even came across this post from Dr. Anand Dugar of Green Health Docs who said they the first ad in the history of Twitter…despite being posted a day after Trulieve claimed their ad was running.
Either way, it’s clear that cannabis marketers are eager to learn about the ad platform.
Part of our mission at CannabisCMO is to be a resource for our readers so we’ve been in contact with the team at Twitter to help bring folks onto the platform and answer questions so keep an eye out for more information!
A couple of days after the news broke, I tried running an ad for CannabisCMO just to see: 1) how easy it was, 2) what kind of targeting I could do #3) what it would cost me to get some new subscribers to our newsletter.
I decided that I’d run a super limited test — in terms of budget and length of the campaign. I was particularly curious how low you can set your spend (some platforms like LinkedIn require a minimum of $140 budget), so I set it at $10 per day, with just two days (2/16 - 2/17) as the run time.
However, as of quitting time on Friday evening, the ad still had not been approved on the platform. As I went to check Sunday evening to see if it ever ran, I discovered that it had actually timed out (I assume before it was approved) and never served any impressions or spent any budget.
I’ll definitely be doing some more testing for CannabisCMO as well as MCBA this week but I’m curious if any of our readers have activated any ads on Twitter?
If you have, drop me a line and let me know what your experience has been like!
Heads Up:
Next week, I'm starting a new section in the newsletter where I'm highlighting a Cannabis Marketer of the Week but I need your help.
Can you go to our LinkedIN page and tag up your favorite cannabis marketing professionals?
We’re looking for: CMO's, marketing directors, managers, coordinators, graphic designers, photographers, videographers, copywriters, editors, visual effect artists, influencers, etc.
Bonus points for tagging up Black, latino or other minority creatives.
Mahalo!