Last week, a popular marketing blog published a post casting a hefty dose of skepticism towards the long-term future and functionality of cannabis and marketing for cannabis. It was skeptical to the point of absurdism, and simultaneously made some leaps of logic when it comes to comparing the alcohol industry and the burgeoning cannabis industry. While we normally wouldn’t give it a second thought, we determined that this would be a good launching point for a broader conversation on the future of big alcohol, big marketing and the progression towards not only the legalization of cannabis, but the influence big alcohol and big marketing has on cannabis and its normalization/acceptance.
What Was The Post Trying To Say?
It’s a little unclear, but the author, Seth Godin, is a smart guy, who was a pretty innovative marketer at the turn of the 21st century. With his reputation, we can’t just write his post off as a click-baity SEO play or a #HotTake (although it is muy caliente). Where Godin misses the mark egregiously is when he makes a poorly conceived comparison between the advent of mass marketing and the big alcohol and big tobacco boom of the mid-20th century and the nascent cannabis market of today. Unfortunately, this comparison is the majority of the post’s thesis.
Crucially, Godin seems to be ignoring the year-over-year decline in spirits and beer sales, the modest panic amongst the big beer and spirits companies regarding that decline, and the ongoing endorsement and investment that those companies are making into cannabis companies in the United States and Canada –to say nothing of the private investment clique making their own plays for cannabis. Whether it’s a hedge or no, when the Heinekens and Molson-Coors (and Wrigleys) of the world are investing in your industry you are doing something right on a massive scale. Not only do the dollar amounts that these companies provide for operations and distribution put those cannabis companies into a new economic zip code. These corporate behemoths also bring to the table soft (or not-so-soft) equity in the form of their own legacy relationships with major marketing houses on Fifth Avenue and elsewhere. Relationships that they’ve been fostering since, yup, you guessed it, the big alcohol and big tobacco boom of the mid-20th century.
Those marketing relationships, forged over decades and through tumult, have been the bedrock of driving brands into American consumer minds for generations. As the public’s taste in ads and branding has shifted from radio, television and print ads to the clicks-driven AdWords world dominated by Google and Facebook, these agencies (and their clients) have adapted. Godin, who astutely does point out that social media has caused some fracturing of demographics versus the monolithic appeal of, say, a Budweiser ad on TV during the World Series 35 years ago, however fails to recognize the opportunity inherent in this fracturing to not only marketers, but more importantly their clients.
Erosion Of Monolithic Appeal Has Led To Agency
Marketing agencies, particularly with big alcohol clients, are becoming more and more nimble in their evolving attempts to reach new demographics via branded content, social media and influencer marketing. This forced evolution, while initially daunting or overwhelming, considering the demographic data one’s got to sift through to reach a consumer in social media, has afforded amidst the complexity an opportunity for marketers to reach deeper into the lives and habits of would-be consumers.
Crucial to remember as well is this: big alcohol, big marketing and cannabis are now in bed together. These massive beer and spirits companies are serious about cannabis, which means that their marketing agencies are suddenly very serious about cannabis as well. If Godin, or you, or anyone else thinks for a second that these agencies won’t figure out how to market cannabis, uhh, think again.
Take Goop/MedMen’s partnership for example. As we discussed briefly in that post, Goop’s partnering with MedMen suddenly means that in a male-dominated industry such as cannabis, women now have a very trustworthy and relatable brand on dispensary shelves. This represents another side effect of the shift away from mass marketing: new and powerful brands having the opportunity and agency to reach directly to potential consumers. Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop it could be argued would not have anywhere near the sway over consumers fifty years ago that it does today. For Goop and their partners MedMen, that means reaching directly into an ever-growing consumer audience of aspirational (and affluent) female consumers between a massive age range. More importantly? Goop’s branded content and social media speaks more directly to its demographic set than a mass media-era advertisement in Life magazine ever could have.
Speaking of MedMen, the California unicorn, has taken agency into its own hands with their latest campaign. This $4 million spend by MedMen is yet another way that savvy businesses can embrace old-school tactics (there’s nothing more Cro-Magnon in marketing than a billboard!) and blend them seamlessly with a digital chic aesthetic and some winking nods to the SoCal lifestyle to create a perfect storm of brick-and-mortar sensibility splashed with social media virality.
A Cautious Conclusion
Godin’s post seemed surprisingly out of touch, not just for the marketing comparisons, but also for a lack of recognizing that cannabis, while still burdened with federal and state-level obstacles and stigma, is becoming more and more popularly accepted on a daily basis. Particularly by commercial interests and investors. Massive amounts of people, a mass audience if you will, are clamoring for legalization. Jobs in the industry are becoming more and more in demand, and we still maintain it’s a matter of time before Big Tech gets in on the act, et cetera.
While all of this “progress” and “acceptance” is very good news; it is critically important to remember this: The winners and losers in the cannabis gold rush are being determined right now. Not every company is going to be partnered up with the Heinekens, Molson-Coors, Wrigleys or Goops of the world. However, what smart marketing (digital or not) can provide a business is this: the opportunity to catch the eye of the Heinekens, Molson-Coors, Wrigleys or Goops of the world.