This campaign predominantly lived on Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube. Furthermore, by allowing people to share the campaign 'case study' which was part of the PR strategy, the campaign took off on social media and with cannabis industry influencers (fully earned sharing as there was no paid influencer) sharing the campaign across Canada and the world.

Cannabis sales in Canada have been legal for years. It's become as common as alcohol sales with literally stores on every corner. But cannabis advertising is highly regulated - to the point of being almost impossible.

While many use cannabis for recreational use, a significant amount of Canadians use it for health and wellness benefits to treat things like: chronic (back) pain, sleeping problems, anxiety, depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Whatever the use case, cannabis in Canada is widely accepted and completely legal.

Situation:

Cannabis sales are legal in Canada and have been for years. Cannabis advertising? Not so much. In fact, the entire industry is highly regulated. Furthermore, social platforms (such as Meta and Google) and other media channels (OOH/radio) have sophisticated filters in place to screen out any advertising that promotes cannabis.

So how does a regional cannabis chain promote their stores?

Objective:

Drive traffic to the Stok'd site and in-store, as well as the neighbouring stores, and at the same time create a brand personality that connects with consumers to choose Stok'd over other cannabis retailers.

Idea:

When you can’t advertise your store, advertise your neighbours.

Creative launchpad:

Bookstores, nail salons, etc actually have a lot more in common with cannabis retailers than you would first think, in what they offer customers.

The plan:

Create a geo-targeted, adult-gated, multimedia campaign partnering with neighbouring stores to promote BOTH their own store and Stok’d. By using shared language/benefits while also promoting the proximity to each other, Stok’d could find an unconventional way to tell customers about their location, products and experience.

By partnering and collaborating with neighbouring stores, Stok’d would be able to outsmart the media company’s sophisticated filters that block cannabis advertising. The ads all finish with a CTA to visit the neighbouring business, which is located right ‘Next to Stok’d’.

Target/Plan/Approach

The social media planning/strategy was to build upon the creative idea of 'neighbourhood' stores. So the campaign promoted Online Videos (OLVs) to within 5km of the stores.

Since cannabis is only legal for sale to 21+, we ensured the OLV buys was age-gated.

Finally, the target are those open to a more liberal lifestyle so through the social platform buying tools, we made sure this was a key psychographic.

While promoted posts were the start, because the campaign was so unexpected and playful, the social sharing also became an important part in which the campaign reached even more of our target. Consumers reposted the ads because of their intrigue at the cannabis references/innuendos, and of course the drive to the store "Next to Stok'd".

For 4 weeks, the campaign ran across multiple channels.

- On social platforms of Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube (geo-targeted and age-gated)

As a small chain in a local market, the budget wasn't very large but with targeting, the reach to the target audience was quite extensive with over 40,000 views.

The key to all of it was the implementation. All of the executions were created for the neighbour stores. New accounts were created, and then submitted as the neighbour store. This was to ensure the filters didn't see it was being executed in partnership with Stok'd.

After launch, phase 2 (when media concluded) we relaunched through PR, which allowed many cannabis fans/supporters, publications etc on their social media channels, blogs, etc, to share the campaign again across every social platform. This is where social really launched the Stok'd brand and campaign to another stratosphere.

The campaign was approved on every social platform. All without technically breaking any laws, as the ads were officially promoting neighbouring stores. Phase 1 OLVs were viewed over 40,000 times and 40% to completion.

With paid media (Phase 1) followed up quickly with earned PR (Phase 2), Stok'd was able to reach their local target audience as well as a national audience, which really helped build Stok'd's brand awareness and affinity. Most importantly, this 1-2 punch drove incredible business results to the level Stok'd had never seen before with one campaign.

Compared to the same period last year:

26% increase in-store customers

29% increase in new online customers

12% increase in revenue

Here are a few from top cannabis publications:

"The most creative marketing I've ever seen" - Cannabis Marketing

"Masterstroke Campaign" - Aggressive Organics

"Brilliant" - One World Cannabis

"Genius workaround" - Hobby Grower

"Unmatched ingenuity" - Joint Craft

The campaign was geo-targeted to only consumers living within a 5km radius of Stok'd stores. The entire chain of 4 stores are in one small region, just outside of metropolitan Toronto.

Also, through the social platform consumer selection, we age-gated to 21+, and chose those who are open to and living a liberal lifestyle and have used products and services that were in line with this psychographic.