Chicago-based marijuana firm Cresco Labs Inc. announced on Thursday that it’ll grow to be the “first hashish firm to launch hashish ads on Spotify, the world’s hottest audio streaming subscription service with greater than 551 million customers and 220 million subscribers.”
The advert marketing campaign will promote Sunnyside, a sequence of dispensaries operated by Cresco Labs and can embody “30 second audio and in-app digital banners that drive to the retailer’s proprietary e-commerce platform,” the company said in a press release.
These adverts will likely be particularly focused to Spotify listeners (and would-be Sunnyside prospects) in Illinois, the place leisure hashish is authorized.
“Audio streaming companies signify a serious alternative for manufacturers to succeed in massive audiences in a focused method, and we’re excited to collaborate with Spotify to launch the first-ever hashish adverts from our Sunnyside nationwide retail model,” Cory Rothschild, Cresco Labs’ Nationwide Retail President, mentioned in a statement on Thursday. “Our Sunnyside promoting technique is constructed on an information ecosystem enabling best-in-class concentrating on and measurement. Spotify’s platform will allow our advertising crew to focus on our adverts compliantly and profitably to our core customers in Illinois the place we have now a number one share in retail. This essential partnership is just not solely a step in normalizing hashish, however it additionally showcases the sophistication and high quality of selling that we have now unlocked at Cresco Labs.”
Promoting has been a difficult space to navigate for hashish firms seeking to market in america, the place marijuana stays topic to federal prohibition.
Marketing Brew ran a story in 2021 detailing these challenges, and highlighted how the publicly traded Cresco Labs “has a podcast promoting technique that’s simply as nuance-filled as you’d anticipate,” and that its “core technique hits on the intersection of host-read and programmatic adverts.”
The outlet reported that the corporate “solely advertises in states the place hashish—and due to this fact, advertising hashish merchandise—is authorized.”
“We observe the letter of the regulation when it comes to our content material in our supply,” Matt Pickerel, senior director of efficiency advertising at Cresco Labs, told Marketing Brew. “So, as a result of we’re dynamically inserting podcast adverts, we solely serve within the states the place we have now a footprint and the place we have now all of the licenses that we’d like.”
Pickerel defined that the podcast firm Headgum allowed Cresco Labs to “dynamically insert pre-recorded host-read adverts in states Cresco desires to promote in.”
“As a result of podcast measurement remains to be ‘in its infancy,’ Pickerel mentioned, Cresco tracks success with ‘some fairly elementary metrics.’ These embody variety of impressions, completes, discount-code redemptions, and web site visits if the podcast mentions Cresco’s URL,” Advertising and marketing Brew reported on the time.
“Whereas Cresco hasn’t jumped into the podcast promoting panorama headfirst resulting from these measurement considerations, Pickerel informed us it’s doing greater than dipping a toe in, with about 15% of its advertising finances going towards podcasts.”
Cresco says that its mission is to “normalize and professionalize the hashish business via a CPG method to constructing nationwide manufacturers and a customer-focused retail expertise, whereas performing as a steward for the business on legislative and regulatory-focused initiatives.”
“As a pacesetter in cultivation, manufacturing and branded product distribution, the Firm is leveraging its scale and agility to develop its portfolio of manufacturers that embody Cresco, Excessive Provide, FloraCal, Good Information, Surprise Wellness Co., Mindy’s and Remedi, on a nationwide stage. The Firm additionally operates extremely productive dispensaries nationally underneath the Sunnyside model that concentrate on constructing affected person and shopper belief and delivering ongoing training and comfort in a splendidly conventional retail expertise. By way of year-round coverage, neighborhood outreach and SEED initiative efforts, Cresco Labs embraces the duty to assist communities via genuine engagement, financial alternative, funding, workforce improvement and legislative initiatives designed to create probably the most accountable, respectable and strong hashish business attainable,” the company said in Thursday’s press release.
According to Business Insider, Cresco Labs CEO Charlie Bachtell “is a keynote speaker on the upcoming Benzinga Hashish Capital Convention in Chicago on September 27 and 28, the place he’ll undoubtedly share extra insights concerning the brand new partnership with Spotify.”
Along with the Benzinga convention in Chicago later this month, Cresco Labs mentioned that Bachtell will even seem on the ATB 2023 Life Sciences Institutional Investor Convention on September 20 in New York Metropolis, and the AGP Annual Digital Hashish Convention on October 4.
Sunnyside has dispensaries throughout seven states: one in Arizona, 33 in Florida, ten in Illinois, 4 in Massachusetts, 4 in New York, 5 in Ohio and 14 in Pennsylvania.
Sunnyside opened a brand new location final month in Palm Bay, Florida.
“We proceed to broaden the Sunnyside model and improve entry to top-quality hashish merchandise in probably the most significant Florida markets,” Bachtell mentioned on the time. “Palm Bay is probably the most populous metropolis in Brevard County with over 129,000 residents, and town’s location simply southeast of Orlando will allow Sunnyside Palm Bay, together with our many different shops within the East Central Florida area, to serve tens of 1000’s of sufferers with their hashish wants.”