OOH Insider - Episode 003 - Rolling up the world of Cannabis advertising

And with any luck, it looks like I pulled that off. It looks like we should be live. Um, Facebook, if you're seeing this and it's not live, it's probably a couple of days later, but happy birthday to all of my fellow Marines. It's 10 November, obviously we're celebrating 244 years of being the finest fighting.

The world has ever known, and this is super relevant because a lot of veterans struggle with a lot of physical ailments. Excuse me, physical ailments. After getting out of the Marine Corps, lot of challenges with mental health conditions and cannabis, medical marijuana has offered a lot of veterans relief.

So it's a topic that's near and dear to my heart. A buddy of mine that actually I was in the Marine Corps with. He's got a really cool subscription by. Um, in the cannabis space, they send out like once a month to get a box of stuff, you know, papers and all sorts of goodies, if you're doing that sort of thing.

So, um, but why it's super relevant is because he came to me as a friend of his, and he's like, Hey man, I'm up against a, up against some challenges here. I got this cool. Um, we've got some customers, but I, I can't, I can't figure out how to advertise. Can I advertise on Facebook can advertise on Google. I'm not sure what to do.

And this was a couple of years ago. And if I knew now, I, if I knew then what I knew now, there it is. If I knew, then what I knew now, I'd know how to better help him. So let's break down what Facebook and Google are. Obviously we know what the restrictions are, but there's reasons why we would want to use them.

Right. There's things that are, uh, super appealing about them as platforms. So an important thing to keep in mind with Facebook, Instagram, really any social media, a form of advertising and paid advertising is that the entire platform is based around. So if we are running ads, I understand there's things beyond interest, but, but stick with me here.

If I'm looking at run ads on social media, I can target people who are interested in, uh, maybe holistic recipes, right? So I want to put my holistic cookbook in front of people who are interested in holistic types of remedies and things they could make at home themselves. As healthy alternative. So those are people who are just sort of generally interested in the topic.

Whereas Google is an intent-based platform. So what do we do? We create a bunch of interests. We created a bunch of people that are interested in the product or service that we ultimately offer. And then we want to drive those people back to our website. We hope that they clicked directly on our Facebook ad and do that.

But the fact of the matter is if, uh, if we did a good job, people should remember our. And be compelled to look for us later, too. So they could go back to Google and say, Hey, Google, I'm looking for a Ressa. I'm looking for a cookbook on holistic, uh, recipes for things like. So Facebook, Instagram, it knows I'm interested in holistic types of things.

Google I'm looking specifically for that holistic thing. So those are the differences between the platforms, Facebook, Instagram, social media, interest-based Google being the other search engine search engines. Intent-based people looking specifically for it, but Hey. We're shit out of luck because we can't advertise on either of those forms.

Uh, Google. I know that there's some, some workarounds, but it's a ton of work and you're just constantly getting the door shut. So, Hey, that's frustrating. But what if there was a way, what if there was a way for us to capitalize on this multi-billion dollar opportunity, carve out our unfair, share of the market through some really good traditional advertising.

What if we were to use the power of out of home? What if we used a out of home? Uh, number one show about the marijuana business. I'm going to talk to you about how CNN did just that back in 2015, ultimately how you can use the same types of strategy and tactics to launch your dispensary, to launch a cannabis related brand.

And it's with the power of out-of-home it's with the power of billboards is with the power of wrapped vehicles. It's with the power of. Um, bus stops or any sort of digital signage. There's so much opportunity to create a conversation and find people that are interested in what you can do, the relief that you could potentially offer them in their, in their lives.

So when we start to look at some of the surveys, what are the, some of the most common things that people. Go to medical marijuana for chronic pain is one of the most common ones. So there's ways to target your out of home campaign around people that may be, uh, maybe experiencing some chronic pain. So you can continually talk to people that, you know, really fit into the core audience that a, that you're looking to reach so we can create the interest and the really cool part about outdoor is that it drives a ton of online search.

I'm going to post the link in the show notes. Uh, Nielsen study 2017, that out of home advertising has the highest online search activation out of all advertising mediums, five out of 10 adults report, having gone to a search engine and looking up something that they saw on a billboard. Now that's pretty specific for somebody to remember, Hey, I saw a billboard and then I went online and looked.

Sort of funny. I had a conversation yesterday. I was, had the opportunity to speak to a bunch of college, um, college students in a program that I was a part of when I was in college called Enactus. And it's a, it's an entrepreneur entrepreneurial business-based, uh, group. And I was talking to one of the students and we were talking about a client of mine and she was from the area where the client was.

And I said, Hey, have you heard of this place? And she goes, yeah. As a matter of fact, I have. I said, have you been there? She goes. No, I haven't. I said, well, how'd you hear about. And she said, well, I remember seeing a billboard. This is a 21 year old college student. Who's telling me I haven't been someplace yet.

I'm super interested in going. And the reason that I am is because I specifically remember seeing a billboard on my way to school every single day. So out of home, you can build the interest with your target audience. You can drive that online search activity. So a few things that are important to have buttoned up on the back end of the house.

For that search activity. So let's say you go out and you're like, I want to, I want to create a fully immersive out-of-home camp campaign. I want to hit up a man, James Heller for  run a great campaign. I'm in a major Metro I'm open in seven dispensary's. We can do that work with James and his team.

They've got so much going on there in terms of an integrated out-of-home strategy using the power of wrapped vehicles and online, or maybe you're in a more rural market, like where. Um, and, and there may not be as much condensed traffic, but there's a great opportunity because it's a great out of home market that you could own a lot of the prime locations for people suffering with those chronic pain conditions.

So what if you had some sort of program that would. That that was, that rotated each month. And you had different messaging and different markets. It would feel like a really big campaign that would immerse the entire market over an extended period of time. And you would see that pay dividends on your, on your Google analytics in terms of organic and direct search activity, but ultimately the thing that matters most and that's people walking through the door.

Now there's a bit of a process, obviously in states where medical marijuana is legal, recreational, a little bit different. But in those instances, it's a great opportunity to build a relationship in a way that there is no ad fraud. Right. And I can see, I can see my ad up there on that huge billboard on this main thoroughfare that thousands of people drive past every day.

I can definitely see it. It's real. It's right up there for my cost per thousand, a traditional as sort of a advertising unit of measure. There's no greater opportunity. Right now than out of home, we're going to look back and, you know, a few years, and we're going to say this was the most undervalued form of advertising that we've probably ever had the opportunity to, to leverage them with the technology, with the data behind, out of home selection.

We worked closely with, uh, with our partners at geo Geopack. And we can go into geo path. And who are you trying to find? Who are you trying to talk to? Maybe, maybe you have a cannabis related brand, like my buddy from the Marine Corps. And, uh, and maybe you want to reach people that show a behavior of buying things on.

And that's your target audience because you have an online subscription box specifically targeted to those types of people. So you can behaviorly base your out-of-home campaign. So for an, an industry that is chronically, uh, challenged with advertising restrictions, getting most things online, you have a really hard time doing.

We we know that we understand that. So what can you do? What are, what, what can't I do? I know what that list is. So then what can I do? And then what can I do inside the confines of that? I'd implore you definitely. Uh, if you're going to contact and out of home providers, In your market or if your agency is a, it handles all that stuff for you.

Ask them the question about what sort of data do we have available to select our locations for out of home on top of that? So it starts with the data selection or the inventory selection using really good data. Who do you want to talk to? These are locations to talk to them now, what do you want to talk to them?

Uh, That's where creative comes into play. So oftentimes we see a creative it's designed on a screen. It is a, it looks good to you and I, as we stand around our desktop, but driving past it at 70 miles an hour, 80% of what we put on there gets lost. So definitely work with somebody experienced in designing out of home.

It's really, really specific design, uh, for the medium and the right creative can be the maker. Of a campaign. So once you decided, who do you want to talk to? What do you want to talk to them about leverage that great creative. Ultimately tell them what to do next. Um, and that's to find you online, visit the location.

So give them some sort of call to action. Or again, we want, we want out of out-of-home creative to be thought provoking. We want it to be memorable. As Nielsen tells us if we do those things. Five out of 10 adults report, haven't gone online to search for something that they saw out of home. It means you've got a pretty good opportunity to create a brand within a marketplace.

Drive the response that you're looking for in terms of website, traffic, uh, physical store traffic phone calls really fill the funnel. So out of home, it's a great opportunity for an industry that continues to see restrictions. I'm talking about restrictions, Hawaii, Maine. Hawaii, Maine, Ohio and Vermont. It looks like billboards are prohibited in the states.

If you're listening in the states could be a little bit tough for billboards. It's not to say that out-of-home, couldn't be a solution. Just the billboards are off the table, Oregon and California have sort of particular, uh, restrictions around billboard. Specifically. I'm going to post the link in the show notes below where you can look up your state and see what the restrictions are.

Those are the only ones that I have. That really have a clearly defined restrictions against a billboard specifically, but not necessarily all out of home. So again, in terms of online activation, that's people going back and looking for you, that's ultimately the thing you want to do. That's the thing that.

His people to know who you are. Right. They got to know you, then eventually they'll get to like you. And then ultimately if they trust you, they're going to choose you to do business with. So hopefully that helps. If you're in the cannabis space, I'd love to hear your feedback. If you've run out of. In the cannabis space and you've had success, or if it hasn't worked out, I'd love to hear from you love to get that insight and possibly have you on the at-home insider show again on Rowe, we're bringing you tips, tricks and insider insights.

More of those insider insights are coming up and they're super, super important that, uh, that we get those scheduled for you. So we're working on those things constantly, but again, if you're listening to this and you think you've got this. We've got questions. Should we could just open up a whole question and the answer forum one day, I'll bring on some really smart people.