There are certain rules companies need to follow whem promoting cannabis. (Photo 49684118 © Sarah Shelton | Dreamstime.com)

By Karen Habashi

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Cannabis marketing strategies in Canada lean on education

Jan 30, 2024 | 2:03 PM

 Any business or product to be noticed and bought by the public goes through the same technique. After design, they start making a marketing campaign and ads to bring it to life. Many businesses use social media specifically to reach their target audience.

 According to Health Canada, it is prohibited to promote cannabis, a cannabis accessory, or any service related to cannabis. This includes:

• communicating information about its price or distribution.
• using a testimonial or endorsement, however displayed or communicated
• using the depiction of a person, character, or animal, whether real or fictional.
• presenting it or any of its brand elements in a manner that associates it or the brand element with, or evokes a positive or negative emotion about or image of, a way of life such as one that includes glamour, recreation, excitement, vitality, risk, or daring.

But what do you do when you can’t market a product? Western Buzz asked a public relations (PR) specialist working with cannabis businesses how she does it.

“The challenge is definitely how to reach the audience, and so when we are strategizing, we often look at integrated PR campaigns,” Kaya Arai, an award-winning PR and communications specialist, said. 

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 “Promotions, sponsorships, partnerships—all of these things have restrictions and regulations, but informational and educational promotions, based on factual information, are allowed. We can host an educational workshop that’s age-gated, promoted through age-gated platforms that you sign up to, which is an example of how to do it,” Kaya further explained.

 With cannabis, sports, music, or brand partnerships are prohibited. You can’t associate a product with its effects, mood, or feeling, and you can’t have anyone actually be paid to endorse it.

In the United States, they have celebrities like Seth Rogen, Snoop Dogg, and others talking about cannabis products. There are also festivals or events happening around cannabis; in Canada, it’s very, very limited. Or non-existent.

And the only way to get your product out is through education and media.

 “I think the other challenge to marketing something is that general education of cannabis on its own or cannabis as a plant and product across media isn’t as well known or well understood. So part of our job is also educating media and journalists on why something is unique and what makes it unique so that they can then digest that and then create the story themselves,” Kaya explained.

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info@westernbuzz.ca