The continued legalization of cannabis across the U.S. is expected to drive a surge in advertising spending in the coming years. Case in point, market and consumer data provider Statista projects that ad spending by cannabis companies in North America will grow from $661 million in 2018 to $3.89 billion over a 10-year period.

While growth expectations are dramatic and impressive, cannabis brands are faced with significant challenges in their marketing efforts. Many channels, including Google and Facebook, do not accept cannabis ads, and the ones that do come with many complex restrictions.

In these relatively early days of cannabis legality, out-of-home (OOH) advertising has emerged as the advertising channel of choice for cannabis brands. In addition to being one of the few remaining mediums capable of reaching a mass audience, OOH offers fewer restrictions than other channels, is cost effective for early-stage brands, and is proven to influence consumer attitudes and behaviors like web or foot-traffic to dispensaries.

But OOH planning for cannabis brands also requires awareness and real-time tracking of the ever-changing labyrinth of regulations and laws dictating where advertising can be placed and what can be shown in an ad. These laws differ not only by state, but by county and individual municipality. And with more than 1.5 million screens and displays, the U.S. OOH market is complex even for a traditional brand, let alone one that also has to navigate numerous restrictions on content and placement.

However, with investments and advancements in data aggregation technologies and the emergence of new campaign planning tools and platforms, it is possible for cannabis brands to quickly and safely leverage OOH to grow their businesses.

By adhering to these five key considerations, cannabis brands can leverage OOH safely, legally and effectively.

1. Look Before Leaping

Cannabis legalization occurs on a state-by-state basis. No two states have exactly the same sets of laws and guidelines. As a once-banned activity becomes legal in a given state, there is a rush to market with a flood of advertising activity. Take the time to truly understand the regulatory nature, and any sensitivities, before launching headlong into your advertising efforts.

2. Be Mindful of the Space You Are In

Yes, new data-driven planning tools and platforms enable the quick and easy identification of usable and compliant locations. However, even after ensuring that the selected inventory complies with all the necessary regulations, consider whether the message is truly appropriate for the community and surrounding areas where it will be seen. Just because you can promote your product on a particular OOH screen doesn’t necessarily mean you should. Criticism and community blowback come into play, even when you’re operating within your legal rights.   

3. Create a Sense of Shared Accountability

Sometimes, despite best efforts, issues arise. Have a plan in place ahead of time to manage complaints, incoming press inquiries or any other speed bumps. Establish a culture of shared accountability among all partners so that issues can be tackled quickly and effectively.

4. Leverage Partners

Today, any company can easily buy a billboard by calling up the media owner, but by working with an OOH specialist agency, cannabis brands can access a wider range of opportunities and capitalize on the experience and volume they manage to secure the very best locations and audiences for the best price. Specialist partners can also make it easier to navigate the complexities of OOH campaigns with turn-key and end-to-end solutions covering planning, execution, price negotiation, payment and reporting.

5. Ensure Every Channel Has a Seat at Your Table

Finally, too often, OOH is added on at the end of the wider planning process, as a secondary consideration or something “nice to have.” This is true both for cannabis and mainstream brands. To maximize the role of all channels in a marketing plan, bring everyone to the table from day one as the strategy is being developed. Marrying the vision from the start ensures ideas come to life across every brand communication and creates greater chance of success in delivering on business objectives. 

Shabnam Irilian is managing director for Talon Outdoor, an out-of-home agency delivering creative, technology-led and integrated OOH communications.

The National Association of Cannabis Businesses (NACB) is urging the governors of seven Northeastern and seven Midwestern states to adopt a regional cannabis legalization strategy as states reopen following the COVID-19 pandemic in a move that Mark Gorman, the association’s executive vice president and COO, says will provide states with a new source of revenue as they face budget deficits in the wake of the coronavirus crisis.

“Their budgets are going to be really stressed, jobs are going to be hard to come by and this is an industry … that can be an economic engine to bring some vitality back to the economy,” Gorman told Cannabis Business Times and Cannabis Dispensary.

NACB, an organization that creates national standards for the cannabis industry, sent letters to the governors of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Massachusetts in the Northeast, as well as to the governors of Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Kentucky in the Midwest, highlighting the benefits that a coordinated regional approach to adult-use legalization could create for industry stakeholders, such as the adoption of standards regarding quality controlled manufacturing, as well as responsible advertising and marketing programs.

“The organization started out a few years ago with a great idea, which is to create responsibility standards for the cannabis industry,” Gorman said.

To date, the NACB has adopted national standards for packaging and labeling, advertising, lab testing, security, infused products production and storage, and hemp in an effort to help create transparent industry regulations.

“For cannabis, it’s the Wild West out there in terms of advertising and marketing, and it’s probably not something the industry is going to be able to get away with, the more it becomes legalized,” Gorman said. “One of the things that NACB is trying to do is create a responsibility standard for the industry that will actually help to move legalization further ahead.”

A regional approach to adult-use legalization, he added, would allow both cannabis businesses and consumers to more easily grasp the industry’s regulations in the absence of federal regulation, as well as prepare the industry for federal legalization.

“That’s going to kick off a whole new ballgame—it’s going to be like interstate commerce,” Gorman said. “[This] way, you’ll already have a consistent set of rules, at least more consistent than you would otherwise have.”

While NACB is currently drafting its specific recommendations for a regional legalization strategy, Gorman said consistent tax policies and rules governing the sale of cannabis would be a good place to start.

“Having some unity there … is helpful for the consumers and it’s going to be helpful for the businesses, too,” he said. “There is a lot of money to be made in state excise taxes and sales taxes from legalization, and a lot of jobs to be created. I think it’s a benefit to the state if they’re not competing with each other on legal policies, retail sales policies and distribution policies.”

Even social equity policies could be considered at the regional level, Gorman added, to help states advance that aspect of their adult-use cannabis programs.

“These aren’t big, aggressive, new ideas—we’re just trying to get sensible rules to allow people to continue to make a living,” he said. “I think it’s time somebody in this industry tries to bring some unity to the task of writing rules and regulations to govern this industry."

(SARASOTA, FL – 5/26/20 – PRESS RELEASE) This week, Sarasota Green Group’s Grower’s Ally announced the launch of a secure e-commerce platform for large-scale growers of hemp and cannabis. Growers can sign-up at GrowersAlly.com/DirectToGrower and take advantage of direct to grower discount pricing for one-gallon and five-gallon quantities of OMRI Listed products that control and prevent powdery mildew and spider mites.

Grower’s Ally product lines are FIFRA 25(b) exempt and leave zero residual, preventing disease and protecting outdoor grow operations, greenhouses and hydroponic crops during all stages of growth. Grower’s Ally Fungicide uses citric acid to kill and prevent powdery mildew and other common bacteria and fungus. Grower’s Ally Spider Mite Control blends a high percentage of rosemary oil with clove oil and peppermint oil to repel, suffocate and paralyze spider mites and other soft-bodied insects.

The Fungicide concentrate is available to commercial growers in one-gallon and five-gallon sizes. One gallon of the Fungicide concentrate makes up to 85 gallons of product, treating 0.8 acres. The Spider Mite Control concentrate is also available in one-gallon and five-gallon sizes, making up to 400 gallons per one-gallon of product when used as a preventative, treating four acres.

“Buying direct offers commercial growers both convenience and savings,” explained Scott Allshouse, Sarasota Green Group CEO. “For hemp and cannabis growers looking for a chemical-free solution to protect and maintain healthy crops, these new product sizes are a great addition to their integrated pest management strategy.”

Proven effective through extensive testing by independent labs, Spider Mite Control and Fungicide leave behind no residual and can be used up until the day of harvest with no sensory effect on yields.

For more information or to sign up for a grower’s account, visit GrowersAlly.com or call (800) 550.6259.

Ethos Cannabis and the Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University have launched their first studies under Pennsylvania’s medical cannabis research program.

Pennsylvania’s 2016 medical cannabis law allows medical cannabis operators to seek “clinical registrant” licenses to partner with one of the state’s medical schools, called “academic clinical research centers,” to orchestrate patient-facing clinical studies into the benefits of medical cannabis.

RELATED: Pennsylvania Launches Medical Marijuana Research Program

“The medical schools cannot physically touch the plant, but they are interested in doing research,” Ethos President of Pennsylvania and CFO David Clapper told Cannabis Business Times. “They’re really interested in doing research, but to do it, they have to partner with a private group like us that can operate under state cannabis laws in the absence of federal regulation.”

Universities like Jefferson have historically had a difficult time conducting research on medical cannabis, not only for fear of losing their federal funding due to the plant’s Schedule-I status, but also because they lack access to patients and they are unable to identify exactly what the patients are taking.

“They’ve tried to do observational-type research over the years, but one of the biggest challenges is, ‘What exactly are the patients taking?’” Clapper said. “People don’t always remember to bring the medical marijuana bottle or vape labels with them to appointments with their physicians. Even if they know what they’re taking, they often don’t know exactly what is in medical marijuana that they’re using. … It’s been very difficult for Jefferson to do much in the way of real research, where they feel comfortable that they’re getting appropriate information.”

“We can do clinical research with patients that we can work with through their connection with Ethos and the Pennsylvania program,” added Dr. Brooke Worster, a physician in Jefferson University’s Sidney Kimmel Medical College. “It sidesteps that ever-challenging federal regulation whereby an academic medical center that gets federal funding would have to jump through all the hoops, with me having a Schedule I license … [and] getting product only from the University of Mississippi. … It gives us a little more flexibility … to understand what’s helpful, what’s tolerated [and] what adverse effects people are having, with a broad range of conditions and products.”

Under Pennsylvania’s research program, academic teaching hospitals had to apply for licenses first, demonstrating that they had identified a clinical registrant and had a research agreement in place.

“The way the program is set up is to require an ongoing research agreement with the hospital, in order to maintain your license,” Clapper said. “It’s a good program in that it keeps groups like us focused on the research.”

Ethos is one of seven clinical registrants currently licensed by the state to grow, process and dispense medical cannabis in partnership with an academic clinical research center, and the company is funding Jefferson’s research on the dispensary’s patients.

“I think Ethos has always had … an actual, real dedication to the research aspect of cannabis, not just doing it to get them the license,” Worster said. “They made a good partner because they really did have a lot of the same interests as we do, as far as, let’s get more data and more knowledge about this because it’s helpful for us, for our patients, for our caregivers [and] for disease management. … I think that’s what made them a good partner from the start.”

Roughly 300 of Ethos’ patients have enrolled in the first observational research study with Jefferson, which will track which products patients are taking, why they are taking them and specific dosage information. Patients are surveyed regularly for one calendar year to provide insight into how the products are affecting them and their medical condition.

“Just by studying the population here, we’ll start seeing trends that will help us distinguish the signal from the noise on, what is the low-hanging fruit?” Worster said. “What are the things where this seems to be very well tolerated and very helpful?”

Ethos and Jefferson are also considering future studies on opioid use.

“Jefferson has seen anecdotal information that suggests if you pair opiates with medical marijuana, you may be able to lower the amount of opiates used by patients and still get the same level of treatment for the condition,” Clapper said. “Jefferson would like to study patients that are using opiates for specific conditions, pair that with medical marijuana, and see what the results are compared to patients who are using only opiates to treat the condition.”

Another potential study would focus on how medical cannabis affects gastrointestinal cancer symptoms, he added.

“Jefferson is seeing what appears to be a positive correlation between people who are using medical marijuana and their ability to withstand chemo treatments for a longer period of time, and that’s something that can be game-changing for GI cancer,” Clapper said.  “What they’ve seen anecdotally is that people who are using medical marijuana to treat their cancer and chemo symptoms are able to maintain a better appetite and positive outlook which is necessary for withstanding extensive chemo treatments.”

The Ethos team will work closely with Jefferson to develop new product formulations that align with the university’s research goals.

“We are talking about doing different studies with a transdermal patch or a metered dose inhaler, products that are out there in some markets, but that haven’t gotten a lot of traction. These types of products may lead to alternative methods for using medical marijuana,” Clapper said. “We can use Jefferson’s research information to help create different products or the right delivery mechanism.”

Through Ethos’ participation in Pennsylvania’s research program, Clapper hopes that medical cannabis can eventually become an accepted part of healthcare.

“People are using medical marijuana to treat many different conditions and symptoms, and a majority of states have passed medical marijuana laws, but there are still a lot of doctors who don’t feel like it’s an appropriate part of healthcare,” he said. “How do you change that? … You start to change it when reputable medical schools like Jefferson perform research and publish the results.”

The research conducted through the program must be published, and every study must be approved through the Pennsylvania Department of Health, which provides a timeline for reporting.

“Marijuana’s not going away; more and more of our patients are turning to it, and we don’t have anywhere near the level of sophisticated data about it that we do lots of other pharmacotherapies,” Worster said. “So, it’s a very interesting, much-needed role that Jefferson’s research machine can play here. I don’t want to say it’s simple, but from our perspective, if we can find the means and the partnership and the interest to pursue needed research, then it’s kind of a no-brainer."