Hijacking the Super Bowl Ad Conversation to Battle Cannabis Censorship

Challenge: Break through advertising restrictions and censorship barriers to own a conversation around sports and cannabis during Super Bowl LVI, an event that took place in the most cannabis-friendly city in the world.

Approach:

Hijacked the news cycle with WM’s first ever digital advertisement that questioned the reasoning for cannabis censorship
Launched digital ad that created the character Brock Ollie to battle the conversation on cannabis censorship
Parceled out assets, executives, and story angles to target exclusive opps across advertising, endemic, business, consumer lifestyle, and sports media
Leveraged CEO for Radio Row media tour targeting sports press
Pressured NBC to comment on their restrictions by spotlighting comparative messaging for sports betting and alcohol consumption in relation to cannabis

Impact:

Generated significant spikes on the Weedmaps app and website vendors, earning the designation as the most successful program since Weedmaps’ IPO
Secured high-impact coverage in mainstream and social editorial press driving the conversation across social channels
Increased traffic to WM’s social channels significantly, pushing Instagram to reinstate the flagged account
Earned over 230 editorial placements in key publications including Fox News, Yahoo, Forbes, USA Today, The Verge and an exclusive in AdWeek that prompted a media alert from their publication driving further engagement
Recognized in the 2023 PRWeek Awards for Best in Arts, Sports, Entertainment & Media and Best in Social categories