“Go Get that Green, Bud.”

via your classmate Jeremy

Despite the legalization of recreational marijuana in Canada and and ever-growing number of American states, the topic of cannabis usage remains a taboo topic my many North Americans (Beals 2022). Moreover, the level of sensitivity surrounding this topic has made it challenging for brands within the cannabis industry to pursue marketing initiatives that can effectively develop relationships with their consumers.

Weedmaps, a technology platform that offers consumers ordering solutions and cannabis education, has recently attempted to make a statement about the obstacles within the branding aspect of their industry. Specifically, they have utilized brand storytelling within a digital ad to voice their opinion on the roadblocks that they face regarding cannabis marketing censorship.

The mentioned digital ad takes the audience through a day in the life of “Brock Ollie”, a broccoli themed character who constantly gets mistaken for cannabis. This is accentuated through the interactions he has in his daily life, in which his peers use innuendos to address him. For example, his co-workers tell him to “Go get that green, bud”, as he heads towards a finance meeting. At the end of his day, Brock Ollie expresses his frustration of being mistaken as a “cannabis” to his friends “pot” and “leaf”, when in fact he is a “broccoli”.

While Weedmaps has taken a humorous approach to this ad, the underlying message represents their challenge of navigating around brand marketing within the cannabis industry. The negative stigma still surrounding cannabis obligates brands to use figurative ideas and images to censor their cannabis products, such as broccoli and trees. More importantly, it forces the marketing of cannabis products to be subtle, vague, and uninformative, making it challenging for brands to educate and develop relationships with their consumers.

In an interview, CEO of Weedmaps, Chris Beals expressed his opinion on how restricting the marketing aspect of cannabis related products not only impedes the growth of the industry, but actually may do more harm than good. “Advertising restrictions are simply one part of a much larger issue. Objective and reliable information about cannabis is integral to the sustained growth of this industry. The deficiency of such information and the current limitations that hinder cannabis education continue to negatively impact other areas, such as medical research, and it’s time we begin to address them.”

With the “Brock Ollie” Weedmaps ad being denied from being broadcast on the recent Super Bowl 56 (NBC, 2022), it just goes to prove how conversation around cannabis use is still a sensitive topic. However, with the everchanging consumer mindsets and generational cohorts, we could potentially see a more outspoken approach to cannabis brand marketing in the near future.

Sources: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220207005200/en/Weedmaps-Tackles-Cannabis-Marketing-Censorship-with-Digital-Spot-Ahead-of-Advertisings-Biggest-Night-of-the-Year

https://weedmaps.com/corporate

https://www.linkedin.com/company/weedmaps/?originalSubdomain=ca

https://www.foxbusiness.com/sports/weedmaps-cannabis-super-bowl-sunday

Are Business Leaders Spacing Out?

via your classmate Brandon:

In the last two weeks some amazing advancements have transpired in the path towards private space exploration, writing a new chapter in the “Space Race.” On July 20^th, billionaire and founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, flew into space in his rocket Blue Origin. The flight was about 10 minutes long and caused a lot of backlash to Amazon and Jeff Bezos himself as many people are calling independent space travel unnecessary, expensive and a waste of money. Moreover, the flight costed millions of dollars that many critics are saying could go to Amazon’s workers and improve the company’s poor labour practices. Over 185,000 people signed a petition on Change.org to not allow Jeff Bezos back into the atmosphere during his flight.

Only 9 days earlier the world watched billionaire Richard Branson live out his childhood dream of space travel. He filmed his inspiring speech from a weightless aircraft encouraging many others to follow their dreams and to work hard. Many prominent figures in society have supported and funded these new types of innovations into private space exploration. Elon Musk wants to have commercial flights to Mars and his company SpaceX is on its way to making that a possibility.

This growing trend is bringing mixed opinions from society. Among other brand authors, comdian Jon Stewart–voice of popular culture and a comedic version of the news media–promoted his upcoming Apple TV Plus show “The Problem with Jon Stewart” with a skit roasting the billionaires and their one uppmanship. It begs the question: do billionaires have a responsibility to spend their money on world issues? If so, are they not allowed to spend their money on things they enjoy? Space travel has always been a controversial topic right back to the space race with the Soviet Union and the United States. Millions of dollars in financial investment, pollution, depletion of resources and time have always been motivating factors to not pursue space travel.

Moving forward, it looks like these private flights will become more normal to see and eventually attainable to individuals willing to pay for it. Regardless of where you stand on the matter it is time to accept that the new chapter of space travel has officially started, and it is only in time we will see its limits.

Jeff Bezos blasted for ‘phallic’ rocket flight into space on Blue Origin

https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/jeff-bezos-blasts-into-space-on-own-rocket-best-day-ever-1.5515765

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/19/billionaires-space-tourism-environment-emissions

A Brand New Way to Cheat

Via your classmate Aidan:

There’s been a lot of outrage recently in the world of major league baseball (MLB), as everyone from fans to pundits to players have mocked the new rule that aims to eject “any pitcher who possesses or applies foreign substances.”¹ Why would a rule aimed at competitive parity and at reducing cheating (which everyone seems to hate around the world) be so controversial? The answer lies in MLB’s long and muddled history with cheating (especially in recent years) and in their ever-decreasing viewership count, both of which have led the MLB to attempt to make rule changes to counteract these patterns. 

And before you wonder how a rule change could be considered a brand change: the MLB, as a brand, is known as “America’s pastime.” It is also often considered the most traditional, slowest-paced, most boring major sport. This may have once been something to embrace, but currently young people just don’t like baseball as much as they once did. Indeed, just 7% of MLB’s viewers are under 18², leading some to proclaim it “a dying sport.”³ This is obviously not an ideal position for any organization, let alone a league with as much money at stake as the MLB. So, over the past few years, the League has introduced several rules aimed at speeding games up and making them more entertaining for younger generations. These include: pitch clocks, limited substitutions, replay review (which actually made the games longer and more boring, as it tends to), and automatically starting extra innings with a runner already in scoring position (2^nd base).

However, despite all these efforts, and the shortened games that resulted, the brand re-positioning towards this younger demographic hasn’t been as successful as hoped. In my opinion, some of this may be due to the fact that baseball is the sport with the richest history of cheating and the sport where it is easiest to cheat. 

In baseball there have been teams that have thrown games in order to make money (even the world series – the Chicago White Sox were known as ‘The Black Sox’ for a while as a result); doping scandals in which players took steroids to gain a competitive advantage (and broke records along the way, records that still stand despite their accepted cheating); pitchers using a foreign substance to make the ball move in unexpectable ways (sticky substances can give them better grip and control – this is what the new rule is aimed at eliminating); and of course, sign stealing. The most famous example of this was the trash-can hitting, World Series winning Houston Astros of a few years ago. However, despite all these players and teams being caught, MLB has adopted a laissez-faire approach to punishment: either a slap on the wrist, or no punishment at all.  

While MLB appears to be trying to make strides, they keep shooting themselves in the foot with inconsistencies. Some of their rule-changes make the games shorter. Others longer. Some crackdown on minor instances of cheating. Others ignore major instances of cheating. Until MLB is able to find some consistency, I believe they will continue to fail and falter in their goal to draw in a younger audience, not only in viewership, but in younger players coming up, as little leagues across North America have seen ever-decreasing sign-up rates.⁴ 

Until things change for the better, baseball will continue to be (for many) unwatchable, a sport for an America that no longer exists. 

References: 

1. https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-announces-new-guidance-to-deter-use-of-foreign-substances 
2. https://www.denverpost.com/2021/03/28/the-state-of-baseball-game-needs-fresh-ideas/#:~:text=%2C%E2%80%9D%20Epstein%20said.-,Declining%20interest%20in%20baseball%20can%20be%20directly%20traced%20to%20a,loss%20of%205.2%20million%20fans.&text=More%20ominous%2C%20just%207%25%20of,under%20the%20age%20of%2018.  
3. https://yorktownsentry.com/9127/sports/why-baseball-is-dying/ 
4. https://howtheyplay.com/team-sports/Baseball-A-Changing-Landscape 

Article URL: https://ftw.usatoday.com/lists/mariners-hector-santiago-first-pitcher-ejected-mlb-world-reacts 

Rainbow Connection Or Pride-Washing?

via your classmate Aidan:

Unilever USA helms a Pride Business Relationship group that focuses on improving what is known as the municipal equality index (MEI), a statistic that examines “how inclusive municipal laws, policies, and services are of LGBT+ people who live and work there, rating them on everything from non-discrimination laws to bullying.” 

While places like LA and New York scored the maximum 100 points in this index, as you may expect, there were others that fared less well, including 17 (yes, 17!) cities that scored a zero. While many brands would likely target LGBT+ advertising at geographical areas where this score is already high in order to increase the chances of a positive response, Unilever opted for the opposite, perhaps to avoid being slapped with the rainbow-washing label, a term used to “describe brands that smack a rainbow logo across their socials without bothering to use their power and influence to make an actual difference” (Watson 2021). 

Instead of targeting communities where this type of advertising would be more likely to make money due to established equality, Unilever is committing to make a real change, forgoing a “one size fits all” campaign in favour of targeting five out of the 17 aforementioned cities that scored a zero on the MEI index. 

This is also not the first time Unilever has launched such a campaign. In fact, this is the third year of its “United We Stand” campaign, aimed at supporting local organizations in the five cities (Monroe in Louisiana, Moore in Oklahoma, Clemson in South Carolina, Florence in Alabama and Cape Girardeau in Missouri) year-round, beyond just the typical celebrations and campaigns of Pride Month. 

Unilever has also partnered with Tourmaline, an activist filmmaker, to produce short films that showcase the stories of people within the community.  

Unilever’s time and financial investment into this campaign could yield significant dividends down the line. What I find quite interesting is that they are not shying away from digging into communities where their brand image could be damaged in the short-term and are instead focused more on the long-term, big-picture view. They also seem to be making a conscious effort to go above and beyond in their efforts to shield themselves from the rainbow-washing label. In this way, they’ve clearly aligned themselves with a pro-LGBT+ demographic, a bold yet, I believe, ethically correct action that will pay off for them as the years progress. 

Article: 

https://www.thedrum.com/news/2021/06/09/why-unilever-localised-pride-push-5-us-cities-ranked-worst-lgbt-people

A Comedian Considers Brand Authenticity (Hilarity Ensues)

via your classmate Krista:

I recently decided to watch Bo Burnham’s Netflix special “Inside.” This is not a review of the show (which I do recommend you watch!), but rather a reflection on a short 2-minute skit he performed on brand awareness (starts around 18:23).

He starts the skit in a mock interview pretending to be a consultant who focuses on helping brands and their social branding strategy.

The following is an excerpt transcribed from the show (with all the jokes omitted as you can only get the full comedic effect of his sarcastic delivery and timing from watching it).

“It’s a very exciting time to be a brand. Customers expect a lot more from their brands than they did in the past. During this incredibly necessary, and overdue, social reckoning that we are having in our culture, it is no longer acceptable for brands to stay out of the conversation.

Consumers are wanting to know: are you willing to use your brand awareness to affect positive social change? Which will, in turn, create more brand awareness. The question I ask brands is: are you going to be on the right side of history?

The question isn’t what are you selling or what service are you providing, the question is what do you stand for? Who are you?”

I absolutely loved this, as we are seeing an incredible shift in marketing strategies on how companies engage with their customers. As Burnham states, we are going through an overdue social reckoning. A company’s silence on social matters increasingly is taken as compliance. This is a shift from a more traditional strategy in which consultants coached companies to remain silent on social or political issues.

Especially for customer-based brands, where companies actively engage with their customers and create meaning and value through their brand identity, I think customers will continue to demand brands speak up on important social issues. When selecting among competing brands, I believe the one we select as a customer will come down to whether or not we identify with their values and if they stand up for what we believe in.

https://www.netflix.com/ca/title/70295560

Un-Belieb-able!

via your classmate Ruby:

The supermarket worker sleeps with a cardboard cut-out of the star every day and admits she often talks to it during the night and ‘asks him to move if he’s in the way

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3365407/World-s-biggest-Justin-Bieber-fan-changed-pretend-married-sleeps-life-size-cardboard-cut-singer.html

Brand resonance extends beyond goods and services: die-hard fans of celebrities are another example of resonance to a brand. An article in the UK’s Daily Mail identifies a 22 -year-old woman, Gabrielle Newton, who considers herself the “world’s biggest Justin Beiber fan”. Her identity, emotions, and life revolve around Justin Beiber. She even created a life filled with Beiber by changing her legal surname to “Bieber”, getting tattoos affiliated with Bieber’s songs, and sleeping with a life-sized cardboard cut-out of him at night. Although for some fans, Beiber’s brand has been tainted by a series of misbehaviours, such as being charged with driving under the influence and throwing eggs at a neighbour’s house, Newton says she still stands behind Beiber and doesn’t care to change him a bit. Suffice to say, Newton resonates with the Beiber brand, even if it may be a bit creepy.

The question is, how does Bieber (Newton) feel now that she shares her name with another Bieber, namely Hailey, Justin’s real wife?!

We Need Some Q and A about QAnon

via your classmate Emily:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/wayfair-online-conspiracy-theory-1.5657192

In summer 2020 a conspiracy theory was circling that online housewares brand Wayfair was trafficking children. Now this is nothing to joke about, but consumers claimed products were named after some missing children and the selling price of the product was set at an unusually high cost. Counterclaims then emerged from people saying their name was used but they were not missing.

The so-called conspiracy was particularly prominent on TikTok with millions of views. Wayfair responded that it uses an algorithm to name its products and have tried to fix these issues, but it is interesting to me how something like this has the potential to deter my generation to avoid Wayfair all together. This is an example of a brand being authored, because influencers on social media and conspiracies circulating in popular culture can damage a brand even with no proof of its authenticity.

Counter-branding: the Trump Body Bag

via Strategy Magazine:

https://strategyonline.ca/2020/05/04/you-can-now-buy-donald-trump-branded-body-bags/

The Washington Post reported that the U.S. Department of the Treasury ordered President Donald Trump’s name to be printed on stimulus cheques for Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic, causing concerned reactions with the possibility of delays with these cheques.

The order inspired three Canadian creatives to create branded body bags. “It was like, ‘oh my god, if he wants to have his name on these cheques so bad, he should probably have his name on the bodies that have piled up so far” says Xavier Blais, partner and creative director at [Canadian marketing communications agency] Rethink. 

The body bags are available for purchase online for $500, with the profits going to the World Health Organization’s COVID-Solidarity Response Fund. As of last week, there have been two purchases of the Trump Body Bags – both from people in Canada.

Dove Says Real Courage Is Real Beauty

Dove shows the ‘beautiful’ courage of frontline workers

An image from Unilever Canada’s Courage campaign.

A new campaign from Dove Canada tests the conclusions of the Corus survey noted below by tying the long-running “Real Beauty” campaign to current events.

According to a story in Strategy, the campaign, led by Ogilvy Canada, frames beauty as “a source of confidence, not anxiety.”  Doctors and nurses stare at the camera with visible mask lines At the end of the spot, the caption “Courage is beautiful” appears.

“The front-line workers pictured in the ads demonstrate the toll that their work is having on them, but we see their work and their courage as an act of beauty,” Divya Singh, marketing manager, Dove masterbrand and skin cleansing says in the Strategy article. “From a Unilever standpoint, as the world’s biggest soap company, we have a responsibility to help protect lives and livelihoods around the world.”

Will consumers connect arresting images of front line workers to their choice of facial moisturizer at the point of purchase? Does being socially relevant build brand resonance? What do you think?

New Study Says One-Fifth of Canadians Want Brands to Stop Advertising

One-fifth of Canadians want brands to stop advertising

A study by Corus says that while the common wisdom is that advertisers should not pull ad spend during the pandemic so that they don’t lose brand-building momentum, it doesn’t align with what consumers want.

According to the survey of 1,000 Canadian respondents, 18% want brands to stop advertising at all, while 16% want brands to not “continue advertising as though everything were normal.” More than half (56%) of those surveyed want messages about how brands are helping during the crisis, while 50% of respondents want brands to tell them how they can still access the company’s products.

What do you think the right strategy for brands is: stay respectfully silent, pretend it’s “business as usual,” or assert that brands can be helpful, even heroic? What’s the right call?