How Legitimate Marijuana Businesses Have Fought For Media Visibility ?

Legitimate Marijuana Businesses have had to contend with hostile Tech Companies. Is there an effective way around the Tech Companies to conduct Marijuana marketing campaigns ?

Tech companies like Instagram, Facebook and Google are united against the Marijuana business. The main reason is their obligation to comply with federal laws that do not favor Marijuana business. In the eyes of tech companies Marijuana business is illegal. The paradox here is that while the federal government is against the trade of Marijuana some States have legalized the sale and use of Marijuana.

Jardin Marijuana Dispensary Case in Point

Jardin is a Las Vegas Online Marijuana Dispensary that has come up with an innovative way of getting around the hectic and restrictive tech companies. The dispensary has created a flat screen video booth that records short animation videos of customers and later sends the videos as GIF files to their email account. Jardin dispensary uses this as a marketing campaign in the hope of winning over regular customers. The creativity employed by Jardin has made it possible to work around advertising restrictions .

Tech Companies Restrictions

Google prohibits the display of marijuana ads on the search results and display. It is part of their AdWords policies. Alex Krasov, the spokesman at Google, explained that Marijuana is still illegal at federal government level. Google will also not allow Marijuana adverts on publications i.e. AdSense.

Instagram has prohibitive regulations on promotion of drug sales even when such drugs are legal. Instagram, however, permits inclusion of marijuana content provided such content does not promote sales. Dispensaries do not have authority to post any contact information such as address and web links on Instagram.

Jardin’s Experience with Tech Companies

Jardin Dispensary has suffered tremendously in the hands of social media companies. Jardin has been forced to rebuild an Instagram Account with 20,000 followers from scratch following the banning of their Account. The Instagram account was closed six successive times before Armen Yemenidjian, the owner of Jardin Dispensary, decided to file a complaint.

Following the account cancellation without warning the owner scanned the store licenses and uploaded them to Instagram support team. His objective was to prove to Instagram that he was operating a legal business and that the ban was maiming his business. He never got any response and instead he chose to open new accounts but each of them was closed down again. To Jardin dispensary Tech companies are completely unreliable when it comes to marketing Marijuana .

Overcoming the Barriers

The video booth that sends animated videos to customers is just one way through which Jardin Dispensary has sought to overcome the barriers. Jardin has also exploited the twitter channel route. Tweets that appear on Google engine search results are not subjected to strict standards compared to promotions on twitter account itself. The other advantage with tweets appearing on Google is that they are ranked higher on research results. They often will appear on the first page.

Through such routes the Marijuana business is slowly getting attention. Kent, the Inventory curator at Jardin’s Dispensary explained the relevance of uploading informational tweets on twitter. The objective is to attract traffic by answering fundamental questions about marijuana for people. People get search results from other websites as well as from Jardin’s twitter account. By inserting their email address on the video booth for a personalized animated video Jardin takes advantage of the email address to expand their marking campaign. Such initiatives might, however, be living on borrowed time.

Marijuana businesses might have to seize these kinds of opportunities until such a time when they are able to advertise like other businesses. Tech companies might have to review their policies and stop treating legitimate marijuana businesses as they would drug dealers.

Sponsor Ads

• Ad Space Available - Rent it Now!

Report this Page

Created on Mar 13th 2018 07:50. Viewed 408 times.

Share on APSense

Comments