Canopy Growth
Tweed "Hi Canada"

The Goal

This year highlights a historic change for Canada. On Oct.17, recreational cannabis was legalized across Canada. For the first time in decades a new category is being launched into the market. The challenge is that most people have never shopped the category, let alone are they educated on the product. So, Tweed needed to educate people on cannabis so they knew the difference between an Indica and a Sativa strain, THC & CBD or the different forms cannabis comes in.

The Target

Cannabis curious Canadians above 18 years.

Insights and Strategy

Before the brand could even educate 11 million cannabis curious Canadians, it had to make them open to engaging with the product. Cannabis has suffered from decades of inaccurate portrayal in culture. It was seen as drug for lazy stoners and a gateway drug, while in actuality it has numerous medical benefits. From treating PTSD, insomnia, anxiety and pain relief. It’s used by highly productive people to focus & create, as well as to relax and unwind. The brand needed to turn these stereotypes on their head and become a brand and a product that was welcomed into communities from coast to coast.

In order to do that, the brand needed to launch with a two phase approach in the pre-legalisation stage. In the first phase, the brand needed to make Tweed feel welcoming and approachable in order to be seen as a trusted adviser for Canadians. So it decided to start a cannabis conversation with Canadians from coast to coast with one simple word, Hi. The challenge then became how the brand could amplify its message. At the time of the campaign launch, the rules of Cannabis Act weren't clear, so with a thorough understanding of the current ACMPR regulations, the brand worked with every media partner in Canada to define the places & spaces where the product could & couldn't play.

The Plan

Tweed launched the campaign in digital to test the uncharted waters of cannabis advertising. Once it saw there was positive engagement and support for its messaging, the brand moved into a multi-platform campaign spanning digital, video, OOH, sponsorships and influencer marketing. The team started a conversation with communities across Canada in a hyper-personalized way, inviting them to get to know Tweed and learn more about cannabis.

Once the campaign introduced Tweed and sparked consumers’ curiosity about the brand and the category, the agency quickly moved into education. Canadians know very little about cannabis, so we needed to teach them the basics of cannabis. Based on rapidly increasing search trends, the brand saw that search marketing was going to need to be a big part of the campaign, but unfortunately SEM wasn’t a possibility due to the global cannabis advertising policies. The brand needed to be clever and find a work around. Through a series of questions, the team produced a volume of search optimized educational content that ensured Tweed would be one of the top results when consumers were researching answers. This cannabis 101 would help Canadians decide if cannabis was right for them, guide them to the right solution and ensure their first experience was a great one.

The Results

Sparking curiosity and driving engagement during pre-legalization was incredibly important. This allowed Tweed to take advantage of media environments and build substantial audience pools, which would be hard to find and off limits post-legalization. This priority on data-mining in the pre-legalization stage meant that the brand was able to capture the cannabis curious Canadians, retarget and communicate with them post-legalization in Cannabis Act approved media, and build look-alike audiences, ensuring that Tweed was set up for both short and long term success.
All of this effort was resulted in an incredibly successful campaign for Tweed as it generated over 111M impressions digitally nationally. The campaign saw a 38% lift from a brand awareness perspective, over 79M impressions delivered via OOH with major markets and a 95% in site traffic. Phase one achieved CTRs 92% higher than the industry average and 24.1K organically posted instagrams around #HiSummer with shots of the traditional media (wild postings, restobar) & the activations. The campaign saw over a 40% engagement rate across influencer support on posts throughout the campaign launch.