Commentary

Weed Ad Network Debuts

Sure you’ve made programmatic ad buys, but have you ever done it… on weed? That’s now a possibility, thanks to a new marijuana-focused advertising network created by AdCellerant and Voice Media Group, a Denver-based media company that publishes LA Weekly, the Phoenix New Times, the Dallas Observer, and Miami New Times, among other community newspapers.

According to the partners, AdCellerant and Voice Media Group will help marijuana businesses in states where the drug is legal for recreational or medicinal use promote their brands and market their products and services -- something many digital agencies and networks have been reluctant to do because marijuana remains illegal at the federal level.

The network is focused on programmatic display advertising and extends to publications outside Voice Media’s own portfolio.

AdCellerant co-founder and CEO Brock Berry explained that the digital play is a natural extension of existing advertising relationships: “Many of our local media partners already work with cannabis businesses on their print advertising strategy. Now our partners will be able to offer their cannabis clients one of the most effective advertising solutions: programmatic display advertising.”

Although it caters to marijuana businesses, the ad network is playing it safe by prohibiting ads that use the word “marijuana” or include visual displays of the drug or related products. However this leaves plenty of leeway for veiled references relating to the marijuana subculture, characterized by synonyms and code words for the drug.

A number of marijuana businesses are already using the ad network, including Green Solutions, All Greens, Bloom Dispensary and more than 30 other companies, all of which previously participated in a test phase.

The marijuana industry is growing like a weed (get it?) despite numerous regulatory obstacles. For example last week MassRoots, a Colorado-based social network for cannabis lovers, revealed plans to go public with a secondary stock offering on Nasdaq. The listing would make MassRoots the first cannabis-related company traded on a big U.S. exchange outside the biotech category. It claims around 775,000 users for its platform.

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