• by Melynda Fuller , December 17, 2019

Centro is helping cannabis and CBD brands expand their reach and campaign performance through a new integration with CannaVu’s ad exchange.

It claims the largest cannabis intender audience segment with its ability to identify user devices of people who have visited over 4,000 medicinal and recreational licensed dispensaries in the U.S. either one, twice or over six times.

One publisher familiar with the CannaVu ad exchange is Newsweek. Shaun Hekking, senior vice president of national sales at Newsweek, told Publishers Daily: “Trusted brands are built through alignment with trusted media, like Newsweek. The CannaVu partnership allows us to continue on this path with our key partners in an expanding canna-ecosystem, which Newsweek fully supports.”

Essentially, there are few ad platforms that support CBD and advertising brands in a meaningful way. CBD and cannabis brands find a trusted platform recognized by publishers and vendors through CannaVu, which is diligent in following state, federal and FDA requirements regarding where and how CBD and cannabis advertising can be used.

Publishing partners also set their own standards on what types of advertisers, campaigns, geographies, creatives and device types are used.

Centro is working with leading dispensaries and tech partners in the CBD and cannabis industry and through its digital media platform Basis, the only programmatic platform with access to CannaVu.

Miles Dennison, CEO of Trion.io, CannaVu’s parent company, stated: “Centro’s Basis is breaking down marketing barriers in this space as the first major ad platform integrated with our marketplace. It effectively introduces consumers to brands in this industry by automating how they are reached through trusted mainstream publishers.”

Cannabis and CBD brands face a conundrum in the advertising marketplace — because they are new to many consumers, their ads must appear in trusted environments to ensure engagement. But as each company notes, many websites and media properties ban this type of advertising, causing cannabis and CBD brands to struggle with reach and poor campaign performance.

Tyler Kelly, president of Centro, stated: “Marketing builds brands, and this notion applies prominently in cannabis. These businesses have the benefit of competing on an even playing field to establish themselves as the ‘Kraft’ or ‘Pfizer’ of their industry.”

CannaVu also accesses ad impressions on Canna-Compliant mainstream and endemic publishers and vendors. Using Centro’s Basis platform, brands can tap contextual targeting based on related keywords, page sentiment or content categories. They can also access programmatic or direct media buying and real-time campaign intelligence that notes the effectiveness of their tactics, creative and targeting.