Spotify has announced that it will allow cannabis advertising on its platform
Are social networks ready to embrace CBD and cannabis? At least, that's what we understand from Spotify's announcement. The music streaming leader has announced that it will allow an American brand to advertise its THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) products directly on its platform. This decision marks a real turning point, and could encourage other brands and networks to take the plunge too.
Meta, X (Twitter) and now Spotify
The Cresco - Sunnyside group, the first of a new trend?
Advertising, but on a local scale
Spotify, numbers that make your head spin
What next?
Meta, X (Twitter) and now Spotify
Over the past few months, a number of companies have been gradually opening up to the issue of cannabis. Recently, Meta (the parent company of Threads, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) and X (the new name for Twitter), for example, indicated their intention to relax their rules on advertising CBD and legal cannabis products. Whether in the United States, Canada or Mexico, it is now possible (subject to certain conditions, of course) to promote your brand and your products.
Now Spotify is following suit. The music streaming giant has confirmed that it will be working with a Chicago-based brand to promote its cannabis-based products. The brand is Sunnyside. It belongs to the Cresco group and targets consumers based in Chicago, Illinois.
The Cresco - Sunnyside group, the first of a new trend?
The Cresco Group is delighted with this collaboration. Interviewed, Cory Rothschild said he was delighted to see the major digital companies gradually opting to collaborate with players in the hemp, CBD and cannabis economy. In his opinion, this is a major step forward in the standardization of these products!
"Audio streaming services represent a major opportunity for brands to reach large audiences in a targeted way, and we're thrilled to be working with Spotify to launch the first-ever cannabis ads for our national retail brand Sunnyside."
Sunnyside is a fairly recent brand offering a whole range of cannabis products for sale, including flowers, vapes, edibles, concentrates and sticks pre-rolls, capsules, oils and cosmetics. A very wide range, then, for this cannabis player, which has recently caused quite a stir.
Advertising on a local scale
For the time being, this advertising will only be local. Only Chicago-based users will be able to see Sunnyside offers. The brand will be entitled to 30-second audio spots, as well as advertising banners directly on the platform and its application.
"Our advertising strategy for Sunnyside relies on a data ecosystem that enables best-in-class targeting and measurement. Spotify's platform will enable our marketing team to target our ads compliantly and cost-effectively to our key customers in Illinois, where we are a leading retail player. This important partnership is not only a step in the normalization of cannabis, but it also highlights the sophistication and quality of the marketing we have in place at Cresco Labs."
Spotify, numbers that make your head spin
Spotify is an exceptionally large company. The group boasts over 551 million users and 220 million subscribers worldwide. If the company does indeed decide to democratize access to advertising to all businesses, everywhere in the world, that's more than half a billion individuals who may eventually be led to interact with a company, a brand specialized in cannabis.
"This important partnership is not only a step in the normalization of cannabis, but it also highlights the sophistication and quality of the marketing we've put in place at Cresco Labs," added Cory Rothschild, for whom this collaboration could move the lines, and in quite a consequential way, even if it's mainly a test phase for Spotify, which will be able to analyze the fallout its decision may have generated.
What happens next?
What next? For the moment, it's hard to say. After all, this collaboration is highly localized. However, in the event of a positive spin-off for either Spotify or Sunnyside, we can imagine a total opening up of advertising on the platform to all CBD and cannabis brands, at least on American territory (or even North American, as is often the case).
In France and the rest of the European Union, however, things are unlikely to change any time soon. We can imagine Spotify being tempted by cannabis advertising on its platform in the years to come, once all the contours are perfectly defined. As a reminder, French legislation is very clear on the subject of cannabis, which is strictly forbidden for use if it contains more than 0.3% THC.
Could the attraction of these very big brands to the world of CBD, hemp and cannabis have an even wider societal impact? As long as more than 500 million people are involved, yes. On a local scale, a little less so. In any case, this announcement opens a veritable Pandora's box, and other players could soon follow suit. We're thinking of Deezer and Apple, via its streaming service.
