As more states legalize recreational cannabis use around the country, major digital platforms are adjusting their marketing policies accordingly.

• Last month, Twitter updated its ad policy to allow cannabis ads in states where cannabis is legal, and the month prior, Google relaxed some of its restrictions on advertising hemp and CBD products.

Still, brands in the space are left to navigate a web of state laws and platform-specific policies in their marketing plans. Some sites, like TikTok, don’t allow the depiction or promotion of any drugs, including cannabis, whether that’s organic content or paid marketing efforts.

“It’s no secret that, as marketers, we have one hand tied behind our backs, with probably a foot as well,” Joe Hodas, CMO at edibles company Wana Brands, told us.

As a result, marketers in the cannabis industry said they’re evaluating their social and digital strategies while looking for other potentially less-regulated marketing channels.

The new social frontier: Earlier this month, Balanced Health Botanicals, which sells hemp-derived CBD products under brand names including CBDistillery, started taking advantage of Twitter’s more 420-friendly advertising policy.

• On Twitter, Balanced Health Botanicals can now link directly to brand websites that conduct transactions, Chase Terwilliger, president and CEO of the company, told us. It’s more direct than on Meta, where the company cannot direct people to websites that ”promote or offer the sale” of cannabis products.
• Instead, the company points users to an “educational website” and hopes they find the company’s products on their own, he added.

“This isn’t solving everything at Twitter, but it’s one step in the right direction,” Terwilliger said.

Continue reading here.—KH

Doritos is no stranger to the brand collab. In fact, it does at least one collab a year, according to Stacy Taffet, SVP of brand marketing at Frito-Lay, from the Doritos Locos Taco, which made its debut on Taco Bell menus in 2012 and was reportedly in high demand from the get-go, to its more recent work with the likes of Skullcandy, Netflix, and Burger King.

It might seem like there’s no rhyme or reason to the brand’s wide-ranging list of partnerships, but she said they’re an intentional effort to connect with consumers and “deliver something exciting and innovative to our fans.” As a result, Doritos won’t just work with any brand that comes its way; the company has walked away from collab opportunities, according to Taffet.

In a recent interview, Taffet shared some insight into what she’s looking for in a brand partner and how Doritos tries to make its collabs stand out.

What are you looking for in a partner for a collab?

We’re looking for overlap in consumer base or fan base. We’re looking for brand synergies, so the brand doesn’t have to stand for the same thing, but I would say [it should have] some of the shared values that we have. For Doritos, it’s about being bold, being comfortable in your own skin, pushing boundaries. We’ll look for other brands that share those values and are willing to try some things that maybe are a little more innovative and bolder than we may try on other [Frito-Lay] brands.

How do you make sure there’s a visual or aesthetic balance of both brands on any creative assets?

We usually decide together who the creative developer is going to be. Sometimes we’ll do it in-house, sometimes the partner will do it, and sometimes it’s a third-party advertising agency…Both partners will then work with that creative entity. So even if it’s our internal agency, D3, the partner will still work with that agency most of the time to develop a lot of their assets.

Read the full Q&A here.—AM

If you’re opening a cannabis retail store, you might as well do it on 4/20.

Like Gotham.

“We’re trying to change the narrative around cannabis,” Joanne Wilson, Gotham’s founder and an angel investor whose portfolio includes Parachute Home and The Curbed Network, told us. “We’re the next generation of what we believe cannabis stores are going to look like.”

Located in Manhattan’s East Village, it will be a “concept store” that will radiate “edgy” meets “luxury,” Wilson said, citing trendy stores that commingled streetwear, fashion, and accessories as influences, such as Supreme stores and the Parisian boutique Colette, much mourned when it closed in 2017.

Gotham is expected to be the fourth licensed store to open in Manhattan under a 2021 state law that permits cannabis—previously legal only for medical purposes—to be sold for recreational consumption. And while Wilson has, in every sense, high hopes for the venture, the road ahead won’t be all giggles and munchies.

Keep reading on Retail Brew.—AAN

There are a lot of bad marketing tips out there. These aren’t those.

Old school: New research from Morning Consult indicates that about a third of millennials and Gen Zers are watching linear TV daily.

Privacy, please: Why (and how) brands might consider using private podcast feeds, including for internal comms.

Noted: Brands might want to keep an eye on the “fragmented state of music licensing” in the metaverse.

From football teams to pancake mixes, many household names have opted for new monikers over the past few years.

Learn why top companies have decided to edit or scrap outdated branding and how they maintain brand recognition through visual design cues.

Read the story here.

Marketers, they’re just like us…because they’re worried about economic conditions and don’t want to talk politics.

That’s one of the findings from the most recent iteration of the biannual CMO Survey, led by Deloitte, Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, and the American Marketing Association. This year’s 30th edition clocks in at 73 pages of findings from more than 300 marketers, most at the VP-level or above, in the US.

The report includes their takes on topics from budgets to job function to political stances. Here are a few highlights.

Money, money, money: Optimism about the US economy is “tepid” among marketers, according to the survey. It’s higher than it was during the initial spread of Covid, and compared to February 2009 after the Great Recession, but that’s not saying much.

• Marketers in the energy industry were the most optimistic, followed by tech, somewhat surprising given a recent wave of layoffs in that sector.

What’s not necessarily surprising is that inflation has taken a toll on marketing spend. According to the survey, 52% of respondents said “current inflationary pressures” have resulted in a decrease in marketing spend levels at their company, compared to 42% who said the same in September.

Marketing budget as a percentage of company budget is nearly down to pre-Covid levels, at 12.3%, though “yearly growth in marketing spend slowed” compared to the last survey. Earlier this week, Magna cut its ad spend forecast for the year to 3.4% growth, down from its initial 3.7% prediction.

Politic-no: The majority of marketers don’t want their brands getting too involved in politics.

• Just 29.1% of marketers said in March that they think it’s appropriate for their brand to “take a stance on politically charged issues,” though that’s up from 18.5% in February 2020.
• “Small companies with 50–99 employees are significantly more willing to take a stance than firms with a larger number of employees,” according to the report.

Catch up on a few Marketing Brew stories you might have missed.

• Van Leeuwen made ranch-flavored ice cream…But why?
• Google is opening the books with an ad library
• Could audiobooks be the next frontier for advertising?