Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart love their BICs

Welcome to the end of April. The month really blows by when you’re heads-down and marketing-deep. Let’s see how marketers are wrapping up April.

4/20 Ad Campaign Round-up

With the legalization of recreational marijuana over the past years, the formerly-covert unofficial weed holiday has entered the mainstream. And of course the brands are hopping on it—especially brands with products who lend themselves to the demographic who partake. Thus, we have BIC Lighters, Jack-in-the-Box, and GoPuff (with a hilariously on-the-nose name) running 4/20 campaigns.

BIC decided to put together a virtual scavenger hunt, with prizes, featuring a storyline in which Willie Nelson borrows Snoop Dogg’s BIC lighter only for it to go missing. Snoop teams up with his bestie Martha Stewart to search for the lighter, but they need your help. Meanwhile, Jack-in-the-Box released the Pineapple Express milkshake, a reference to the Seth Rogen stoner flick. And GoPuff positioned itself as the app to use for your munchie delivery, employing the amazing slogan “I Puffed Today” and a partnership with influencer The Fat Jewish.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again—it pays to know your audience. Cannabis connoisseurs and casuals love a playful advertisement starring their favorite marijuana enthusiasts. Take a leaf (coughs) out of these brands’ playbook and have some fun with your target market.

Meta’s Ad-System Glitch Frightens Marketers

A bug in Meta’s ad system had ad buyers reeling on Sunday. Marketers took en masse to Twitter to report “CPMs up 200%-500% versus the previous day.” Meta marketing solutions manager Yoni Levy responded, “Escalations sent,” added, “When things go wrong, Meta has a history of making things right,” and included a link to a Facebook Ads Manager Status page.

Meanwhile, user Jordan Menard posited, “So FB gets fined $725 million and 3 days later a mysterious glitch causes accounts to dramatically overspend. They probably got that back in a day. I’m sure it's complete coincidence.” Other ad buyers went a different route—user William Harris tweeted back, “I know you guys are gonna be busy and [have a] lot of nasty comments from some… but THANK YOU, we know you are doing your best to fix things.”

While it’s worthwhile to recognize the humans behind an organization and refrain from berating them, it’s pretty bad when a major tech company drops the ball this hard. Meta’s already scrambling to regain trust from users—both marketers and non-marketers—and a fumble like this isn’t instilling confidence in anyone. Especially when other social apps are growing.

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What is your ideal customer’s humor like? Does it lend itself to a fun ad or an influencer tie-in? Reply and let us know!

Thanks for joining us, and we’ll see you Thursday!