Leveraging Traditional PR & Marketing Tactics During the Holidays

The holiday season sees consumers open their hearts and wallets to make memories with loved ones. For cannabis brands, it’s a golden opportunity to leverage traditional holiday PR and marketing tactics to tap into this surge of consumer spending.

Let’s explore how cannabis brands can execute classic holiday strategies to elevate their brand image, increase sales, and create lasting customer and industry relationships.

Compelling Brand Narratives

Cannabis brands can wield the power of storytelling to forge emotional connections with their target audience. By sharing their brand’s journey, values, and mission, consumers and brand advocates can relate to them on a personal level, making it more likely they choose your products for themselves or as gifts.

Themed Marketing Campaigns

Brands must plan well in advance to gain consumer recognition and visibility in the marketplace. Developing holiday marketing campaigns in September/October ensures that your product isn’t lost in a sea of similar goods. Engage your audience with holiday-themed contests, epic Instagram giveaways, and unique interactive content to create a sense of community around your brand

Seasonal Data Insights

Leverage data to understand seasonal habits and preferences. Brands are vying for the attention of a niche audience in an increasingly saturated market and the more you can understand consumer behaviour during the holidays, the more successful your marketing and sales strategies will be.

Media Engagement

Cannabis has gone mainstream with top outlets like Chatelaine and GQ releasing their own cannabis gift guides. The holiday season offers cannabis brands the perfect opportunity to engage with both traditional media and cannabis trades by offering expert opinions on emerging trends of the season, consumption habits, and the perfect gift for the canna-connoisseur or the canna-curious in your life. The value of media placements lies in the everlasting essence of the internet – leaving a digital footprint that is readily available for gift hunters for years to come.

Holiday Events

The holidays provide the perfect backdrop for cannabis brands to host or participate in events that resonate with the spirit of the season. Whether it’s a product launch party, a pop-up shop, or a community event, these occasions offer a platform to connect with consumers and industry professionals in a fun and memorable way, creating a positive association with your products.

Tether, Canada’s Budtender community, serves as a bridge, connecting brands with a network of over 4,500 Budtenders across Canada. Events like Tether’s Holiday Showcase are designed to bring brands and their products to the forefront, driving an audience of attendees that include both Budtenders and consumers.

Tether’s Holiday Showcase is set to take place at Millworks Creative Studios in Hamilton, ON, on Wednesday, November 1, 2023, from 6:00 to 8:00 PM ET. To mirror holiday gift-giving, sample bags are distributed to Budtenders and cannabis retailers so that they can be able to relay their experience directly to the customer and serve as valuable brand advocates. Brands must leverage this influence and focus on tactics to connect, promote, and educate cannabis frontline staff.

Elevate Your Gifting Game

When you’re choosing gifts this holiday season, consider popular options like Other People’s Pot’s Garlic Breath Pre-Roll, selected by the Ontario Cannabis Store as the ‘Budtender’s Choice’, it promises a pungent and savoury taste that brings to mind freshly peeled garlic. Available in Ontario.

Treat your loved ones to Big Pete’s Treats’ Cannabis-Infused Chocolate Chip Cookies, an indica sweet, baked with Pete’s exclusive cannabutter formula and semi-sweet chocolate chips, in a buttery, vanilla cookie – produced under Loosh Brands. Available in Ontario and other provinces.

Give the gift of gummies with Wyld’s Elderberry CBN-Infused Gummies. Sustainably made with real fruit, botanical terpenes, natural flavours, and compostable packaging and offered in 5mg THC and 2.5mg CBN, consumers can enjoy a balanced experience that doesn’t skimp on the flavour. Available in Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Prince Edward Island.

Or share in the excitement of KushKraft’s Bubble Rosin Blunts, a high-potency-infused blunt pre-roll that combines a carefully selected blend of flower with complimentary terpene profiles, bubble hash, and live rosin. Plus, it’s double-infused which makes it a heavy hitter. Available in Ontario in November 2023.

The perfect stocking stuffer, Bud Lafleur’s Citroli Pre-Roll is a sativa-dominant strain with a high THC potency and rich terpenes made by crossing Citral Skunk with Original Glue for an uplifting and energetic buzz. Available in Ontario, Quebec, and Alberta.

Seasoned smokers look no further than Shatterizer’s Slurricane Shatter. A berry fruit forward indica shatter, extracted from creamy and rich, violet-tinted trichomes and made with love, it has a THC potency of 72% – 82%. Available in Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba.

Cannabis brands seeking to leverage consumer spending habits during the holiday season must think creatively and strategically. Traditional PR and marketing tactics can significantly impact brand visibility and profitability. By focusing on building connections and offering value, cannabis brands can create lasting impressions that resonate long after the holidays have ended.