Despite marijuana being made increasingly legal in multiple states and countries, issues still remain for cannabis businesses looking to advertise – especially if they wish to use Influencers.
Most social platforms (including Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat) have strict ad bans around cannabis; so while marijuana or CBD oil brands still want to advertise, these companies are trying to turn to Influencers to promote its wares indirectly.
However, as Influencer agency Heartbeat revealed to Digiday, Influencers are anxious about doing weed tie-ups: “There’s a lot of confusion that’s blocking influencers from getting on board,” said Heartbeat CEO Brian Freeman. “They are scared of legal ramifications, and they don’t want YouTube to shut them down.”
YouTube has reportedly gone on weed “purges,” shutting down accounts like Loaded Up, which had more than 200,000 subscribers before the account was removed.
Influencers have had their accounts deleted due to marijuana content, and others are concerned about how their followers will react to cannabis content; however, Freeman believes influencers will eventually catch on as the cannabis industry goes mainstream (as tattoos have). He explains: “There’s this emerging culture around the recreational use of marijuana from the greater consumer base.
“It’s changing the look and the perception of who the marijuana buyer is. As that starts to take hold, influencers are going to look at marijuana normalisation as something they want to get ahead of.”
