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When the federal government introduced new legislation in April opening up what they called a “free market” for the sale of medical marijuana, they created a tricky marketing problem for businesses in the industry.   As reported in the Globe and Mail article “Medical marijuana companies find creative ways to stand out”, the new rules did open the market for the sale of medical marijuana, but left serious limitations on the ability of new businesses to advertise their product. Because the drug is a classified as a narcotic, the rules preventing traditional advertising of narcotics apply. Anton Mattadeen, Chief Strategy Officer at Medijean, one of the 800 companies applying to enter the medical marijuana market, states that “they didn’t really want anyone to go out there and say ‘this is why our product is better’”. Medijean decided to get around these restrictions by organizing discussions with doctors, patients, police officers and other stakeholders both in person and online to raise the profile of the company. Tweed, a start-up medical marijuana company decided to go public, “counting on the visibility that would come from being the first medical marijuana company traded on a North American stock exchange”. With creative marketing strategies like these, I’m betting that both Tweed and Medijean will be able to take advantage of the high demand that is expected to develop from the sale of medical marijuana in future years.

If the rules change further, and recreational use of marijuana becomes legal, the companion restrictions around advertising of the product may also be removed. Otherwise, it would be interesting to see online focus groups discussing the advantages of recreational marijuana use.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/sb-marketing/sales/medical-marijuana-companies-find-creative-ways-to-stand-out/article19040969/

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ideas/medical-marijuana-wait-for-the-smoke-to-clear-before-investing/article19760553/