Committee Blog: Announcing The NCIA Best of 420 Clio Cannabis Award
The Clio Cannabis Awards, September 29, 2022 in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand
During the winter of 2021, when vaccines were not yet widely available, and many people were still in lockdown, the NCIA Marketing and Advertising Committee was determined to shine a light on those in our community who were fueling opportunity and growth during a difficult time for many businesses.
MAC Chair Kary Radestock of Hippo Packaging assembled a subcommittee tasked to amplify top member marketing efforts and thus the Best of 420 Award program was born. The 2021 event received dozens of submissions from all over the U.S. across all business sectors and budget sizes and was conducted and presented virtually. See last year’s winners here.
For 2022, NCIA and the Marketing and Advertising Committee are bringing it back and this year, it’s going to hit differently.
Through the guidance of our subcommittee co-chaired by Melinda Adamec of Gabriel Marketing and myself, Tara Coomans of Avaans Media, we’ve also enlisted Michael Kauffman of the Clio Awards, Angela Wong of The People’s Ecosystem, and Vanessa Valdovinos of Hush Chicago to provide support to this year’s process and expand this award.
The winning honoree will be presented live at the 2022 Clio Cannabis Awards to be held on September 29th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
What’s Staying The Same:
NCIA invites all cannabis companies and brands, both B2B and B2C to submit their 420 campaigns—NCIA membership is not required. Budgets of all sizes and companies of all types, B2B and B2C, are encouraged to apply.
It’s still FREE
A jury of NCIA members and peers who will evaluate submissions and recognize the top entry.
What’s Changing:
Winners: There will be one winner and this winner will be chosen based on three criteria.
Judging Criteria
Criteria: Judges will evaluate entrants in three ways: Community Impact, Creativity, and Results.
Community Impact: How did your campaign bring your community together? How did it highlight the best of the cannabis community to others? Did it support an advocacy campaign such as DEI, sustainability?
The cannabis industry is showing the world how an industry-aligned can create positive change. How does your campaign positively impact either the cannabis industry, your customers, the environment, underserved or unrecognized cannabis users, or businesses?
Creativity: How creative was your overall 420 campaign? How creative are you in getting out your message and implementing the campaign?
Results: Was it an effective campaign by your own goals and KPIs?
This category is one of the most important because our judges will judge the results based on your goals. Regardless of budget size or market size, show us your results. Results are those KPIs that are important to YOU. Make sure you grab those baselines so we can see your progress!
Judges:
Selected from a diverse slate of NCIA members, including past winners and NCIA committee members from a cross-section of perspectives, including the Sustainability Committee, the Diversity and Equity Committee and the Marketing and Advertising Committee.
Submission Process and Deadline
Submit your company’s campaign today by following the link below! Act fast as entries will be collected over the following six weeks, with a deadline to submit by Friday, Jul 22, 2022.
Good luck to everyone and have a fantastic 420! Submissions are being accepted now! We look forward to seeing your exceptional campaigns!
About Clio Clio is the premier international awards competition for the creative business. Founded in 1959 to celebrate creative excellence in advertising, Clio today honors the work and talent at the forefront of the industry in a variety of specialized fields, including: sports, fashion, music, entertainment, cannabis, and health. As a leading authority on the diverse and ever-changing creative landscape, Clio celebrates creativity 365-days-a-year via its global ad database Ads of The World and its content platform Muse by Clio. https://clios.com/ https://musebycl.io/ https://www.adsoftheworld.com/
About Clio Cannabis Expanding on Clio’s enduring reputation for establishing best-in-class programs honoring creative ideas in a variety of specialized verticals, Clio Cannabis celebrates the creators at the forefront of cannabis marketing and communications. Launched in 2019, Clio Cannabis sets the bar for creative work in a rapidly growing industry, builds a greater understanding of a developing category, and elevates creative contributions from top talent and agencies. https://www.cliocannabisawards.com/
Media Partner
For hints and tips on winning award programs, with hints and tips from the entire Marketing and Advertising Committee, listen to the replay of our recent webinar:
In order to run a successful PR campaign or build your own PR department you will need a set of tools that you can pull from again and again. Here are key strategies you need to tackle in order to build a successful toolkit.
Define your story. Story telling is at the heart of every PR campaign and will drive everything you do. As you know, cannabis is on fire wth new products introduced everyday. The ones who tell their story in a compelling way are the ones that will stand out. Ask yourself: how is your company, product, or service better or different than any other on the market? Is your product the first of its kind? Are you a bootstrap entrepreneur? Have you been a cannabis activist since the 90s? Does your company help people in need? Your story will be the DNA that is weaved throughout your toolkit, from your elevator speech to speaking to media.
Develop a media list. This list should have the following components: reporters’ names, titles, contact information, what they cover on their “beat,” —and this one is important—what you have pitched them and when you have pitched them. This is your guide to keeping organized and remembering who you’ve contacted. Cannabis beats are starting to fragment now into silos like “business,” “products,” and “lifestyles.” Don’t make the mistake of sending a business-focused press release to a lifestyle reporter. It’ll be ignored. There are companies like Meltwaterthat provide a comprehensive and constantly updated media data base. While there is a yearly subscription, it will help save an immense amount of time since pulling together a media list is time intensive.
Develop a media kit. When sending out a press release or pitching media, you should provide them with everything they need to run your news. Include facts about company executives and leaders as well as their headshots, a company overview, press releases, and compelling photos and images of your product or service. The goal of a media kit is to make it easy for reporters to understand the who, what, why, when and how of your company and its unique story. If reporters are provided with all this information (most importantly high-quality images and photography) at their fingertips, your chances of coverage increase. Your media kit should be online, digital, and easy to access.
Develop a press release. This could be its own blog but for now here are the key steps. Keep it simple. Stick to the who, what, where, when and how. Write a compelling headline that helps your news stand out and write the body of the release in the inverted pyramid style, meaning, have your most important information in the lead paragraph then include less important news below. (Industry secret: Most reporters will stop reading after the first paragraph. Make it a good one!) Write your press release in Associated Press (AP) style. This is the language that reporters understand and will recognize when they see it. Be upfront and transparent, clear and concise. Reporters are too busy to dig for the news in your release so keeping it simple will help you get more coverage.
Distributing your press release. Using your media list, send one email at a time (never do a mass, BCC: pitch), customize your email and make it personal. The goal here is to build relationships with reporters, not spam them. It’s important to follow up after sending your release but don’t make yourself a pest as reporters are overworked, cover myriad beats, and are always under deadline. Always. If you want a broader approach distribute your press release through a wire service. The huge advantage here is the breadth of media outlets your press release will get in front of, however, you won’t get that personal touch point. Wire services can be expensive but depending on the scope of your news, entirely worth it.
Leverage social media. Again, this could be its own post, but the short take is: use your social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn) to announce your news. Since a press release is written in a specific style for reporters, feel free to re-craft for your social audience in a friendlier, accessible voice. Reach out to reporters on Twitter with your news (with a big caveat: some do and some do not like to be pitched on social media and in public; do your research before tweeting a pitch). Lastly, when and if you get any coverage, you must post it on your social media pages. It’s a powerful way to increase your visibility, build credibility, and connect with new followers.
Carol Ruiz is co-founder and Partner of Higher Ground PR and Marketing. Janitor, construction crew clean up, waitress, documentary filmmaker, adjunct professor… just a few of the paths Carol Ruiz walked before finally finding what she would do for the rest of her life.
At these former gigs, as founder of NewGround PR & Marketing (a highly regarded agency in the real estate space), at Higher Ground, and at dinner tables the world over, Carol is a storyteller. Storytelling being the heart and soul of public relations, it’s no surprise that Carol was drawn to the world of PR.
Member Blog: Picking a Fabulous Flack (Part 1 of 3)
Media relations is the bread and butter of any PR campaign, and picking the best PR strategy for your company is crucial. PR is often confused with advertising and while the lines have blurred in recent years, there are still key differences between the two practices:
In the traditional sense, an “ad” is conceived, designed, written, and placed in a media outlet, for a fee. PR is “earned media” meaning that a PR pro has convinced (or “pitched”) a member of the media to write a positive article about a company, brand, product, dispensary, or service. A PR agent may have a fee, but there is no cost attached to the appearance of the article, and the article not filtered through the suspicion and cynicism through which many ads pass.
Consumers understand that ads are biased – towards the advertiser! But a positive news story, written by a journalist, has much more credibility.
An ad’s message has been brainstormed endlessly by countless “creatives.” But an article is articulated in the voice, and perspective, of the journalist. A good PR person knows how to increase a company’s chances of positive publicity by developing relationships and trust with journalists, pitching journalists whose style and tone indicate they are looking for a good story to tell, and providing training for spokespersons to stay “on message” in interviews.
The credibility of a positive article makes PR a very attractive opportunity in the cannabis industry, particularly given the unfriendliness of major companies like Google and Facebook. So, how do you decide the best approach? In-house? Hire an agency? What about budget?
PR salaries can range anywhere from the mid $50,000s to well into the six figures for management. Agencies will structure pricing differently, often with an hourly retainer. PR folks can be stereotyped as offering big promises with few results. Especially in an emerging industry, deep industry experience is uncommon. Experience in the field is a huge advantage as the agency will have already formed relationships with journalists who cover cannabis and will not have as big a learning curve when taking on a new client.
When interviewing agencies, ask candidates for the names of editors and/or reporters they frequently work with and then contact the top three for references. And, perhaps even more importantly, ask for references from other clients the agency has represented. And while you’re at it, ask about the agency’s philosophy on media outreach. If the company uses a shotgun approach by sending out massive amounts of press releases versus developing a client’s story fully and strategically communicating it to carefully researched journalists, it would be wise to move on to the next candidate. PR is all about story-telling and while press releases are a good occasional tool to disseminate big news, the most effective PR pros are good story-tellers who understand that identifying the right publications and journalists and providing customized pitches that resonate with the journalists are the ones who’ll be the most effective.
If an agency you are interviewing guarantees a specific number of articles per month or quarter, it might be a good idea to pass on engaging it. Nobody can guarantee a specific amount of media coverage. Instead, ask for case studies and past results for evidence of an agency’s success rate.
Cost is a factor and rates vary. Average hourly rates for an agency focusing on cannabis seem to be between $125 and $200 an hour, and with firms clamoring to enter the industry, you can swap experience for a lower rate (but be careful… no relationships with cannabis media can equal no coverage.) And perhaps the most important factor of all is culture. Do you like them? Do they vibe with you? It’s vital that an agency understands its clients to their core and acts as a true partner. In cannabis, there is inherently a social justice and activist component to the work. An agency who lacks in that sense of “mission” should raise a red flag. What we as an industry do know, and the maturity with which we do it, has a major role in determining our industry’s future. Don’t forget that!
Carol Ruiz is co-founder and Partner of Higher Ground PR and Marketing. Janitor, construction crew clean up, waitress, documentary filmmaker, adjunct professor… just a few of the paths Carol Ruiz walked before finally finding what she would do for the rest of her life.
At these former gigs, as founder of NewGround PR & Marketing (a highly regarded agency in the real estate space), at Higher Ground, and at dinner tables the world over, Carol is a storyteller. Storytelling being the heart and soul of public relations, it’s no surprise that Carol was drawn to the world of PR.
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PR salaries can range anywhere from the mid $50,000s to well into the six figures for management. Agencies will structure pricing differently, often with an hourly retainer. PR folks can be stereotyped as offering big promises with few results. Especially in an emerging industry, deep industry experience is uncommon. Experience in the field is a huge advantage as the agency will have already formed relationships with journalists who cover cannabis and will not have as big a learning curve when taking on a new client.