Age-Restricted Industries Are Underserved by Traditional Marketing Agencies
You may have noticed my network update regarding my new role as Principal at ALTER Strategies.
Why am I doing this? I’ll explain.
Cannabis, especially the cannabis market in Nevada, faces the most challenging gauntlet of marketing and advertising limitations that I have ever encountered in my career. At all my other marketing leadership roles over the preceding 12 years, I had very few external limitations on what tactics we could use. Then when I moved from Virginia to Nevada, I was excited to take a Director of Marketing role in a cannabis company. I had no idea just how much my skill sets were about to shift.
Regulations come from all angles. The federal government, Nevada criminal law, the Nevada Department of Taxation’s management of the legal adult use program, and the media companies and platforms where messaging is shared: every individual digital ad network, radio station, billboard company, TV station, print publication, web host, payment processor, Facebook, Instagram, every vendor, it goes on and on, and the changes are continual.
Because of all this, I had a develop a new, nimble approach to marketing strategy. A new level of brain plasticity. And after doing it for a while, I realized that this new skill set translates to many different industries that face similar challenges. Specifically age-restricted industries.
Traditional marketing agencies don’t specialize in these markets or in solving these types of problems. I won’t name names, but I even heard about a marketing agency that walked out of a client discovery meeting with a cannabis company in Las Vegas once they were told all of the limitations on tactics. The fact that they did not walk into that meeting already versed in the regulations baffles and astounds me. Age-restricted industries should not have to pay billable hours for the lengthy learning curve of a generalist marketing agency.
So I am now bringing my expertise at navigating complicated advertising compliance challenges to the entire landscape of age-restricted and highly-regulated industries: cannabis, CBD, alcohol (breweries, bars, distilleries), pharmaceuticals, health supplements, medical devices, alternative therapies, tobacco (cigar bars, vape stores, hookah lounges), firearms (gun shops, gun shows, ammo manufacturers), adult services (dance clubs, escorts/companions, brothels, novelty toy manufacturers), and related legal vice industries.
I’ll also be bringing entertaining stories about navigating these problems around the country: Did you know you can’t buy beer at a 7–11 in Pittsburgh? Did you know that exotic dancers have to carry multiple phones to avoid having Facebook and Instagram suggest their trade-persona accounts to their families? If you want to hear more, please hit Follow on my company page ALTER Strategies.
Thank you so much for your support, your referrals, and your enthusiasm. I’m looking forward to all the fun problems I’m going to get to solve for companies in industries that are often misunderstood.
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com by Wesley McQuillen
Principal at ALTER Strategies | ADDY Winner | Cannabis, Adult & Other Age-Restricted Industries.
