Pubdate: Thu, 10 Apr 2014
Source: Boulder Weekly (CO)
Copyright: 2014 Boulder Weekly
Contact:  http://www.boulderweekly.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/57
Author: Leland Rucker

CBS SLAPS DOWN WEEDMAPS' TIMES SQUARE AD

More good news about the end of cannabis prohibition. A new PEW poll 
indicates that 75 percent of voters say legalization is a foregone 
conclusion. Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer, who along with Rep. 
Jared Polis has been pushing legislation for cannabis businesses the 
last couple of years, is quoted as saying legalization is "game over 
in five years." Attorney General Eric Holder recently indicated a 
willingness to open a discussion with Congress about removing 
cannabis from its Schedule One designation, and a study of criminal 
statistics shows that crime didn't go up, and in some cases, went 
down in Colorado in the first three months of legalization.

The first week in April was also when Weedmaps was planning to 
inaugurate a campaign in New York to help bring attention to the 
legalization movement in that state as well as its own website by 
running a 10-second advertisement that would rotate on the CBS Super 
Screen in Times Square. The featured link brought you to a page with 
information about the legalization effort alongside the best places 
to get baked in the Apple.

In the cannabis world, Weedmaps is a leading online community with 
loads of content and information about dispensaries and cannabis 
strains. Its handy mobile app, designed as a directory for medical 
(and now recreational) shoppers, uses GPS technology, maps, menus and 
lists to help shoppers find the best bargains and closest outlets. 
It's a great tool that's often called the Yelp of cannabis.

Weedmaps allows businesses to post information and videos about their 
shops - location, hours, inventory, deals and prices - as well as 
letting consumers post their own reviews and comments, which has 
created a vibrant online community. CEO Justin Hartfield sits on the 
board of the National Organization for Marijuana Legalization and 
puts his money where his mouth is, in the case of this ad, $50,000.

And on April 1, the morning the advertisement was to appear, it 
didn't. "We're still trying to figure it out," Hartfield told me 
later that same week.

Neutron Media, which sells ads for the billboard, approached NORML to 
run an ad. NORML is a non-profit and couldn't afford it. "I thought 
it was a good opportunity for Weedmaps," Hartfield said. "We thought 
we had clearance so we can run ads, especially with medical marijuana 
hopefully coming next year and retail in 2016."

CBS approved the spot in late January, Hartfield said. "Even Tuesday 
morning [April 1] we thought we were approved. On Wednesday we got an 
email at 9 a.m. Pacific time, telling us that it was pending review 
by CBS' lawyers. It's been pending review ever since, apparently."

Hartsfield got his medical card in 2007. He started using 
dispensaries, and went to Amsterdam and studied its coffee shops 
before launching Weedmaps with Keith Hoerling in July 2008. "I knew 
that L.A. would look like Amsterdam sooner or later."

For the first six months, Weedmaps was just a directory. "It quickly 
kinda took off. People gravitated toward it," Hartfield said. "It 
wasn't Yelp-style yet. I couldn't figure out the program for the map, 
so we got some help. The biggest thing was allowing dispensaries to 
put their pricing and strains in a way that's searchable."

They took the company public in 2010 and were bought by General 
Cannabis. Long story short, in 2013 General Cannabis sold Weedmaps 
back to the original owners.

"It was an expensive trial," Hartfield admits.

How CBS could get its pants all twisted up over a ten-second cannabis 
ad that never even mentions the word shows how much, for all the 
support it's getting from the general populace, cannabis is still 
stigmatized on Madison Avenue and somewhat of a pariah in the world 
of corporate advertising. That will change. But the most fascinating 
thing about the rejection is that, in today's online world, something 
like this can wind up being just as effective, or even more so, than 
the ad itself might have been in the first place.

There it would have competed with all the other electronic billboards 
in the frenzy of Times Square. With the rejection, however, Weedmaps 
has been plastered all over the business pages of magazines, 
newspapers and websites, blogs and social media.

"It's been fabulous," Hartfield said.

"This has gotten us a lot of publicity even if the ad doesn't get 
up." (At press time, Weedmaps was still trying to work something out 
to allow the ad.)

Hartfield says the company has had similar problems with large 
corporations. "We have tried to advertise many times in the past. 
It's a sad commentary on American culture at this moment in time. But 
at least we're trying."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom