In a first-of-its-kind ad placement, a lauded campaign from the Cannabis Media Council has taken over Pornhub for a 24-hour period in all 50 states.
“I’m High Right Now,” a stereotype-busting ad series by agency Sister Merci, that stars baby boomer cannaseurs, becomes the first pro-weed advocacy campaign to run nationwide on the heavily trafficked adult website.
Tailored to the Pornhub audience and acknowledging the crossover in demos, the cheeky tagline of the Nov. 8 effort is, “All jobs are smoother without the joint pain.” The premium placement on the home page—which does not mention specific products or dispensaries—features an elegant couple in fancy sleepwear who have revived their sex life with cannabis.
The Cannabis Media Council Pornhub takeover.
Visitors to the site can click on the PSA-style banner ad, which takes them to the CMC’s education-based platform.
Advertising for cannabis marketers continues to be highly regulated and restrictive, with few outlets available for paid media. Within the past year Pornhub has broken ground as a cannafriendly space, via ad partner TrafficJunky, though this is one of the more significant weed-centric programs in its history.
“We want to have the conversation about how mainstream cannabis is, and the numbers and scale we’re able to reach with Pornhub is massive,” Amy Deneson, co-founder of CMC, told Adweek. “It’s also a foundational mission for us—working with publishers that accept cannabis advertising and letting others know about the channels open to them.”
Pornhub is a “high-reach and high-value opportunity for cannabis brands,” per the CMC.
The adult site is trying to reduce a pain point for the weed industry by “helping our advertisers creative effective campaigns within legal states,” per TrafficJunky’s sales director Christopher Marra.
The CMC, which wrote and released a set of professional guidelines for weed marketing, has worked with Hearst to get its advocacy message in front of a wide range of consumers. The group’s ads have also appeared in Vanity Fair, with a deeper relationship developing with Condé Nast, per Deneson.
The partnership with Pornhub will continue with a statewide activation in Michigan on Nov. 18 as a nod to “interesting things happening in that heartland market,” Deneson said.