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420 Goes Digital With the Help of Vistar Media

April 20, 2025April 21, 2025 by Nancy A Shenker

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The cannabis industry is unique in that it was one of the first major sectors to benefit from technology from its inception. A highly-regulated space, marketing cannabis (like the financial, liquor, and pharmaceutical industries) is filled with regulations. That’s where digital media comes into play, keeping major cannabis brands from “going up in smoke.”

April 20th (4/20) is the auspicious date on which the cannabis industry offers celebrations and deals.

Eaze, a cannabis delivery app, recently ran a campaign with Vistar Media. Some of the lessons can be applied to more traditional MULO (multi-location) industries and CPG brands.

Think of Eaze as the cannabis equivalent of DoorDash or Instacart. It facilitates pick-up at dispensaries and delivers to consumers.

The campaign involved a programmatic-first strategy in out-of-home advertising that complied with complex cannabis compliance rules and connected with an adult audience in their everyday lives. Here are some key highlights:

High Ideas: 4/20 is a silly occurrence, meaning brands should get creative in their messaging. For example, Eaze ran an ad at an EV station (not directly tied to 4/20) that says, “make memories even if you can’t make plans.”
Stash Spot: Using first- and third-party data and Vistar Media’s advanced time and location-based technology, Eaze’s ads appeared on digital screens at EV stations, billboards, and taxi tops to reach its target audience.

Vistar Media has an extensive digital-out-of-home (DOOH) inventory, and works with clients including American Airlines, McDonald’s, UGG, and the NBA.

The campaign with Eaze would usually be extremely complex because of cannabis ad compliance challenges. However, Vistar’s tech ensures that ads only run in areas where cannabis is legal, and far away from sensitive locations like schools and rehab centers.

“Marketing cannabis is like playing a game of regulatory hopscotch,” says Raj Lala, VP, Demand Sales & Development at Vistar Media. “But with DOOH, brands can show up exactly where they’re welcome, with messaging that’s fun, compliant, and impossible to miss. Out-of-home gives cannabis marketers the freedom to be bold without breaking the rules — a rare win in a highly regulated space.”

What can other MULO businesses take away from this case study?

Capitalizing on holidays and “faux” holidays presents a great opportunity to market when a product/service is top-of-mind.
Education and awareness-building can be fun and whimsical, even in highly regulated categories.
Products and services can run campaigns that ultimately benefit locations (in this case, dispensaries).
Hyper-localized DOOH advertising has replaced mass media (old-fashioned billboards and print) has a medium that enables very tight targeting and on-the-spot fine-tuning to reach the best-performing locations and segments and optimize results.

Regardless of your personal feelings about cannabis, keeping an eye on marketing and brick-and-mortar strategies in this sector can spark ideas for other more traditional MULO categories (restaurants, retail, service industries, and convenience stores).

For more insights into marketing in the MULO ecosystem, please join us at Street Fight LIVE 2025 on September 30th.

Nancy A Shenker

Nancy A Shenker, Chief Trend Officer with Street Fight, is a former big brand (Citibank, Mastercard, Reed Exhibitions) marketing strategist and leader. She has been featured in Inc.com, the New York Times and Forbes.

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