Marketing for Canadian Cannabis Companies

The digital marketing landscape for cannabis companies in Canada has been complicated and hard to successfully navigate since before adult-use legalization passed in 2017 and slowly began rolling out in October of 2018. 



Now, just over two years later, 2.0 is still struggling and dispensaries are finally stocking their shelves as anticipated pre-COVID, but the pain points and strict advertising guidelines still apply. Every aspect of digital strategy must adhere to Health Canada's regulations and that includes OOH and online marketing. Many licensed producers have big budgets and large in-house marketing departments, though they must also be overly cautious about crossing any lines and getting in hot water with national, provincial or even local municipality agencies. 

Canada now has 1,097 retail dispensaries countrywide (a 3X increase over 2019), a number that could potentially grow to 4,000.  Since the start of 2020, 431 new stores have opened with 46 in August alone.  Now oversaturated, Alberta enjoyed a huge headstart by design and leads the pack with 515 (and 200 pending).  BC is next with 194 and expects to add 72 more shortly.  The big news is obviously Ontario's delayed rollout which finally has over one-hundred fifty provincial dispensaries operational with nearly 400 more slated to open between now and the end of 2020.





The contrast between Alberta and Ontario and their respective regulatory bodies, the Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis agency (AGLC) and Alcohol and Gaming Commision of Ontario (AGCO), is nowhere more evident than in the fact that AB with 10% of the Canadian population has over half of the country's stores (127 in Calgary alone!) while Ontario's 15.2 million residents are grossly underserved with their scant and unevenly distributed 158 retail locations. 

Rounding out the national totals are Saskatchewan with 45, Quebec with 42 (only 1 store for every 180K residents), Manitoba with 30, Newfoundland with 25, New Brunswick with 20, Nova Scotia with 12, Yukon and Northwest Territories with 5 each and PEI with 4.   

These numbers are all expected to increase substantially by spring 2021 and the pushback from the more rural communities will only pave the way to oversaturation in the more populated cities. 

The legacy market is still claiming nearly 80% market share by some estimates (54% is the latest official number), so there is obviously a lot of work to be done and a lot of licensees willing to do it.  With a licensed gram costing nearly twice as much through highly taxed and regulated channels, the price gap is clearly at issue.