A variety of qualitative and quantitative research was done, but the major input was an analysis of how weed has shown up in pop culture over the years. There was one consistent finding: Weed is no longer controversial in 2018. In fact, many VICELAND viewers see the debate around marijuana as over and done. As a result, we up-ed the ante with a campaign theme around NOW WITH MORE WEED, adding a ridiculous amount of weed to all of our ads, poking fun directly at those opposed (like US Attorney General, Jeff Sessions), and embracing and celebrating our rightful position as the captain of the “weed cheerleading squad,” so to speak.

VICELAND began teasing the return of WEED WEEK two months out with on-air, social video and a PR push featuring snippets from the campaign spots, while out-of-home began to populate NY/LA one month out from launch.

As the tactics rolled out across tv, digital, social, out-of-home, and print, so did the amount of weed we featured - culminating with the all tactics being live 2 weeks out from WEED WEEK. Alongside the traditional campaign tactics, we were filming all over the country, making short form content to air throughout the week of launch and hanging out with our Jeff Sessions down in Washington DC. This rollout ensured that we built up to a national level campaign and as we drew closer were specifically honing in on TV viewers.

WEED WEEK was another huge success for us. While the data is still rolling in (the campaign just wrapped a few days ago!), what we know thus far is that we secured over 1 billion impressions across all platform throughout the campaign. To break it down to more granular stats:

On the network, we reached over 20% more viewers than last year

Had over 300MM impressions and reached over 54MM people across the paid campaign

32.6MM social video views during WEED WEEK, +75% vs. the prior four week average and our #4 best week EVER!

Gained 73K social followers, up 132% over Weed Week 2017

Over 14K mentions and around 387MM social impressions for all of weed week

25 press articles with over 740 shares

Indeed, we made an impact and saw lifts across all our business metrics that translated across the organization to VICE as well.