AHLOT
It’s a Real Job Campaign
The Challenge
With legalization approaching, hundreds of licensed producers were preparing to
enter the Canadian cannabis market, creating an extremely crowded environment
for new brands.
AHLOT was a small startup of four people with a limited marketing budget, competing against companies with millions in advertising spend. As an unknown brand, AHLOT needed a campaign that could generate national attention and cut through the noise on the first day of legalization.
The challenge was also educational. AHLOT offered a curated cannabis collection, combining products from leading brands into themed multipacks that allowed consumers to sample before committing to larger formats. The concept required explanation, making brand awareness, engagement, and product understanding critical for launch.
The Idea
Turn cannabis curation into a real job.
To introduce the concept of curated collections while generating massive attention, we created a recruitment campaign offering eight people the opportunity to
earn $50 per hour testing and curating cannabis products.
Each tester represented a distinct consumer archetype, including the connoisseur,
the wellness user, the social consumer, the creative, the medical user, the curious newcomer, and the unwinder. This structure allowed AHLOT to gather real feedback from different types of consumers, providing valuable insights that would help shape future curated collections.
The campaign also addressed one of the industry’s biggest challenges. Reliable consumer data in cannabis is extremely limited and expensive to obtain. By hiring testers, AHLOT could continuously gather authentic product feedback while
reinforcing its position as a curation-driven brand.
The concept was intentionally designed to be newsworthy and self-propagating, transforming a simple job posting into a story that media outlets would naturally
want to cover.
The Creative
The campaign leaned into the playful irreverence of the legacy cannabis culture while remaining compliant with strict advertising regulations.
Because cannabis terminology was restricted before legalization, the creative used humorous euphemisms such as Devil’s Lettuce, Party Parsley, and Jazz Cabbage to bring personality and intrigue to the campaign.
The visual approach was bold, quirky, and disruptive, designed to capture attention quickly across digital channels and outdoor placements. The messaging framed the opportunity as a legitimate paid job, making the campaign instantly shareable and conversation-worthy.
Creative assets included social ads, Google ads, motion assets, email marketing, billboards and outdoor, a campaign website, and an application portal.
The Work
Case Study Video (60s)
Digital Ads
Cannabis regulations are strict – you're restricted from showing products, lifestyle imagery and even the use of the word 'cannabis' in your advertising. After researching what grey market customers respond to, we used humorous euphemisms and created quirky, eye-catching visuals that resonated with our customer base.
The Execution
The campaign launched across digital, social, PR, and outdoor channels to maximize visibility during the lead-up to legalization.
The centrepiece of the campaign was an online application portal, where consumers could apply for the testing roles. Paid media helped generate early momentum, while an aggressive PR outreach strategy amplified the story across news outlets, cannabis media, and influencers.
As media coverage accelerated, the campaign quickly gained traction through earned media and social sharing, allowing AHLOT to scale back paid advertising while maintaining reach.
Selected testers were ultimately hired and continued providing feedback and product insights for more than three years, helping inform future curated collections.
The Impact
The campaign quickly gained international attention and became a viral media story.
In just four weeks, the campaign generated 196 earned media placements
and 24,000 job applications, reaching audiences across every continent
except Antarctica.
The campaign significantly accelerated AHLOT’s brand growth, including:
• 26% increase in Twitter followers
• 42% increase in Instagram followers
• 666% increase in LinkedIn followers
• 1046% increase in Facebook followers
• 2010% increase in newsletter sign-ups
The campaign also attracted major media coverage, including a feature on
This Hour Has 22 Minutes.
As brand awareness grew, licensed producers began approaching AHLOT to participate in future curated collections, further validating the platform’s value.
Despite the scale of the campaign’s reach, the project finished $70,000 under budget due to the volume of earned media generated.
The campaign received international recognition, winning:
• Gold – Best Cannabis Marketing, Canadian Marketing Association (CMA Awards)
• Gold – Avant Garde / Innovative, New York Festivals AME Awards
• Gold – Best Consumer Goods Integrated Ad Campaign, IAC
My Role
Creative Strategy
Creative Direction
Art Direction
Copywriting
Design
Led the creative strategy and campaign concept, developing the visual system
and messaging used across the social launch campaign. Oversaw art direction
and design of the campaign assets and created the composited visuals used throughout the campaign.