Dutch Love Finds Love with New Stores and New Fans

The Challenge

With Canada ruling to legalize the Cannabis industry in late 2018, Dutch Love needed to find an innovative way to promote their stores while adhering to the strict promotion restrictions of the Cannabis Act. Dutch Love (formerly known as HOBO) was one of the first Cannabis retailers to get licensed in 2019.

Cannabis is a fairly new industry, and guidance and direction on proper advertising is still limited. LoKnow partnered with Dutch Love to maneuver the policies, experiment with different advertising platforms and find a marketing strategy that was suitable for them. The main objectives for Dutch Love in this campaign were to try out different platforms for Cannabis advertising, locate where their ideal audience was, and find the best balance of ad placement to accrue a positive ROAS.

The Approach

Dutch Love was looking to grow awareness and expand their customer base while they were undergoing a rebrand. We began our first phase with them in October 2019, using our Hyper geotargeting to discover audiences who visited LDA+ locations in nearby areas (ex. Competitor Cannabis stores, Liquor Stores, Bars, Clubs), and served Dutch Love ads towards audiences in the 19+ age bracket.Through this method, we targeted specific stores with a tight radius to ensure we complied with the Cannabis Act and minimized the chance of serving ads towards underage audiences. With a little A/B testing between visuals, we were able to understand what resonated with the local Cannabis community and selected engaging creative accordingly.

In summer of 2020 we kicked off our second phase, with Dutch Love expanding their store base to 20 stores across BC, Alberta and Ontario. LoKnow launched a number of grand-opening campaigns for each store with both pre-opening and post-opening ads to attract local audience attention and interest towards Dutch Love in each respective city.

Finally, in our third phase we worked with Dutch Love to pivot their strategy as Canada began to face COVID-19 lockdowns. Specifically in Ontario, Dutch Love reacted quickly and offered delivery services for the Ottawa and Toronto markets, shifting loyal customers from in-store purchasers to online buyers. LoKnow was the first company Dutch Love came across who could integrate with Dutchie, an e-commerce tool for Marijuana orders, deliveries and pickup, so they knew we could offer the services they were looking for.

We were able to report ROAS for Cannabis platforms that integrated with Dutchie and worked closely with their team to ensure all online purchases for Dutch Love were accurately tracked and reported. We captured a substantial amount of website traffic for retargeting ads to encourage loyal customers to return. Our targeting even went beyond those who visited similar-interest locations—we were able to communicate Dutch Love’s message across various platforms that reached audiences within the Cannabis community and offered Cannabis-friendly ad placements. This allowed us to broaden our ad exposure, and further promote Dutch Love awareness across the country.

The Conclusion

Dutch Love was blown away by the results delivered in just over a year, seeing exponential growth in both awareness and conversions over the course of the campaign. Between Dutch Love’s willingness for LoKnow’s feedback and our team’s transparency in sharing our insights and findings, the campaign has thus far been a success. As this ongoing contract progresses, we look forward to celebrating more wins with the Dutch Love team in the future!