This bracket challenge aims to mimic March Madness, but with a weed-friendly spin to slowly make cannabis-related discussion more palatable to mainstream consumers.
Why should basketball have a monopoly on the bracket fun this week?
Weedmaps is making sure that you can get your green-related content beyond St. Patrick’s Day. That’s right, Strains Madness is back for 2022 after its 2021 campaign took home a Clio Award — advertising’s top prize.
Strains Madness is not only a fun take on the action happening on the basketball court, but also another way Weedmaps is trying to de-stigmatize discussion of cannabis in mainstream media, following the success of its Brock Ollie Super Bowl campaign. Advertising restrictions and seemingly arbitrary bans on social media make it extremely difficult for businesses related to legal cannabis to market their products and services. Tentpole sporting events like the Super Bowl and March Madness are generally the best time for brands to launch major ad campaigns to reach new and existing consumers, but Weedmaps is constantly forced to think outside the box.
In that spirit, who doesn’t like voting on head-to-head matchups to determine one grand strain champion?
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Starting on Thursday and running through April 8 when the winner is announced, fans will vote on individual matchups through five rounds to determine which of the top 32 cannabis strains gets the glory in the Weedmaps universe. Will one strain dunk on the rest and dethrone defending champ OG Kush, or will OG Kush continue to reign as the supreme green?
OG Kush will be a 1 seed in the first of the four regions, taking on Bruno Mars’ favorite 24K Gold. Gelato will look to melt its opponents in the second region, beginning with a matchup against Headband. Blue Dream emerges as a 1 seed beginning with a tangle with Tango, and Acapulco Gold has its first battle as a 1 seed against GMO Cookies.
Last year’s top vote getters were OG Kush, Pineapple Express, Gelato, Purple Haze, and Sour Diesel.
Here’s how voting will go down in 2022: In addition to polls on Weedmaps’ Instagram Stories, fans can also vote on Twitter through polls inserted at the end of a new thread for each round. The dates are as follows:
- Round One: March 17-21
- Dank 16: March 24-27
- Quarterfinals: March 28-30
- Fire Four: April 1-3
- Championship Round: April 4-6
Weedmaps will create a YouTube playlist for each region with a link to an article on its website, and will push the winners of each round across Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn using the hashtag #StrainsMadness2022.
Starting Thursday, Weedmaps is ready to spark up some debate and controversy, passing along 16 matchups to begin Strains Madness. The stakes couldn’t be any higher, so be sure to get your votes in and help determine which will be the royal strain to reign.
