Stok'd Cannabis launched Next to Stok'd in 2024, promoting neighbouring businesses to bypass Canadian Cannabis Act restrictions and win two Bronze Lions at
Stok'd Cannabis Turns Neighbour Ads Into a Cannabis Marketing Breakthrough
Next to Stok'd is a 2024 Canadian cannabis advertising campaign created by Toronto-based agency Angry Butterfly for Stok'd Cannabis, an Ontario regional cannabis retailer, in which the brand promoted neighbouring businesses — rather than its own stores — to generate indirect consumer awareness while remaining fully compliant with the Canadian Cannabis Act.
Stok'd Cannabis operates as a regional chain of cannabis retail stores in Ontario, Canada. The challenge the brand faced entering 2024 was structural rather than budgetary: the Canadian Cannabis Act prohibits advertising that depicts cannabis products, users, or paraphernalia, or implies any effects, leaving retailers with almost no direct path to consumer acquisition through conventional channels. Major platforms including Meta and Google apply algorithmic and manual filters to block cannabis-related content, while out-of-home networks and radio broadcasters apply rigorous compliance checks of their own. The result is a media environment in which even factual, non-promotional cannabis retail messaging is routinely blocked before reaching a legal adult audience.
Angry Butterfly's answer was the Next to Stok'd campaign, launched in January and February 2024 in Ontario. Rather than advertising Stok'd directly, the campaign promoted real neighbouring businesses located beside Stok'd store locations — including NuNail, Cliffside Bookstore, and Spectrum Electrical — using messaging crafted to benefit both the partner business and Stok'd simultaneously. The geo-targeted campaign ran across paid and sponsored digital posts, pre-roll video content, evening radio spots, and select transit shelter advertising, with targeting set within approximately five kilometres of each Stok'd location to reach legal-age adults in relevant proximity. The dual-purpose messaging passed through the filters that would have blocked any direct cannabis reference, allowing the campaign to reach consumers through every channel it targeted. Lisa Bigioni, CEO and co-founder of Stok'd Cannabis, described the concept as a perfect brand fit, citing the playful and entrepreneurial tone as central to Stok'd's identity, as reported by LBBOnline.
The Canadian Cannabis Act creates one of the most restrictive advertising environments for any legal consumer product in Canada. The Act prohibits cannabis retailers from producing advertising that depicts products, packaging, users, or consumption, or that could appeal to younger audiences — restrictions that, according to Canada Ca, apply across broadcast, digital, and out-of-home media. For Stok'd Cannabis, a regional Ontario retailer without the national footprint of larger competitors, working within this framework was not optional but existential.
The Canadian non-medical cannabis retail market reached approximately C$5.2 billion in fiscal 2023/24, according to government and commercial tracking sources including stratcann.com and canada.ca. Within that market, Stok'd competes in Ontario against significantly larger operators. High Tide, operating under the Canna Cabana and Value Buds banners, reported approximately ten percent of Ontario's cannabis retail market in the fourth quarter of 2024, according to Markets Ft. SNDL, reported by statledger.com as Canada's largest private-sector cannabis retailer by store count, also operates in Ontario. For a regional chain like Stok'd, differentiation through brand personality rather than price or scale is a logical strategic position — but only if the brand can reach consumers in the first place.
Angry Butterfly, led by partner and chief creative officer Erin Kawalecki and VP and executive creative director Bernice Lo, identified a structural gap in how Meta, Google, out-of-home networks, and radio broadcasters apply their filters: the filters respond to cannabis-related content, not to the physical proximity of an advertiser to a cannabis store. By centring creative on neighbouring businesses, the campaign bypassed filter logic entirely without misrepresenting the advertiser. Strategy magazine, covering the campaign on February 27, 2024, described the approach as a method to skirt cannabis-marketing restrictions — an accurate characterisation of a strategy that was legally compliant at every step. To protect the approach from premature platform adjustment, campaign details were withheld from advertising industry press until after the campaign concluded, as reported by LBBOnline and contagious.com.
Angry Butterfly built the Next to Stok'd creative around a single discipline: every piece of communication had to work honestly for two businesses simultaneously. The agency, with Erin Kawalecki serving as partner and chief creative officer and Bernice Lo as VP and executive creative director, developed messaging that promoted real neighbouring businesses — NuNail, Cliffside Bookstore, and Spectrum Electrical — in terms that were factually accurate and genuinely useful to those partners, while ensuring that the juxtaposition with Stok'd's proximity would register with adult consumers who encountered the ads in geo-targeted placements near store locations.
The execution required the agency to anticipate the specific logic of filters deployed by Meta and Google, as well as compliance review processes used by out-of-home and radio broadcasters. According to LBBOnline, the team prepared multiple contingency plans to secure media placements, recognising that even indirect cannabis adjacency might trigger automated rejection on some platforms. The evening radio placements were chosen deliberately to align with adult-audience programming windows, adding a dayparting layer to the age-gating strategy already built into the geo-targeting parameters.
Pre-roll video and paid social executions carried the dual-message format into digital environments where geo-targeting within approximately five kilometres of each Stok'd location allowed the campaign to concentrate impressions among adults already in proximity to a store. Transit shelter placements added physical-world presence in those same catchment areas. The tone across all formats was described by Lisa Bigioni, as reported by LBBOnline, as playful and entrepreneurial — qualities she identified as central to Stok'd's brand personality. That tonal consistency across paid digital, pre-roll, radio, and out-of-home formats is a production discipline that amplified the campaign's coherence. According to musebyclios.com and D&AD, the campaign's creative integrity across channels was recognised at award level, with the work eventually submitted and evaluated at Cannes Lions 2024.
Next to Stok'd produced measurable commercial outcomes for Stok'd Cannabis. Following the campaign, in-store shoppers increased by twenty-six percent, online customers grew by twenty-nine percent, and revenue rose by twelve percent, as reported by Strategyonline Ca. These figures represent meaningful growth for a regional Ontario retailer operating in a market where, according to stratcann.com, year-on-year growth estimates for 2024 ranged from approximately one percent to six point four percent depending on methodology — making outperformance of that baseline a significant result for a single campaign.
The campaign also earned recognition at Cannes Lions 2024, winning a Bronze Lion in the Film Lions category and a Bronze Lion in the Media Lions Use of Social Platforms category, as reported by LBBOnline and contagious.com. Additional recognition came from appliedartsmag.com, dandad.org, The One Club, and News Designrush, confirming the campaign's standing across the international creative awards circuit.
Structurally, the campaign's effectiveness rests on three reinforcing decisions: the legal precision of the dual-message creative, which allowed placement across channels that would have blocked any direct cannabis advertising; the geo-targeting discipline, which concentrated impressions among adults already proximate to a store; and the operational decision to withhold campaign details from industry press until conclusion, which prevented Meta, Google, or any broadcaster from adjusting filters mid-flight, as reported by LBBOnline and mediaincanada.com. Each of these decisions compounded the others. Clapboard rates Next to Stok'd 82 out of 100, recognising the campaign's rare combination of legal rigour, strategic originality, and channel discipline in one of the most constrained advertising environments in Canada.
Next to Stok'd is a 2024 campaign created by Angry Butterfly for Ontario cannabis retailer Stok'd Cannabis. Rather than advertising cannabis directly, it promoted real neighbouring businesses beside Stok'd stores — including NuNail and Cliffside Bookstore — to generate indirect brand awareness while complying fully with the Canadian Cannabis Act.
The campaign bypassed Meta and Google filters by advertising neighbouring businesses rather than cannabis. Each execution was factually accurate for the partner business, containing no cannabis references, so automated and manual filters found no basis for rejection. Campaign details were kept confidential until after the campaign concluded, as reported by LBBOnline and contagious.com.
Following the campaign, Stok'd Cannabis saw in-store shoppers increase by twenty-six percent, online customers grow by twenty-nine percent, and revenue rise by twelve percent, according to strategyonline.ca. These outcomes significantly outpaced the broader Canadian cannabis market's estimated growth rate for 2024, as reported by stratcann.com.
Next to Stok'd won two Bronze Lions at Cannes Lions 2024 — one in the Film Lions category and one in the Media Lions Use of Social Platforms category — as reported by LBBOnline and contagious.com. The campaign also received recognition from dandad.org, oneclub.org, appliedartsmag.com, and news.designrush.com across the international awards circuit.
Toronto-based agency Angry Butterfly created Next to Stok'd for Stok'd Cannabis, as reported by LBBOnline. Erin Kawalecki served as partner and chief creative officer, and Bernice Lo as VP and executive creative director. The campaign launched in Ontario in January and February 2024 and was published as a case study in June 2024.
Next to Stok'd ran across paid and sponsored digital posts, pre-roll video, evening radio, and select transit shelter advertising in Ontario, Canada. All placements were geo-targeted within approximately five kilometres of each Stok'd store location to concentrate impressions among legal-age adults in proximity to a store, according to strategyonline.ca and LBBOnline.
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