Marketing in the Shadows: What Cannabis Teaches Us About Adapting to Digital Roadblocks
By Shaniece N. Fullove, MPA
From shadow bans to shifting algorithms, this article spotlights the hidden barriers of digital marketing and the constant pivots brands must make to remain visible, compliant, and community-centered.
In today’s digital world, marketers face an uphill battle against shifting algorithms, platform restrictions, and disappearing content. For cannabis marketers, these challenges are amplified by regulations that treat the plant differently than other regulated industries, like alcohol or tobacco. Yet, these very restrictions often spark creativity and resilience. To explore how professionals are navigating this environment, I’ve asked experts — spanning cannabis leaders, MSM graduates, and marketing professors—for their perspectives. Here’s what they shared.
Expert Insights
Gina Gault, President, IWC; Special Project Manager, Instant Alliance
“Since joining the cannabis industry in 2017, I've navigated the challenging regulatory landscape that severely restricts marketing compared to the freedom enjoyed by alcohol brands. While regulations prohibit highlighting products or creating appealing content, we've transformed these constraints into opportunities by using subtle inference, engaging our community's imagination, and occasionally accepting content removal as calculated risks. These limitations have ultimately sparked meaningful innovation, turning frustration into creative opportunities that continue to shape our approach today.” - Gault
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“Digital marketing in cannabis is a constant game of adaptation. Beyond compliance restrictions, we’re often contending with scrubbed landing pages, shadow bans on social media, and the challenge of finding quality ad partners or platforms willing to work with us. Constant algorithm changes make it difficult to maintain consistency, while we’re simultaneously balancing brand voice, avoiding over saturation, and cutting through the noise. One pivot that’s worked has been leaning into community-focused content and owned channels. These are spaces where education, storytelling, and authentic engagement aren’t at the mercy of disappearing posts or shifting rules. Unfortunately, even those approaches aren’t always enough, yet the beautiful thing about cannabis is the space it gives us to constantly test, learn, and refine.” - Caldwell
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Laura Providence, Head of Digital Communications, NYS Office of Cannabis Management
“In cannabis digital, the real obstacle isn’t just the restrictions themselves—it’s the unpredictability. You can spend weeks planning a campaign only to have a platform change its rules overnight. That level of instability makes it difficult to build trust with your audience if all of your energy is spent fighting the algorithm.
At the NYS Office of Cannabis Management (OCM), I implemented a pivot away from chasing reach on social platforms and put more focus on the spaces we actually control: our website and newsletters. By simplifying language and centering education, I’ve created a direct, reliable way for New Yorkers to get the information they need without worrying about it disappearing overnight.” - Providence
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Carlos Ramos, Founder/CEO, Up Elevated Cocktails; Co-Founder, Runners High Chicago
“The social media conundrum so many cannabis creators and business owners face is truly disheartening. We dedicate years to building audiences in what’s supposed to be a legal industry, yet countless creators fall victim to vague ‘community guidelines’ and the over-policing of a plant, while others amass hundreds of thousands of followers with no issue. Having spent most of my career in the beverage alcohol industry, the double standard between cannabis and alcohol is laughable. Both are regulated for adults 21 and over, yet alcohol—an intoxicating and socially harmful substance—is celebrated and normalized online, while cannabis, a plant with undeniable medicinal benefits, remains restricted and stigmatized. We’ve become desensitized to alcohol’s harms, yet continue to see cannabis suppressed.
It’s not surprising this pushback exists, given the lobbying power of industries with the most to lose— alcohol, tobacco, and pharmaceuticals. Still, I remain hopeful that social media will evolve into a space where cannabis brands can creatively market and share the plant’s many benefits. In the meantime, I’ve found success by focusing on what I can control: maintaining community presence and owning my communication channels. By launching our first email list and newsletter, we’ve been able to stay connected and continue sharing updates directly with consumers.” - Ramos
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Joshua A. Hayes, MSM, Visual Infusion Strategist, FIU Alumnus
“Digital marketing today lives on rented land. You can build an entire ecosystem on a platform, then lose access overnight. I’ve had friends & clients lose tens of thousands of followers, engagement, & momentum in an instant. Starting over from zero? It sucks.
We deal with algorithm shifts, compliance walls, shadow bans, disappearing pages & policies that contradict themselves. I’ve gotten flagged for things that made no sense—some I successfully appealed, others I couldn’t. That’s where creativity becomes survival, especially when your content’s a flag magnet.
I wrote a post a while back on how censorship shapes creativity. It’s like building a puzzle with missing pieces. You adapt, workaround, & reimagine. I’ve done cannabis packaging with tight restrictions on imagery, color, & symbolism. I’ve built campaigns around sensitive & controversial social issues. You find the line, then figure out how to say what you need to say without getting clipped. Same way, people on TikTok are calling protests “concerts” just to avoid shadow bans when posting about them. It’s creative code-switching. Strategy as subversion.
Across every industry I’ve worked in (healthcare, cannabis, tobacco, banking, legal, food & beverage, etc.), one thing that has never failed me is designing platform-agnostic first. Meaning the story should hold, whether it shows up on Instagram, in a newsletter, or on the side of a building. Think omni channel: flexibility builds resilience. But don’t confuse that with copy/paste. That’s lazy & some platforms will penalize you for it. Every platform has its own cadence. Respect it. Adapt the execution. Protect the narrative.” - Hayes
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“Digital marketing is powerful when done correctly but also unpredictable. I’ve seen campaigns that were expected to perform perfectly suddenly lose steam because an algorithm changed or a platform shifted the rules. What I’ve learned is that the only real stability comes from building long-term, genuine trust with your audience, whether that be through content creators or building community. When the connection feels real, the content still connects even if the platforms keep moving the goalposts.” - Pierre
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Michael Malcolm, Former CMO of CRONJA; Former Adjunct Professor, City Colleges of Chicago
“Marketing in the cannabis industry has to be one of the most difficult aspects of the industry. Not only do you have to deal with the things all marketers struggle with, like ROI and reach. But in cannabis, we also have to deal with shadow bans, deleted accounts and tax burdens like 280E, which don’t allow cannabis companies to deduct business expenses, like marketing, when filing taxes. This hurdle made me approach our marketing strategy creatively. Our approach was two fold…first, build community in the markets that we are operating by focusing on issues the people were interested in … like when CRONJA held an open consumption brand event that doubled as a job fair.
Secondly, we partnered with organizations and media outlets that would promote our brand not only for our cannabis products, but for the environment we were working to create within the industry. For example CRONJA was part of a large social equity accelerator project. As the lead brand, we used our media outlet connections to call attention to the needs of social equity operators and the benefits they provide their markets. These efforts made it appear that our brand wasn’t just about selling products but that we actually care about the communities we serve.” - Malcolm
Tips for Marketers Facing Digital Roadblocks
Drawing from the insights shared by these experts, here are key strategies marketers can apply—whether in cannabis or any highly regulated industry:
Own Your Channels: Build email lists, websites, and newsletters to reduce dependency on platforms you don’t control.
Stay Agile: Treat algorithm changes and policy shifts as inevitable; prepare multiple content strategies and back-up plans.
Design Platform-Agnostic First: Craft stories that translate across channels, then tailor execution to each platform’s cadence.
Lean Into Community: Focus on authentic engagement, storytelling, and education that resonates even when visibility dips.
Turn Limits into Creativity: See restrictions as sparks for innovation—sometimes the most impactful campaigns come from working within constraints.
In Conclusion
Taken together, these insights reveal a powerful truth: digital marketing today is a battlefield of unpredictability, and cannabis is simply the sharpest example of that reality. From Gina Gault’s point on creative innovation born of constraints to Joshua Hayes’s framing of “digital marketing on rented land,” the through-line is clear — adaptability is no longer optional; it’s survival.
One consistent strategy across experts is the move toward owned media — email lists, websites, and newsletters — as the most reliable way to stay connected when algorithms and platforms fail. Yet, as Rachel Pierre and Barbara Caldwell emphasized, the heart of marketing remains the same: authentic community and trust always outlast platforms.
As marketers, we must not only adapt to digital roadblocks but learn to anticipate them, designing platform-agnostic stories that hold power across channels. In my view, the quotable truth here is this:
“The future of digital marketing doesn’t belong to those who master the algorithm — it belongs to those who master adaptability.” - Fullove
