Cannabis in Full Bloom at the Philadelphia Flower Show
The Philadelphia Flower Show is the longest-running, oldest, and largest horticultural event in the nation. For a quarter million show attendees, it marks the beginning of spring, and celebrates a huge diversity of horticultural interests. And, for the first time in 2020, the Philadelphia Flower Show featured Cannabis.
You’d be forgiven for assuming that an event like this—steeped in years of tradition—might have a pretty conservative view on cannabis. But the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society has been dedicated to using horticulture to advance health and well-being for 200 years, and you don’t get that kind of longevity without the ability to grow with the changing seasons of society. There’s no doubt that cannabis fits squarely into their mission.
Cannabis is a plant, plain and simple, and PHS knew they couldn’t ignore the most compelling and debated conversation in health and wellness today.
SPECIAL THANKS TO ALL OF OUR SPONSORS:
Enter the Greenroom
The exciting thing for Chronic was the opportunity to start from scratch, not only engaging our strategic brains but also our full event production capabilities to spark a new mainstream narrative around cannabis in the Northeast. We wanted this to be a friendly introduction to the new normal cannabis conversation for the nearly quarter million people The Flower Show attracts each year, many of whom were seeing cannabis beyond “reefer madness” for the first time.
The first ever cannabis exhibit at The Flower Show was a special event, and we wanted a name to do justice to the transformation of cannabis from underground to acceptance. So we jumped straight into brainstorming. We landed on “The Greenroom: The journey of cannabis from taboo to mainstream.”
Concept, develop, prototype, test, test again…and again…
We envisioned an immersive, bright, welcoming space rich with engaging activities, installations, and real experts on hand to answer questions—all supported by a full digital experience. Continuously concepting and prototyping we developed a simple, visually textured, open space, highlighting science and the real medical benefits of cannabis.
Getting Social in the Greenroom
While our design and tech teams were hard at work prototyping and developing interactive apps and building full scale timelines, our social team set out to generate buzz on social media with snackable content including an animated series about terpenes, and a graphic exploration of the facts vs fiction of medical cannabis. A month from the show we built a unique landing page to begin teasing out The Greenroom.
Opening the Doors
To coincide with the opening day of The Flower Show and the launch of The Greenroom, we released a fully integrated website experience enabling people to enjoy the full Greenroom experience—including panel discussions and live speakers—translated digitally, at their fingertips.
Putting Health in the Hands of the Audience
To reach an audience curious about the process of getting a medical card, we built an app from the ground up. A personalized assessment allowed show visitors to explore acceptable conditions and the recommended medical strains at their leisure and gave them the option to sign up for more information on how to get their medical card.
Map — Doctors & Dispensaries
On the flip side of the app was a medical marijuana dispensary and physician map that was custom built so people were able to see and find local doctors and dispensaries in their area.
During the show
The response from the attending audience was positively overwhelming. People were excited for cannabis to be at the forefront of an ever growing conversation. On top of the different touchpoints throughout the exhibit, we had industry veterans on standby to help engage in conversations and be an insightful resource to anyone who had any questions.
Over the course of the show, more than 10,000 people visited the Greenroom exhibit, taking away a fresh perspective on cannabis. We also saw a 556% increase in impressions, a 337% increase in reach, and 14,655 story views on Instagram, as well as a huge amount of media coverage—over 22M media impressions total!
Closing the show with connection
At Chronic, in this new era for cannabis, it’s a great privilege to partner with industry veterans, as well as visionary organizations like the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society to help take cannabis out of the shadows and into the spotlight.
We’re here to steer the conversation, and most importantly, meet people where they are to connect them with this incredibly beneficial plant and advance health and wellness throughout the nation.