Who’s the greatest licensed producer on the market? That’s the question that the retailer ARCannabis wants to answer. To do so, they launched their first virtual Cannabis Cup called “the ARCannabis Cup”.
In this competition, they allow us, the consumers, to vote for our favourite producers on the recreational market. We talked to the ARCannabis Cup hosts Aaron and Matt, who told us what makes ARCannabis virtual cannabis cup tournament so unique and how we all can participate as a judge.
ARCannabis Cup – A modern approach to the Cannabis Cup
Usually, Cannabis Cups are big local events where different producers provide samples of their most excellent flowers that a couple of different judges evaluate to determine who’s the best grower.
The ARCannabis Cup is different because it is not a local event and its judges don’t evaluate or vote for individual cannabis flowers. Instead, the ARCannabis Cup is taking a look at the bigger picture and wants to know who is the most popular producer overall.
So, in this cup, not only the flower quality but also the producer’s reputation in terms of marketing, price point, and customer satisfaction influence the votes. The voters are also not a few chosen judges but many recreational cannabis experts, namely we, the consumers.
“All the different licensed producers claim that they’re producing the best quality flower, so we wanted to know who our customers think is really the best of them,”
said Aaron Chief Operations Officer of ARCannabis and host of the ARCannabis Cup.
Besides letting their customers vote for their favourite products, ARCannabis is also doing a fantastic job hosting a unique recap show that gets published on their Instagram every Monday.
In the show, Aaron and Matt review the matches of the past week, interview their staff about the competition, and announce the pairings for the next round. They also feature hype videos of different producers to get even more engagement in their cup.
And, the hype seems to work. Many producers keep reposting the ARCannabis Cup on their socials, asking their followers to vote for them. But only promoting their brand on Instagram won’t be enough to make it into the finale.
“We want to see who’s really getting the love and appreciation of the customers. The bigger companies may have a lot of great marketing, but we’ve seen that a lot of the smaller producers are receiving more votes than the big guys do,”
explained Aaron.
With the ARCannabis Cup, the team of ARCannabis created a very innovative way of launching a cannabis competition that creates a lot of excitement amongst not only the voters, but also the Licensed Producers. Now that you know what all the hype is about let us look at how the contest works and how you can participate in it.
The virtual Cannabis Cup
The ARCannabis Cup started on March 1 and included 96 Licensed Producers who have graced the ARCannabis store shelves over the past year. To determine the champion of the cannabis cup, they’re using a bracket tournament system where each producer is going head-to-head with another producer until there’s only one left.
The winner of the cup will be crowned the first-ever ARCannabis Cup champion and benefit from highlighted marketing in the ARCannabis stores including:
- A pop-up in each ARCannabis location on April 20th.
- Posters that will be permanently displayed in each of their stores to credit the winning brand for 2021.
- Having the 2021 Cannabis Cup logo on the winning brand’s price tags.
- Getting their name engraved on the ARCannabis Cup.
- Bragging rights as the First Ever ARCannabis Cup champion
Right now, the cup just went into its second round and has three more rounds to follow until its finale on April 19.
The competition operates entirely through AR’s Instagram account. So, if you want to participate and vote for your favourite producers, you only need to go onto their Instagram, open their story, and vote for one of the producers in the matchup of the day.
There are two matchups per day that will always be live for 24 hours. The winners of the match will afterwards get posted on AR’s Instagram story.
“The matches are often really close. We’ve seen competitions where someone won at the very last minute with only two percent more votes than their competitor,”
said Matt, Regional and Marketing Manager of ARCannabis and second host of the ARCannabisCup.
It’s not a problem if you haven’t been participating in the cup since the beginning. You can easily follow up with the past matches and get to know the next ones by watching their recap show on AR’s Instagram.
Here’s a short summary to give you already a headstart.
Upcoming matches
From the initial 96 licensed producers, there are only 48 left.
The upcoming pairings until the third round of the cup are:
- March 25: Royal City vs UP 20 | Canaca vs Tenzo
- March 26: Northern Harvest vs Haven St | Trailblazer vs Marley Natural
- March 27: Top Leaf vs Gnomestar | 48th North vs Kolab Project
- March 28: Wildlife vs Boaz | 7 Acres vs Journey
- March 29: Royal High vs Color Cannabis | Tantalus vs Doja
- March 30: Broken Coast vs MTL Cannabis | Hightide vs Blkmkt
- March 31: Weed Me vs Grasslands | Jonny Chronic vs Poolboy
- April 1: Pure Sunfarms vs Benchmark Botanics | Sundial vs Simply Bare
- April 2: Liiv vs Redecan | Greenade vs Cove
- April 3: Qwest vs Palmetto |Greybeard vs Natural History
- April 4: Ness vs Ignite | Greenseal vs Flint & Embers
- April 5: To be announced
The ARCannabis Cup is an excellent innovative marketing idea. Not only does it help ARCannabis to gain attraction on their social media, but it also shows their customers that they care about their opinion. In addition, AR Cannabis also provoked the licensed producers to compete with each other by motivating their fans to vote for them.
Who do you think will be crowned as the first champion of the ARCannabis virtual cannabis cup? And have you voted for your favourite producers yet?
Let us know in the comments or reach out to us on Instagram.