Responses by Tiffany Semira, head of digital, Hiku Brands

Background: The Tokyo Smoke 10/17 microsite inspires users with engaging and snackable content. As Tokyo Smoke is a subsidiary of recreational and medical cannabis company Hiku Brands, the microsite’s primary goal is to build excitement around October 17, a monumental day in Canada. Featuring a minute-long video created by Common Good, the site showcases things users can do on the day cannabis become recreationally legal.

Highlights: The variety of multimedia content pieces in the form of interactive tiles, allowing users to explore, engage and share. In addition to videos, images and GIFs, a variety of campaign-related trivia questions, quotes from influencers, SoundCloud playlists and events engage users. To further facilitate exploration, filters allow users to see content types and themes that are interesting to them, such as recipes and workouts.

Challenges: Since the cannabis industry is highly regulated, the content for the site had to be ‘cannabis adjacent’, communicating the brand and campaign without directly showing or referring to cannabis. Using subtle nods to cannabis culture, the site speaks to cannabis and Tokyo Smoke, allowing users to create their own references around the content.

Favorite details: The interactivity of the site and individual tiles. They display entertaining content and provide users with multiple ways to engage without having to visit multiple subpages within the site. Furthermore, they do an excellent job of communicating brand elements, while keeping users on the site longer.

Navigational structure: We wanted to keep the site as simple and clean as possible, positioning all of the content on the home page. Instead of building content category pages, users can explore the content using filters, which pulls the relevant content tiles up to the top of the page. We aimed to maximize engagement while minimizing “work” for users.

Time constraints: With legalization quickly approaching, the 10/17 microsite was executed in record time. From the brief to Phase one launch, the microsite was built in less than one week—including ideation, design and content development. The site was built in two phases, with filtering functionality and more robust long form content added a week after the Phase 1 launch. Our partner agency Made by Article did a fantastic job of bringing our vision to life with a fraction of the time.