McDonald’s billboard referencing cannabis causes a stir with corporate. Despite McDonald’s corporate office’s opinion, great pot puns are here to stay in mainstream advertising and the continued destigmatization of marketing to cannabis consumers is a no-brainer, but how did we get here? This week’s case starts with Lee Phelan. The Raton, New Mexico McDonald’s franchise owner just dropped $3 million to upgrade his facility and he had a bright idea. Phelan’s location is the first and last Mcdonald’s anyone crossing the New Mexico/Colorado border will see and you know who drives across that border? People who enjoy going somewhere they won’t be arrested for using marijuana responsibly. @McDonalds if it weren’t for weed your profits would be 30% less. #McDonalds #marijuana #cannabis #420 https://t.co/kH9SqOUTBq — Gregg Weiss (@ReformedLemming) June 6, 2017 Phelan wanted to hit this market hard, so he commissioned the team at Lamar New Mexico-El Paso, an advertising firm, to bring his vision to light. What the Lamar team conceived at Phelan’s request will surely go down in the annals of great breakfast burrito ads. “Usually, when you roll something this good, it’s illegal,” the billboard read while also noting that potential customers could bring buses full of high people to enjoy these fully legal and regulated breakfast burritos and free wifi. Unfortunately McDonald’s corporate didn’t feel Lee’s idea met their standards, we at Cannabis Now, however, applaud you. Phelan is a trendsetter. Most of the billboards we’ve seen in the cannabis industry world have been little more than PR stunts or a mechanism to force your name into a conversation dominated by embedded brands. Michael Mons, general manager the Lamar regional office where Phelan commissioned the billboard, told Cannabis Now how it all went down. “The franchisee came up with the idea,” said Mons with a friendly emphasis. “We designed it for him, put it up, and threw it up on our Facebook page here in New Mexico.” Mons said Phelan called him the Monday morning after this signs first weekend up to inform him of the corporate pushback. Not long after the Lamar corporate team reached out. “They’re very strict on their creative to have the same message across the country,” Mons said. While the sign had proven successful by any standard, from burritos sold to being a viral marketing hit, Mons and Phelan had to concede. “Long Story short, it just got so, on both our ends,” Mons said as he paused to collect his thoughts continuing with a laugh saying, “it was just best to take it down.” The mainstream American marketing machine is now ready for their peace of the pie. Basically, every aspect of the advertising world has been rehashed more times than Spiderman. With cannabis entering a respectable part of the American psyche in general, one has to expect advertisers to adapt to this new reality. If the recent 420 pun-offs of the last couple years have told us anything, they’re more than ready to make the jump. We asked the…

Read More: Mcdonald’s Disagrees With Visionary Franchisee on 420 Burrito Billboard

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