MJAC2017 Recap
The Premium Investment Cannabis Event MJAC2017 was held in Los Angeles this last week, Sept 1st - 2nd, The event was brought to the investing public by InvestorsHub , The Voice of the retail investor, and powered by CBMJ - Canna Broadcast Media who brought mainstream media attention to investors throughout the US.
MJAC2017 was well attended by a diverse group of attendees from Institutional investors, hedge funds, active retail investors and cannabis industry professionals all looking to identify the latest trends, emerging industry developments and public company investment targets. Cannabis Stocks News was among the attendees for both days and spent our time talking with everyone possible to get their perspective on the conference, the exhibitors and the future of the investment opportunities within the sector.
There were nearly 50 exhibitors at the event. Many were product based companies with an emphasis on the crowded CBD space with products ranging from pills to infused honey, a sector where investor interest has begun to wane due to the threat of added regulatory scrutiny. There were also a broad range of service based companies serving the investment, cultivation, distribution and consulting side of the cannabis industry. My personal interests revolved around the different advertising and media distribution options that would be represented and the conference did not disappoint in that regard. I saw 9 exhibitors who were in the business of advertising or content distribution within or about cannabis. The majority of these were focusing on distributing awareness within the existing cannabis sector primarily using a digital or on-line only model. There were, however, two notable exceptions to this non-mainstream consumer focus. Cannabis Stocks News reported back in June that “ Mainstream media distribution is a key component to true acceptance of the movement and one that will be highly profitable to the first to open up traditional media to the cannabis industry “ One exception was Emerald Magazine, based in Humboldt County, California, who has positioned their monthly boutique magazine focusing on the cannabis culture as a mainstream lifestyle magazine with distribution including Whole Food and an advertiser base that extends outside the traditional 'cannabis' products and companies.
The Most notable exception to the narrow cannabis sector only rule was publicly traded CBMJ-Cann Broadcast Media. CBMJ who partnered with InverstorsHub to bring mainstream awareness to the conference and was hard to miss at the event. I was told that Investors Hub provided them with massive conference exposure including extensive signage, their logo on all the promotional items and the sponsorship's of Friday night cocktail party as part of the deal to get the conference television exposure on networks including CNBC, Bloomberg and Fox Business News. A deal that appeared to be very beneficial to Ihub since many of the individual inventors I spoke with found out about the show as a result of seeing those commercials.
I did spend about 20 minutes at the CBMJ booth walking to the CEO who was very knowledgeable with an extensive public company background. Their business model allows them to benefit from providing financial industry exposure to other public cannabis companies as well as the operation of their flagship program LoudMouth News that is cleared to air on over 700 mainstream radio station throughout the country. I also understand that there are additional programs in development that will soon air on mainstream television that will significantly boost revenues and complete what Cannabis Stocks News reported as "a key component to true acceptance of the movement and one that will be highly profitable tot he first to open up traditional media to the cannabis industry.'
We will be covering some of the other industry verticals represented at the conference over the next couple weeks as well as a recap of the Shark Tank style event and the companies that participated.
