Cage-Fighter Sponsored by Pot ETF Issuer in Uncommon Advertising and marketing Transfer

by Kristine Owram

(Bloomberg) -- The issuer of the world’s largest pot ETF is embracing celebrities’ rising curiosity in hashish, sponsoring a UFC fighter nicknamed the Boa Constrictor.

In a extremely uncommon transfer for a supplier of exchange-traded funds, ETF Managers Group LLC has signed on because the official coaching sponsor of Alexey Oleynik, the ninth-ranked heavyweight within the Final Combating Championship, a mixed-martial arts group. The issuer is greatest identified for the ETFMG Different Harvest ETF, which has about $1.1 billion invested in cannabis-related firms.

A number of current tweets from Oleynik’s Twitter account present him coaching -- and even mowing the garden -- in T-shirts emblazoned with MJ, the pot ETF’s ticker, and the emblem of ETF Managers Group. Whereas most tweets don’t reference ETFs past tagging that fund and together with ETFMG’s Twitter deal with, one publish in March described the corporate as an “ETF heavyweight.”

“It’s positively not one thing you see as a typical apply,” Tricia Vanderslice, ETFMG’s chief advertising and marketing officer, stated in a cellphone interview. “We like to take a look at distinctive advertising and marketing that does justice to each the sector our product represents and the viewers that we’re making an attempt to hit and converse to and educate.”

MJ is among the best-performing unleveraged U.S. ETFs of 2019, up greater than 26% because the starting of the 12 months. Securities and Change Fee filings present that lower than 12% of its shares are owned by institutional buyers akin to mutual funds. The UFC sponsorship is focused at particular person shareholders who don’t essentially comply with the monetary media however could also be massive UFC followers, Vanderslice stated.

“You hit that group of Common Joe buyers that is perhaps utilizing E*Commerce, they is perhaps utilizing Robinhood, and an enormous piece of that's model consciousness,” she stated.

Exterior Norms

It’s not extraordinary for an ETF supplier to advertise itself via sports activities sponsorships, stated Stacy Fuller, a accomplice within the investment-management apply at Okay&L Gates. The Invesco Collection QQQ, for instance, is a tennis circuit named after a fund that tracks the efficiency of the Nasdaq 100 Index.

Nevertheless, promotions of particular ETFs and mutual funds typically require disclaimers about charges and dangers, and the place an investor can discover a prospectus, stated Chris Carlson, legal professional within the investment-management group at Thompson Hine.

“By mentioning a particular fund, and clearly they’re going after a selected type of clientele, I feel that makes it somewhat bit outdoors the norm,” Carlson stated.

To make sure, this isn’t the primary formal affiliation between the pot trade and a celeb, and even the UFC. Aurora Hashish Inc. final month introduced an unique partnership with the mixed-martial arts group to conduct analysis into the connection between hemp-derived CBD merchandise and athlete well being.

Different cannabis-celebrity partnerships embrace golfer Bubba Watson, who has a multi-year endorsement cope with cbdMD Inc., and Gene Simmons of the rock band Kiss, who’s the “chief evangelist officer” for Invictus MD Methods Corp. In the meantime, Martha Stewart has an advisory position at Cover Development Corp. to assist develop a line of CBD merchandise for people and animals.

--With help from Rachel Evans.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Kristine Owram in Toronto at [email protected]

To contact the editors chargeable for this story:
Brad Olesen at [email protected];
Jeremy Herron at [email protected]
Richard Richtmyer, Rachel Evans