Host: Jen Lamboy, Director of Strategy, Hybrid Marketing Co.
Guests: Crystal Millican from Cookies and Luna Stower from iSpire Vape Technology
Thank you all for joining us. Those who are here on the webinar with us, we’re going to move this over to podcasts as well. So however it is that you like to digest, content will provide all those, all those areas. I want to start by saying this industry is wild. I feel like there’s not a single day that goes by that I can’t say that. I mean, we’re talking about the latest rescheduling. In fact, our content director, Aaron Rosenbluth, just got back from the hill we’re looking at last month with Canopy gobbling up a very tasty one of brands. It’s also been pretty fun hearing from Joe Hodus on, you know, on his new role as CEO and also what’s in store, what’s in store in that world as well. Big stuff is always happening, as you know, if you’re steeped in the industry like we are here, for those who are on the wholesale and retail side, it is a full on battle of the brands. I say that with a smile, but it’s the truth. These ladies are going to discuss it in just a moment here. How do you put your stake on the ground and make sure it stays? How long are you going to stay? How do you know what staying power and longevity look like? I brought two of the superheroines in this industry to dig in on this. With me specifically to discuss how to craft a cannabis lifestyle brand that captivates and connects with consumers. I’m Jen Lamboy. I’m the Director of Strategy at Hybrid Marketing Company. We are a business outcomes-focused agency that’s been in the space since 2015. We focus primarily on five revenue drivers. So we’re talking about revenue risk, cost, cash flow and asset utilization. All the things that help businesses to grow on the inside. I am jumping up and down to introduce to you Crystal Milliken of Cookies, Head of Retail Marketing at Cookies, and Luna Stower, Chief Impact Officer at iSpire. Although I and these ladies have been working alongside each other for years, we finally met in person at MJ Unpacked earlier this year. And I knew that we needed to put our heads together and bring you this webinar to discuss lifestyle brands in particular before they introduce themselves. So I just want to say to you, if you hang on to the end of the session with us, we’ve got a little treat to offer as well. So hang in there and I’ll give you details at the end. But how about, Luna, jump in, tell us who you are, how you are, and then Crystal, please follow with a little introduction of your own. Thank you for being here.
Thank you so much, Jen. My name is Luna Stower. I’m the Chief Impact Officer at iSpire. We do vaporizer hardware technology for the cannabis, hemp and nicotine spaces. I have a background in education. I got my masters in teaching and taught in public schools, jails and juvenile halls for over ten years, but always have been smoking, selling and growing this plant since I was in middle school. In 1996, I was eleven years old when we legalized it here in California. So it’s never been a drug to us. It’s always been something that was considered plant medicine, and it’s never just been that big of a deal. So I’ve been really blessed to have the privilege of cultural and legislative support in where I’m from for cannabis as a medicine. And then obviously, we legalized several years ago and have been on the commercial side of it. So I’m really excited to be in Colombia. We just had Bizcan and Alt Pro Expo, which are two large conferences that paired up together. Bizcam was the cannabis side and the other side was more of a vape conference, and got to meet people from around the world who are really looking to California, the United States, and the North American and Western markets to see how to regulate and move forward. So these kinds of conversations are super germane. You know, we’re in our isolated bubble of what’s happening with us, and we forget that the world really is watching every move that we make. And they’re going to codify a lot of the things that they see us doing. So it’s extremely important that we are aligned with a greater goal. We’re really conscious of sustainability and all of these things because it’s going to be copied and pasted in different markets across the globe, and everything that we do is going to be scrutinized and copied. And so it’s vital that we have our ducks in a row and that we’re representing this plant and this industry in a way that we’re really proud of.
Crystal, jump in there. Who are you?
Who am I? That’s a big question. Really excited to be with everyone today. I’m Crystal, and I work at Cookies. I’ve been here five years – the start of legal cannabis sales for Cookies started way before I did. We have two incredible founders. We have our plant whisperer, as I call him, Jai, who came together in San Francisco about 15 years ago with our founder Berner, I still say Berner’s, the best budtender on the planet. And so our two co-founders really like the Cookies. Legacy starts 15 years ago. Legacy strain sold to a lot of places, a clothing line, and for the last five years, we’ve been building kind of a legal cannabis business. I was in management consulting before coming to Cookies, saw cannabis coming, and like everywhere else, knew that brands would win. Thankfully, I was able to take on and honored to have Cookies as a client. And the question was a big one, right. How do you take a brand that is not yet selling legal cannabis and build a global footprint? So lovingly, say, five years ago at Hippie Hill, kind of was the first event, and we had a tent and a jar full of blue gumballs, and that was it. And over the last five years, we’re now over 70 dispensaries, similar to Luna. Right. We’re getting ready for the product in Germany. We’re getting ready for a product in Australia. We have global expansion on our mind, and it is incredible to see the global momentum that there is for cannabis. I know if you are from California, right, it’s a battle every day, seeing that global promise and taking time to pause and talk about brand building. Just an honor to be here and excited to continue this chat with Jen and Luna.
Awesome. Yeah, it was super fun seeing Cookies in Barcelona and Thailand when I was out there. So it’s fun seeing, you know, how we are. How we really are exporting our culture elsewhere.
Well, let’s. Let’s jump in. Regarding lifestyle brands, I wonder if both of you can each define what that is. So, especially with your roles with the organizations that you’re working with right now, how do you define a lifestyle brand? And if you can also expand on, really, what are the benefits of being a lifestyle brand.
I’m happy to take a first crack at this. So, I know, you know, being a you know, when you think about CPG and products, right. There’s a difference between selling a product, being a brand. And then I think the next part of that evolution is consumers kind of taking you into their life and you mean more to them than just whatever the product is or whatever the brand is selling. So, on our side, this is not a tagline about Cookies, but something we really took a lot of time to develop. That kind of is an emblem for our commitment to being part of people’s lifestyles, if we talk about that we really exist to bring people together and make them feel good. We are fully aware of our responsibility in terms of being part of someone’s daily life, that they will seek out products based on an experience that they are having or an effect that they are looking for, whether it’s a laugh or the ability to relax or go to bed a little bit easier. We take that responsibility really seriously. And I think that aspect of cannabis, I think, really does set the foundation for a lot of us to become not just the product or not just the brand, but really, you know, part of a lifestyle that someone’s living every day.
That’s brilliant, Crystal, about meeting folks where they’re at, seeing them and having the customer experience be the center of everything that flows from that. I think a lot of times people get very excited about creating a brand about, you know, what they want to do, their business plan, how they want it to go. And sometimes, whether it’s a lack of focus groups and market research or founder syndrome, being a little bit overpowering or just being a little too isolated from the culture, the integration into the lifestyle is an afterthought. So I think that that’s a huge piece of it, is meeting folks where they’re at, seeing how these things integrate into their lives and how we can match it. On the iSpire side, we also push it a little further into an aspirational element of our tagline this way up. So how can hardware improve? How can vaping oils, how can we meet folks where they’re at? And then, you know, this is across the board, we always see this, you know, argument of, you know, high THC and Sativa Indica, and it’s taken us and, or what is CBD, and it’s taken us, you know, five to ten years to really craft education around why it’s not just about Sativa or indica and why those names are kind of problematic in themselves, what a profile is, you know, why THC percentage maybe isn’t exactly what you’re trying to look for. So we want to meet them where they’re at, but then also show them, you know, especially because we do want premium products. We want people to know why they’re paying 25% to 50% more for a live rosin product versus a distillate, or for something that, you know, has been, you know, crafted with legacy strains and the stories behind it. We want to tell people, okay, we know how you want this to fit into your life, but this is also the next step of where we might want to go in more premium hardware, more premium products, so that we can kind of raise this bar because it’s been a race to the bottom on both quality and price, because they’re obviously quite matched. So for us, the reason why a lifestyle brand is so important. When we first launched iSpire about four years ago, I’m the longest standing employee, so I’ve seen us go through so many different iterations. Before we went public and registered ourselves, iSpire was separate from our parent company, Aspire. Part of our product line was DAB devices that were direct to consumers. So we had the B2B side that was just the white label hardware that we, you know, we work with Cookies on the hemp side, and folks, folks like that. And then we had a direct to consumer device. When we went public two years ago, we ended up having to kind of scrape anything that was considered a pair to IPO on the Nasdaq and have really focused only on the B2B side. But it was such a blessing to have that moment of conversation. And, of course, obviously, B2B, you’re still thinking about the end consumer. It still needs to be a good experience, and it has to make sense to be relevant. But that integration into the culture, doing dab bars, showing people why we loved concentrates, being able to promote the brands that we work with on the cartridge side in their rosin jars and do dab bars, things like that, really showed the people, okay, this isn’t just like a faceless chinese company. They have an American team. They understand our culture. They’re cannabis consumers, and they want to sophisticate and elevate and make more elegant the experience of something that, you know, during Vape gate in 2018, I was with Jetty, and we got thrown out with the bathwater, with the e-vape crisis and the, you know, the trap carts with all of the, you know, heavy metals in them and pg and vitamin E oil. So it’s really been our, you know, to Crystal’s point, it’s a big responsibility to be in a space of recreation and medicine, because we aren’t just another, you, tool in the toolbox. These are things that are helping people be intimate with their partners. These are things that are helping ADHD patients go to work. These are folks that are stopping seizures in their tracks. So it. The lifestyle piece is important for normalization and legitimization and buy in and in a very disloyal market.
How do you mean building loyalty?
Look, people, people go crazy for iSpire and Cookies because they know the team, they know the product, and they see the relevance and the stick to itiveness and that, okay, these folks are going to be around people even though it’s very transactional, and people are kind of seeing what’s cool, and they might hop around. You want to be a household name, and I think that you can’t do that unless you show up in very authentic ways. Right?
Yeah, 100% agree. Sounds like what’s at the base of what you’re both talking about is core values. When you’re showing up as an organization made of human people and wanting to present that organization and your products to the human consumer, we’re humanizing brands, boiling back down to core values. How have you defined who you are and who you aren’t? And I also want to just. Well, just for the audience, too, I want to say we’ve kind of broken down the six steps into two chunks. One is really, the first part is developing or enhancing your existing brand identity. Here’s three little steps and some questions beneath, and we’ll walk through these together. The next is really kind of, now that you’ve got, you know, you’ve got who you are, who you’re talking to, where you want to go, and. And applying that to a much larger, all encompassing strategy as well. So, again, you all are talking about core values. Who are you and who are you not? I feel like it is a big question that pops up. Luna, you’ve described it as soul searching on the last time, you know, the last time we chatted. Jump in there. And how do you, how do you develop that as an organization, and then how do you bring that to life, to consumers?
Well, hopefully, you know, like, our vision is, and the concept behind it is really, you know, elevating people’s life experiences from the voice and the consciousness of the warm hearted rebel with a cause. We want to acknowledge that we are doing something that is technically counterculture right now, that we are challenging the status quo and saying, maybe some of these laws don’t make sense. Maybe this isn’t about public safety. Maybe this is a conspiracy on the part of the government or maybe the lobbyists on big pharma and big tobacco to keep cannabis out of the conversation. Whether that’s true or not, everyone has their opinions about it. It’s so important that we are aware that we are changing norms, that we are breaking the stigma. There are many people still sitting in jail, in prison for this. The drug war and prohibition are still raging at full speed, regardless of the rescheduling and the amount. More than half of the states now are legal recreationally or have some medical program. And so for us, having that voice of, you know, that, that warm hearted rebel, it allows us to play a little bit more in this space where we’re not too sterile, we’re not too stoner lifestyle, but we have a cause behind it, and we want people to join that. This call for this way up is we’re trying to show a better way that we’ve kind of already gone through our infancy in, you know, the beginning of our adolescence as an industry. So what the next step is, a lot of people don’t know. So we kind of want to be the adults in the room that are saying, okay, we get, we love weed, we get that it’s super fun, we get that it helps a lot of things. What are some ways that we can really scale this in other markets, other places and make sure that it’s getting safer, more convenient, more efficient, more affordable, more accessible as time goes on and a lot of times, you know, we’re in a call out culture. Everyone’s waiting for folks to fail. It’s very competitive. It can be very heady and immature for whatever reason, a lot. Prohibition is a huge part of that. When you create scarcity, people start fighting over pieces of the pie that if the pie was big enough, wouldn’t happen. So, you know, when, when you’re thinking about this very potentially combative atmosphere, especially when you’re talking about marketing, your forward facing face is if you don’t know who you are and who you’re not, who you are trying to call in and who’s not your market, you’re going to end up kind of being back on your, on your heels and retracting or coming back to the boardroom with this during a crisis, during a PR crisis or during a major transition. But if you bake it into the DNA of the origins of who your brand is and what you do, it’s a lot easier to navigate some of the ups and downs of this industry and how, you know, the optics are and how people perceive us and all the rumor mill and the reputation it’s going to be, you’re going to be a lot more vulnerable if you don’t have a really, really strong base to stand on and a really clear message? That’s actually to your point, Jen, being, you know, vetted. When we do projects or when we make relationships, does it match against our brand guides and our voice guidelines? Are every step that we’re making actually in alignment with the things that we said that we wanted to and having a team of good people that aren’t, you know, have a good relationship and aren’t afraid to say, hey, is that really who we are and how we want to be perceived? And if so, what’s the cost benefit analysis? But without having that language and that framework, maybe you pop off and out of it a little bit and play around with it, but at least you’re tracking when you do that and there’s a purpose behind it. We might, you know, co-brand with someone that’s a little out of our, a little out of our target, but it’s for X Y and z purposes because we’re trying to lean into something. But as long as you have a starting place and you know who you are and you want who you aren’t, you’re going to be taken advantage of less. And there’s going to be a lot harder for people to have criticisms against you because you’re strong in who you are. I mean, you’re speaking to risk mitigation. And if you’re, if you’re a business owner, whether you’re a mom and pop or you’re an MSO, that has to be a part of the strategy. You know, business plan strategy kind of going forward, how are you going to mitigate risk? I find cookies to be such an interesting lifestyle brand. It’s like when you think of the definition of lifestyle brand cookies comes to mind, top of mind, at least for me. Crystal, let me give us a little bit more about really what I’m, what I’m trying to identify, too, if you all are paving away, paving the trail in a lot of, in a lot of ways. But for those who are just now stepping in or stepping in needing a little bit more muscle, how are you doing it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that Jen and I think these first, number one and these first two questions are really important ones, right? I think it is. Regardless of where you are on your growth trajectory or the size of revenue, top and bottom line. Today, we ask ourselves this question every year. We’ve updated our core values over the last two years going through the exercise. And I think we did go through it. We did a lot of work internally, interviews with ourselves, interviews with our customers to kind of help us define what those core values would be. Doing that also with an expert like Jen and hybrid marketing, these are the things where sometimes it’s nice to also have an objective person who’s asking you these questions and kind of helping you get to the right answer. And there’s healthy debate. It’s not like you wake up one day and you’re like, here’s my core values. It is asking yourself questions. It’s asking your key stakeholders and your business questions. It’s asking your partners questions. It’s asking your customers questions. And that’s how you’re able to get to this. I think these aren’t, again, this doesn’t go on our packaging. Here’s cookies, core values. But these are the values that we talk about internally. We actually start every partner conversation talking about these as values as well. Right. Because it’s how we show up for the consumer and it’s how we show up for our partners. Right. So at cookies, we’ve had four core values since the start, respecting the plant. So how does that show up with our consumers and with our partners? We will talk about quality. We respect every person who’s part of the seed to sale process. And it is important to us that that respect is upheld internally at our company, with our partners and our partnerships that support us in our growth plans, and also to the consumer. Right. So I think that’s it. That’s kind of where we start. Our second one is about honoring the legacy. For Cookies, that’s a really important piece. There’s a lot of brands out there that I think are a little more focused on legitimization of cannabis, which is also important work as we continue to evolve. But for us, the conversation is different, and it’s different enough that we include it in a core value. Right. We want to talk about the legacy, honor the legacy, be honest about the legacy, and find ways to integrate legacy players into the next step as we move into legal market growth IPO. And that’s a really important part of ookies. We talk about putting the fam first. We talk about embracing the hustle. Those are the four core values that we’ve always had and I think are important in terms of how we show up in the industry in general, but how we show up for our consumers, too. And then, like I mentioned again, you don’t wake up and you’re like, these are the values that we have. And that’s it. You know, we’ve added a fifth core value over the last two years about demonstrating impact, and we define impact, both both socially and financially in terms of top and bottom line growth. So these are simple questions, but there’s an unearthing process and really being clear about it, and it’s not one and done. You are living it every day. You’re talking about it internally. You are reflecting that in terms of how you’re showing up for. You know, we talk about how we show up for the Cookies team, whether that’s our customers or our partnerships in this space. Yeah, absolutely. Well, and by having the. By doing that kind of big work, sure, there’s simple questions. You know, what are your core values? But by doing that groundwork, it makes every decision going forward easier to make because you’ve got, you’ve set for yourself and your organization some guardrails. So if something, you know, if you’re talking about a. A co-branded collaboration with another organization that maybe doesn’t fit within those core values. It’s an easy decision to say, you know, we’re not quite a fit. But here’s this other organization who is very closely aligned with who we are and what we’re wanting to accomplish. So we talk about, you know, I often talk about risk mitigation, to be honest. We’re talking about core values, defining those pieces to, again, set some guardrails for your organization before stepping into what I’ll call step number two is identifying or figuring out which lifestyle you want to identify with. How do you do that? In some sense, there’s the creation of a lifestyle. Sometimes you’re augmenting what already exists. Sometimes, too, you’re filling in a gap within the industry and becoming that answer for consumers.
Yeah. Tell me, how do you define the lifestyle that your brand should identify with? I think it’s super important. Oh, no, go ahead. No, I was going to say. I was going to. I’ll use this kind of example at Cookies. I think, again, kind of the 15 year history at Cookies. I think the lifestyle also kind of for us, organically came out of the experiences of our founders and. And for us, again, the responsibilities, upholding our commitment to the culture, upholding our commitment to what we call the balance of street and science and what we’re doing at cookies. So I think in terms of finding that initial lifestyle, what I’m going to talk about is a gap and finding a way to bridge a gap within, even if you have that current lifestyle defined. Right. So, for us, you know, we, you know, we can see that Cookies skew more male, right. That is similar to what we see in cannabis in general. We can also see that women are the fastest growing demographic in cannabis, too. Right. So as we look at, you know, the. What people might think of as the Cookies lifestyle, how do we create a bridge ? That recognizes women are consumers, too? It’s a fast growing group. How does Cookies show up for women? That led to an opportunity which is not. We didn’t have the question answered, however, we had a partnership opportunity to come up with Erika Badu. That was a match made in heaven for cookies. Berner and Miss Badhu are two people who are kind of yin and yang of the same breed. And that was last year, like, one of our most successful brand launches that we’ve had is that Badu product line. And I think it was a couple of things. One, a brilliant way to celebrate a woman in cannabis who is a pioneer and a trailblazer and an incredible human being bringing her vision for her brand and her products to life was one of the most fulfilling experiences I think our team has ever had. And then two also fit within the gap that I think we could see we had at Cookies and an opportunity that was moving quickly in the cannabis space, which is, you know, how do we integrate women more seamlessly into the lifestyle brand that we’ve created? And what a shout out to the fact that when we talk about Dei and inclusion on internal teams, like the fact that you are there and other women are there, it’s one thing for feminist men or allies of, you know, women’s equality, to have that as like an afterthought or, you know, they’re getting data back. That’s saying, you know, women are the fastest growing. It’s different when you intrinsically care because you have women on staff. So I just want to shout that specific thing out as to, you know, when we’re talking about diversity, it’s not just optics, so you can obligatorily, you know, check something off of a list. Oh, we have x amount of women or x amount of folks of color, x amount of legacy operators on our team. It’s not just for numbers. It’s because opportunities like this, conversations like this, lead to such lucrative outcomes. That’s why we say love is lucrative.
And, Crystal, to your point, I love the streets and the science, because I always say it’s the roots in the suits. It’s a dance of the roots and the suits. And I think that it’s such a beautiful way to say each of them has so many values to bring and each of them has so many blind spots that they just do not have the time, the resources, the experience to embody. This is what another element of diversity means. There also is diversity of experience, experience, class diversity, educational diversity, value system diversity on these teams, so that it’s not this monochromatic monotone where everyone comes from the same socioeconomic and ethnic background, especially for something like Cookies that is so focused on street culture. You have to have folks that understand what street culture is. And I think this goes back to data a lot of times, you know, data collection, focus groups, market research, which, you know, part of. Jen, what you guys do at hybrid marketing, you know, you’re doing competitive audits, you’re staying on top of all of the newest data. I think that, you know, it is a privilege to have access to some of that data. It can be. It can be a little expensive for startups and small businesses, but, you know, investing in that element is sometimes an afterthought where people just take like very anecdotal, you know, they talk to some people and they think that they know, but really looking to what the market is doing and being able to pivot not, you know, to Crystal’s point not being so they didn’t know what the answer was. They just knew what the opportunity could be and then when it showed up, they identified it. So just be having that framework to know where you’re lacking, where your blind spots are. To allow that to happen, you don’t have to have all of the answers. But without having, you know, that goal in mind, you might get sucked down a bunch of different roads that dilute the message that you’re trying to make. So I think that that’s a really important point is, you know, making sure that you’re filling a gap that’s necessary and then being able to pivot easily with having different options or different elements of your voice and your brand that is so diverse that can be the science to the streets and everything in between. You know, there’s folks that are really interested in Erica Badu. There’s folks that are really interested in the mushroom side of the business and to be able to do the same thing with us. Some people are really interested just in the oils and getting high. Some people are super geeked out on the internal hardware. We just came up with this cool machine and pen that’s an all in one system with no caps on it. So it eliminates capping, which is, you know, popping, clogging, leaking all the dramas, contamination that, that we listen to the market and heard our market being beaten to b that x, Y and Z were a problem and we created a one stop solution that eliminates so many problems. But being knowledgeable, going back to that client centric approach, if you are so stuck on what, you know, if I spy just wanted to do what I spire wanted to do, we wouldn’t be adding objective value to the space. And that’s not going to create any longevity for any brand. Two ways. Two way conversation with consumers and who you are as an organization in order for you to have that voice. I think a little bit of what you both are talking about is authenticity. Not checking a box, showing up in alignment with your core values.
Doing the soul searching Luna that you’ve mentioned before, being able to look at the larger competitive landscape and the consumer base and say, how are we going to offer a solution with authenticity?
What we see on the marketing side is a desire for brands, retailers, ancillary organizations to grow if they want to grow their bottom line if they want to expand into other states. But they may not have developed or thought much about their own story, how they show up oftentimes. What we see kind of in this newer, newer age of cannabis is there’s, for example, commercial real estate folks who step into the space. The numbers make sense to them, but they may not have retail experience. They may not have a story that really ties them to the industry. So speak a little bit about the importance of authenticity as part of this larger strategic plan to humanize your brand.
I can jump in on that one, Jen. I think that you articulated it so well. I talk about it a lot on the retail side. Right. I think there is a little bit of a control paced attitude that we’ve seen go up and down in cannabis, right? So, like, I used to sell sweaters, right? So I understand everything there is to know about retail and cannabis. Right. Remove the sweater, put in flour and call it a day. Right. I think that that controlled paced attitude, doesn’t work in this space. Right. And I think it doesn’t because of the authenticity. I think it doesn’t because of the way the product is put into your body. It’s just not on your body. Right. So I think that authenticity is incredibly important. It is probably the thing that keeps Berner awake at night is making sure that as we are showing up, as we are growing, which is at a frenetic pace in terms of the number of markets that we’re opening in a year, the number of stores that we’re opening in a year, that there’s still time being taken and resources being spent in how we show up. How do we show up in Albuquerque, how do we show up in a way that’s true to our roots, that’s on brand globally, while at the same time recognizing Albuquerque is its own place and it may have its own values. And we want to show up in Albuquerque the way consumers in Albuquerques want us to show up for them. And that’s going to be different than Miami, and that’s going to be different than Manhattan. It’s going to be different than Los Angeles, and it’s definitely going to be different than San Francisco.
Right? So there’s this, you know, you want to define who you are globally. You want to be clear about what you stand for as a brand. And at the same time, I think particularly in cannabis, in retail and marketing, knowing and caring about the local differences and the expectations locally is a really important piece of showing up authentically. Sure, it comes down to the target audience. If you want to segment who you’re marketing to, who you’re selling to, your messaging has to land with that particular local audience. So, you know, part of the work that was step three in that little slide I just showed is get clear on who your target audience is. Sometimes it’s helpful to define who it isn’t. I know for, you know, as an example, this is so silly, but sometimes when I go get my hair done, sorry to take it there, but when I do, sometimes I show the stylist pictures of what I don’t want, because many times I’ve gotten. And, like, I don’t know, they want to, they want to make me look like Jennifer Aniston with the old, like, friends hairstyle. I’m like, come on. This is what I don’t. I know it’s horrible, and it hasn’t happened in recent decades. I’ll just say that last ten years, but it happens. And so if you’re struggling with, you know, who is my target audience?
Here’s what I’ll say about that. Who it isn’t is everybody. We get that. We get that answer a lot. I ask the question, who is your target audience? Well, it’s everyone. It’s the connoisseur. It’s the can of curiosity. It’s the young 21 year old. It’s the boomer, the zoomer. It’s really everybody. So my suggestion, our suggestion, all of us here, is that we get super clear on the target audience. Speak to me on that. How have you all defined who is your target audience and who it isn’t? And sorry for the hair reference. No, I mean, it makes sense. And it’s funny, because when I think about it, when I was going through my teacher credential program, I had a terrible master teacher. And my credential program leader was saying, you know, actually, it’s a blessing that you are seeing in reality what it looks like. You know, you can define yourself in opposition to certain things. I will never talk to the students that way. I would never run my, decorate my classroom in that way, you know? And so it was, it actually helped me to know who I was based on my reactions to that, polarized from what I didn’t want to be. So I think that the anti example is good. And also, it’s just a lot of times, entrepreneurs, we’re codependent. We have these codependent relationships where we want to be everything to everyone, want to say yes to everything. But we have finite resources, team energy, and it depends on if you want breadth or depth. What I’ve seen is the people that focus and go a little bit deeper into their lane, as opposed to trying to cover everything. Get that, you know, the 80 20 rule, the quality over the quantity and deepening that for us. We really, when we launched, were focused on cannabis only, and then the whole Delta eight, delta nine and minor cannabinoid space was taking off. So we refocused on that because people were able to buy millions of units at a time when California was really struggling and just the business wasn’t there. But we didn’t want to let go of our heart, which is the small legacy operators in California and in regulated marijuana THC products. But we were able to have the revenue and the branding and the resources coming in from the hemp side to be able to give us flexible terms and do a little bit more deep dives into that. That THC market where we’re able to do things like for the Emerald cup, we sponsored the legacy area where every farm from every county in California at the Emerald triangle were represented there. And, you know, being able to donate to women’s initiatives and do these things where people see, okay, I spire is showing up for cannabis. Icespire does care about the legacy, and it’s going to be easier for folks who want to work with us and choose that when they see that our values are pointing us to things that aren’t necessarily lucrative right now, that aren’t necessarily going to bring in everything. We’re not going to forget about cannabis just because hemp and nicotine are clearly moving more fast. It’s way less regulations. People are able to, you know, create a lot more revenue more quickly and have been able to drop ship and advertise and bank and do all these things. But to know that we never left that original purpose behind, you know, that’s a huge part of my role as impact officers. How do we show up to help with the social impact elements? How do we help undo the harms of the war on drugs? As we’re out here branding and trying to build this industry, how do we still recognize that things aren’t equal, that women and folks of color and legacy operators are not necessarily accelerating in the same ways that other more resource groups are? And when you show up in that way, it creates camaraderie, loyalty, and respect. Even with our, quote, competitors, we’re very close with other hardware manufacturers because each one delivers a different element. And, you know, we always say, like, no one understands your pain points like your competitors. So we always share ideas. What’s working, what’s not working. How can we be more sustainable? How can we get governments on board with allowing recycling? We have a board of folks that are working on, you know, safer vaping right now that come from across the industry. And we’re on these calls every single week with people that we would consider people in other industries, no one would ever have calls with people for competitors in the same space. So I think that that abundance mindset of it’s not this fight or flight. What can I get for myself? Very selfish scarcity concept. We all are going to be better when we all rise to that cliche. The rising tide raises all boats.
It’s a cliche for a reason because it’s absolutely true. And I think that when times get hard, it’s easy to throw folks under the bus. But if you have these coalitions and you’ve shown up for the community, they’ll come to bat for you. When regulations or some pr crisis or, you know, an issue happens with a client, you know, whether it’s referrals or emotional support or a connection to a good lawyer or, you know, supporting them in a space sharing booth. Having that concept that we’re all working on it together, I think it does translate into the consumer. The consumers can tell when there’s a healthy market that they’re engaging in, when there’s two reps doing, you know, a demo day at the same time and they’re enjoying each other’s company and saying, oh, our product might not work for that, but they have a great CBN product. And seeing that shows that it’s a space that they want to be in. It’s not like a Bev mo where you got the tequila guy and the vodka guy and they’re side eyeing each other and you feel awkward tasting samples from both or something like that. It’s more of a Costco model where you came here for food. We’re all selling food. This guy has the little weenies and this guy has the Mac and cheese. They’re not competing with each other. They’re all there for the plant. They’re all there to try to build the market together. And I think that that does that. That vibe does trickle down into the consumer and it’s really healthy for everyone. We all win when we have this kind of creative, collaborative cooperation. Well, this is an industry that’s unlike many in that there’s a movement at the baseline. We’re talking about a movement. So whether we believe in social equity, access to plant based medicine, whatever it is, more women in the industry, more women as leaders. This industry, well, I love it, of course, but it has everything, whatever. I want to call it, a social ill, but it’s, you know, it’s so multifaceted. So when you’re talking about locking arms with competitors, it’s not because, you know, you’re thinking about acquisition down the road. You’re thinking there is a huge mountain that we have to move not only in the US, but as we enter European markets. I think we’re all, you know, on the sidelines cheering, you know, cheering Wana on.
Wana is stepping pretty big into Switzerland, right? Like we’re all like, you know, do it, like lead the path. We’re going to jump in when we can. We want to support. There’s, there’s a, like I said, there’s a larger mountain. There’s a larger mountain to move. I know. Wana moves to Switzerland. Just twist the knife, Jen.
Let me, I’m gonna share the screen one more time. I wanna jump in. What we’re thinking is also a next phase, too, to kind of move the conversation along. So you’ve got core values, you’ve got your target audience defined and who you’re speaking to and who you aren’t speaking to. That foundational piece is in place, or you have optimized the existing brand, your existing lifestyle brand. The next step is really developing and executing a plan, not only to initially build awareness, eventually build relationships, and ultimately build loyalty. I’m going to break it down a little bit more and then I’d love for you all to jump in again. So when we’re talking about building awareness, there’s a, you know, of course, a go to market strategy. How are you going to introduce your brand to potential customers and consumers? The second piece of that, so let’s say there’s, you know, maybe if there’s a lot of channels, and I’ll speak as the, as the marketer here on this call, there’s a lot of channels you want to put together a marketing mix that isn’t just SEO, pr and social like you. You know, the strategy, building that strategy has to, you have to use just as much brain power as you did when you were defining your core values and your target audience. You know, as you start to build that strategy, the steps to building awareness, growing those folks who are now consumers, now they know who you are now we’re talking about building relationships. How are you going to engage and nurture those customers? Not only to build a, you know, nice relationship. Of course you want to be top of mind, but ultimately the goal here is to build loyalty. So ultimately growing those consumers who have tried your products 1234 or five times, they’re coming in on a regular basis into their local dispensary. Now you want to evolve those folks into brand evangelists who ultimately are doing some of the marketing for you. They’re spreading the word for you. They’re sharing with family and friends a little bit more on, hey, I really love this product. I love this organization. Here’s who’s behind it. Here’s what they’re doing. Here’s how they’re taking a stance within the larger landscape here in the US and beyond. Yeah. So just to kind of give you a couple, you know, here’s where we’re going next in the conversation. Awareness, relationships, loyalty. I’d love to hear from you both in some ways that you guys have built awareness to start or continue to build awareness. I should say it.
I can start with Cookies. Obviously, we’re incredibly blessed because I think Berner has a very big megaphone as it relates to awareness and reaching large audiences. And then, you know, he can also get picked up and we have an earned media muscle that is that, again, that we’re very blessed to have. In terms of building awareness, though, you know, when we talk about our go to market punch list, we are thinking about every channel, right? How are we going to show up on social media? What does that look and feel like? What can we say without getting flagged and taken down? Because we’re part of that call out culture where people definitely love getting Cookies flagged and taken down. So how are you showing up on social media? What is the email going to look like that you’re putting out there? How are you going to talk about it on text? Right? What is the shelf talker? Look for the dispensaries where you’re launching a new product or launching a brand. And retailers in certain markets expect a lot in terms of you showing up on their shelf. They’re going to want training. They’re going to want shelf assets. They might ask you for in store displays. They might ask you for signage. Having that kit, a trademarking kit ready to go is a good way to show up. So think about every channel and then the other way to think about it. Another lens is, you know, we call it kind of like ABC. So that first one is really around consumers. But don’t forget, you have, you know, the accounts that you sell to and the buyers that matter as well. And they make a lot of decisions. So I think you want to think about not just how you’re showing up on the shelf or digitally on social and email, right. But you want to show, you want to think about how you’re going to show up in terms of supporting, supporting the account that you have, supporting the buyers and in addition to like supporting the budtenders and the consumers. So, you know, they’re, you know, every quarter we talk about like what’s the ROI on the product samples that we give out, right. It’s tough. Right. Like I can, I can put an ROI on it, but it, but I cannot really show the value that it gives. If I have a buyer who I’m giving a product to that they’re experiencing themselves and that they can try and then that allows, then that makes them have purchase. Right. And same in the bud tenders. Handing products to bud tenders for them to try and experience is one way to win hearts and minds and they do impact the decisions that customers are making every day. So then that awareness model, I kind of look at it from a channel lens and then also look at it from like who are my key people along the path from seed to sale that I need to win their hearts and minds so that then they’re that evangelist for me. When a consumer walks into a dispensary that I don’t control its operation, that makes a lot, that makes, that makes a lot of sense. And I think it also gives folks some very actionable advice. You know, we’re talking about brands we’re seeing on the marketing side as an agency where in the last, I would say year to 18 months more brands taking marketing into their own hands, not being so not, you know, know, maybe previously they felt somewhat hamstrung by retail, by dispensaries, by bud tenders. So they’re starting to build a CRM with an email list where they’re reaching out directly. And we’re also looking at, you know, Alpine IQ, which has been, you know, that’s one of the platforms that we love using to kind of build loyalty programs for our dispensary clients. They’ve just onboarding a component of their technology software solution specifically around brands. So, you know, giving brands some visibility so you can kind of make some of those, you know, price point decisions. Look at what the audience is doing, have more data at your fingertips all the while you’re building, while you’re building some awareness and actually reaching out to consumers directly. And, you know, we’re again, from the marketing side, we’re seeing that expansion. As I said in the beginning, not a dull day, you know, there’s not a dull day. There’s not a day that this industry doesn’t feel wild, where there’s, there’s increasing innovation, increasing access to data. And to be honest, marketing strategies are also evolving as well.
Lead, Jen, is so important. That’s a good one, too. Jen is. Think about all the opportunities that you have to connect with the customer. Let them be willing to give you their email address and their phone number. That’s a really important piece of, one, getting them into the CRM, and two, getting to know them better. Right? Well, yeah, same thing with trade shows.
Yep. Absolutely. Yeah. Go ahead, Jen.
I mentioned MJUnpacked. If you look at the lineup, the growing lineup of cannabis centric trade shows, events, whether they’re local single day events, multi day events, you know, we’re no longer, we’re no longer beholden to this notion of MJ Biz is the end all, be all trade show. Right? Like there’s, folks are getting creative, budgets are tighter, opportunities are bigger, but you’ve got to be strategic. So when you think about it, again, I call it the marketing mix, but that’s very much a part of it. How are you going to show up? Where are you going to show up? What are you going to actually do?
We look at, to be honest, we’ve got folks, well, specifically on the retail side, let’s say, like in New Jersey, where they are confined to starting off with a single store operation. How they show up in their communities is huge. You know, whether that’s supporting a local five k, if they’re supporting a women’s, you know, a women’s initiative, all of those pieces that, again, goes back to those core values. How are you showing up? How are you getting in front of folks? I’ll see. The other piece of it that we haven’t mentioned yet is there’s so many restrictions, again, this is the marketing lens. There’s so many restrictions. Social talk about shadow bans or municipalities not wanting here in Denver, where we have failed to do a good job of making delivery a reality because municipalities can weigh in and say, we don’t want you trafficking through our neighborhoods. There’s restrictions. We haven’t really covered it. There’s restrictions.
And I want to say, I want to lead us into the next question around pitfalls. I’d love to hear from you. Which big old piles of dog shit have you stepped in or are you avoiding? Can we go there?
Well, for us, definitely the vape bands suck, to your point. There’s a lot of ignorance and fear. And I always joke we’re in the business of doing no business. So we have the beauty of being able to not really touch the plant because we are ancillary. So being ancillary, that means that we can bank, we can advertise, and, you know, it’s, it’s great for us to be able to, you know, do as much as we can, word of mouth and trade shows and showing up in the space and trying to, you know, market as directly as, as we can. But really working around the PMTA and the pact act has been very challenging for us because it is very fear based. It is something that is hyper regulated because of bad actors in the space who have made it hard for us. So it’s a lot of lobbying. I’ve been to DC and Sacramento in the past month really pushing for these changes and continuing on this educational push. That’s part of why we’re creating a coalition of vape manufacturers, so that we can regulate our own safety standards because they’re not giving us any. It is a big pile of poop. But at the same time, we’re into cannabis. We’re used to having blockages and obstacles and challenges. We are the pivot kings and queens. We can do it if anyone can do it.
True. I agree with that kind of thing, I always say, like, we can talk about the regulatory headache, but then on the other side of that coin is an opportunity for us to think of something through a new lens. So I think that’s a really important piece on the regulatory side, on the pitfall side, Jen. And just another example of even after, like, let’s say you build your brand and you’re really good at x, y or z, right? Again, just remembering that it’s not as simple as copy paste. Right? Like, I think cookies traditionally have been known for flour, right? Okay. We’re going to expand into vapes and everything’s going to go perfectly. That’s it. It’s not that easy, right? It’s like we’re going to launch a gummies line and everyone’s going to buy it. Not that easy. Right? So I think it’s like even after you’ve built a brand and even after becoming part of someone’s lifestyle on a daily basis, reminding yourself whether it’s expanding into a new category, open in a new market, whatever that growth may be, that you need to still kind of go back, do the discovery, do the homework, go back to your core values.
Think about how you know, how do Cookies show up in the vapes category? That was last year. We really spent, actually going back two years, really spent a lot of time on that and got it right. But that’s after we went into it, didn’t see the growth we expected, thought, you know, kind of did what we thought was going to be okay enough to get into vapes, and it wasn’t. Right. It’s like we really had to come back to our roots. How, what do we stand for? We do stand for, like, setting the trends. Right. So what we needed to do in vapes is set a trend that’s kind of like where the idea for the dual chamber came in and then that is what resonated and lifted our entire vapes category up in the state of California. And now I’m frantically trying to get that product line into as many markets as I can. Right. So I think it’s kind of like, again, you can’t just control what you’re good at even after you’ve defined it. Right. You have to kind of go back, spend time on the discovery, remember what you stand for. And when you’re extending into new markets or new categories, take the time to do the extra work around it. Absolutely. Yep. I’m curious. I’m curious, though. So you all are part of a large organization for those who are part of a smaller organization, how is it that, how is it that someone gets buy-in from leadership to do the work, to actually be strategic about building a lifestyle brand? What are those steps? I mean, show them examples of ones who didn’t and what happened to them? I mean, what’s a better case study than that? It’s like, you think it’s not important. Look at X, Y and Z, who didn’t build that? I mean, I don’t want to name any names, but we’ve seen ones that came out with a big bang, big marketing budget, and they missed the mark. And they, you know, some of us in smaller organizations, we looked and we’re like, with that budget, what we could have done, what they did, and you look back and you’re like, wow, they really weren’t listening. You know, some huge retailers that have recently gone bankrupt, every real people in the space knew there was something a little off about that. They didn’t really speak to the people. They didn’t really take care of their employees. They didn’t really embed themselves in the culture in authentic ways. And there are real proof of concept out there of if you don’t I mean, not to come from the fear mongering place, but there’s enough, you know, like I say, love is lucrative, but if that’s not enough of an argument, you know, not having it, look what happens when you don’t have that basis behind you. So that’s how I would, you know, when you’re doing these audits, what, what hasn’t worked, and use that as a guide as to what to avoid and why it is so important to have that authenticity.
I love that. I love the notion of listening, listening to the consumer, listening to the industry, looking at what competitors are doing. But there’s, you know, there’s a, I don’t know, maybe it’s a, maybe it’s an ego component, right? Like, we know what we’re going to do, we know what we’re good at, we’re going forward, and, you know, this is the strategy. Like, that never works when your fingers are in your ears and you’re not, you’re not talking. I think that’s what’s so valuable about trade shows as well, or getting in front of, you know, vendor days at dispensaries, talking to, talking to bud tenders, talking to, talking, talking, stopping, and then taking your finger out of your ear and actually listening. And ideally maybe even data collection, too, like having a little iPad where, you know, to Sarah’s question, what kind of questions are you asking us? We’ll ask what kinds of hardware, what kind of formulations are interested in, and then ranking them. What is most important to you? Do you want a high THC? Are you, you know, and giving, giving them kind of the broad spectrum of what they could have and then letting them choose, enforce, ranking them. So actually collecting that data. So at a trade show, we had 200 people that showed interest. My team’s not going to remember 200 conversations. So taking the hand, the finger out of the ear and putting it onto a, putting it onto a keyboard really helps, because to your point, Jen, about how do you push this with, with higher ups, or how do you get team buy in? It’s not emotional, it’s not what Luna thinks. It’s the 200 people that we talked to this weekend at this trade show that said we’re seeing 80% of them want, you know, minor cannabinoid ratios. We weren’t even thinking about that without that little sample, without asking the right questions and telling them, you know, these are the things we can do. How, how important are each of these? That’s the move. I’m almost gonna, I’m almost gonna shed a tear at that statement about taking the emotion out of it. We’re talking about, you know, business strategy maturity. Business maturity. All those, all those components that we want to apply from other industries to better legitimize this one. You know, bring your, bring your, you know, your structure and your muscles and your stamina, all those in your experience into this, into this space and help grow it.
You know, do you know, we’re talking about doing your part not only for your organization, but we stand to win as an industry. When you step forth in such a way that’s going to actually grow it in the right direction. I want to, I want to be mindful of time. I don’t ever want this conversation to end because I love talking to you both. I do want to say if you, if, if you’re on this webinar right now and you want us as a hybrid to take a look at your brand, take a look at your strategy, my team is more than happy to jump on a call. My email is here. Jen@hybridmarketingco.com reached out to me. I’ll set you up with both our creative director and our content director.
They’re going to sit down with you and ask some of the big questions, really do an audit of how you’re looking and feeling to consumers now and then ask some of those big questions that we’re talking about. I also want to say, take a moment right now. Get onto LinkedIn. Please follow Crystal. Please follow Luna.
Engage in conversation with them. Like I said at the beginning, these are the superheroines of the industry. I love you both dearly. I appreciate the work that you’re doing. I appreciate so much how you show up, not only for the organizations that you work with and for, but in the industry. You’re huge. You’re huge. And I’m, and I’m grateful. Yeah, feel free to send us emails. Give us a call, too, please. Yes. We’re here for you. It doesn’t have to be on this webinar. This is part of what we’re here for is we’re here to support each other. We are one of the only industries I’ve ever worked in.
And even when I was a teacher, teachers wouldn’t share curriculum with each other, which is literally survival tactics for children to build literacy and they wouldn’t collaborate. So, and other industries I’ve been in, that is just, you never see this kind of collective, you know, information sharing. So I really appreciate Jen for having us because this really shows how much we care about this and to your point, you said, this is a movement. This was a movement first, before it was an industry, and we cannot lose sight of that. And we’ve always supported each other. We’ve always shared seeds, shared genetics, shared cultivation practices, shared manufacturing equipment, shared distro licenses. We’re not going to stop now just because it’s becoming more commercialized. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, thank you all. Thank you both for taking some time out of your day to chat with me on the bigger questions. Thank you all to those who joined us for spending some time with me and these ladies as well. Have a wonderful rest of the day, rest of the week. Keep in contact with us. Reach out to us. We want it. We want to grow it, like I said, in the right direction. Much love.
