Branding Your Business and Crafting Your Story in the Cannabis Industry

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Until a few years ago, most cannabis brands weren’t especially sophisticated. However, this is no longer the case. If you’ve ever seen legal cannabis products in a store, you must have noticed how cool, modern and beautiful they look. Of course, this is the result of an extensive creative branding process.

“One thing I noticed from the latest cannabis conventions and events is that the branders are finally starting to arrive at cannabis; the quality of trade show materials, logos, packaging, the positioning of these companies is unbelievable,” Civilized’s Derek Riedle points out. “As things continue to evolve, you can tell there’s a lot more careful and professional consideration going into how these brands are positioned and communicated.”

“In such a stigmatized industry, it’s very important to have very clean branding and marketing material,” Avicanna’s Aras Azadian adds.

“I think that one of the hardest things for people to wrap their heads around is that branding isn’t a logo. The logo is like the execution of the brand, but the brand is basically the thought or feeling you want people to have when they think about your product or your name,” J. J. Kaye, cofounder of design consulting firm High Pressure Zone, says. “Most customers in the cannabis industry won’t have a deep knowledge of the qualitative difference between brands. So the way to differentiate yourself is to craft a strong story around your brand and show the consumer how your product is going to fit into his or her life.

“Bad branding is just yelling at the customer: Look at me, look at me!” Kaye adds. “Good branding, instead, is a little more patient; it creates curiosity and invites people to explore more and understand more.”

Below is a list of the top priorities when you create a brand, regardless of what you sell: