When you ask someone about their favourite beer, chances are they’ll offer a brand name: Corona for the beach, Bud Light on game day. These products are all built, branded, and marketed with a consumer experience in mind. They don’t boast about their alcohol content, or the amount of carbonation in their beverage. Rather, they sell on values and lifestyle. This is the hallmark of a mature industry such as beer, wine and spirits.
While this might be the case in alcohol, it is not in cannabis. Through the first year of legalization in Canada, cannabis consumers have been presented with a range of products that appear to be largely the same, due to retail constraints and staying onside with Canada’s strict marketing regulations.
Ask a producer, and they’ll likely say the best-selling products in 2019 had higher than 20 per cent THC, showed cosmetically large buds, and had a great terpene profile. While the seasoned cannabis consumer may understand and differentiate between these attributes, attempts to establish brands based on plant science concepts such as cannabinoids or genetics are not easily understood by a new one.
That’s like a booze marketer claiming that a product’s alcohol percentage is its brand. Attribute-based marketing has done little to capture consumer recognition, drive repeat purchases and build brand loyalty. The result is a market full of homogenous-seeming offerings with little differentiation.
The similarities between products also gives the illusion that the market is saturated. While this might have been the case in the dried flower category, I expect this to change with the newer edible and concentrate products. It will be crucial that companies differentiate their brands to break out and capture consumer mindshare. This will give cannabis consumers more choice in both the brands they use and the way these brands are presented to them. The goal here is to build loyalty through repeat purchases from repeat customers.
One of the most significant changes consumers might see is a shift toward niche products that fill gaps left by mass market products. These brands focus on specific demographics or are designed to suit specific use cases, such as inducing sleep, sports recovery, or enabling creativity — a marketing strategy prohibited by the Cannabis Act, but with words like “Awaken” and “Calm” replacing street strain names on some products, perhaps that is one way forward.
In Canada, we’re already seeing cannabis being used as an ingredient. In October 2019, Canopy Growth bought a majority share in BioSteel Sports, a sports recovery drink company. With professional sports leagues evaluating policies around cannabis use, infused products could become a staple in sports recovery routines.
In the U.S., where looser marketing regulations give cannabis companies, these niche brands are gaining traction. For example, Dreamt is a vape pen that brands itself as a “science-backed sleep aid made with cannabis.” Budtenders might direct customers to a strain that could help, but Dreamt is purportedly designed to induce deep sleep in line with the body’s natural cycles with a combination of melatonin, valerian root, cannabinoid distillate and terpenes. The company’s website doesn’t try to educate the customer about cannabis – it is simply one of many ingredients in this sleep aid.
Dankr.ca – Your Toronto Connection
