The cannabis 2.0 way to brand building In the early days of cannabis, most companies built their brands backward. Most brands failed to gain traction because they were launched without a targeted market. Kieve Huffman is the CEO of Engager Brands has a lot of experience building brands, he joins Dan Humiston to share their secret to brand building success. He explains why creating brands specifically designed for the underserved and over-indexed communities is the best way to build brand loyalty. Produced by PodConx MJBulls - https://podconx.com/podcasts/raising-cannabis-capital Dan Humiston - https://podconx.com/guests/dan-humiston Engager Brands - https://www.engagerbrands.com/ Kieve Huffman - https://podconx.com/guests/kieve-huffman
The cannabis 2.0 way to brand building
In the early days of cannabis, most companies built their brands backward. Most brands failed to gain traction because they were launched without a targeted market. Kieve Huffman is the CEO of Engager Brands has a lot of experience building brands, he joins Dan Humiston to share their secret to brand building success. He explains why creating brands specifically designed for the underserved and over-indexed communities is the best way to build brand loyalty.
MJBulls - https://podconx.com/podcasts/raising-cannabis-capital
Dan Humiston - https://podconx.com/guests/dan-humiston
Engager Brands - https://www.engagerbrands.com/
Kieve Huffman - https://podconx.com/guests/kieve-huffman
Dan Humiston: [00:00:00] Today on MJ bulls, we are joined by Keith Hoffman, the CEO at engage your brands, Keith, welcome to the show.
Kieve Huffman: Thanks, Dan. Thanks for having me here.
Dan Humiston: It's really great to have you. And we were talking before we jumped on. I am super excited to have an opportunity to talk to somebody.
About one of my favorite topics brand building with someone who's generally recognized as an expert, as a co-founder of prohibited, you raise the bar on what was possible in cannabis and not just possible, but was necessary for building brands in cannabis. I want to kick things off, maybe discussing the challenges of building a brand in cannabis.
Why have so many so-called brand building experts left the industry with their tail between their legs.
Kieve Huffman: That's interesting. I mean, it's not just in brand building, but you know, across the board, I've seen a lot of executives come in, especially during the rush of 2018 when all the money was flushed in and. Some CMOs and chief brand officers like running out the [00:01:00] door screaming because they couldn't use their same toolkit,
, which is available to them in any other industry. Because in cannabis, , as we all know there are a lot of different restrictions and hurdles and bars that you have to jump through. And so I think that's, that's a big reason why, a lot of people leave the industry is because, Hey, you know what?
We can't build a brand buying ads on Facebook or a Google. We can't, you they'll leverage a lot of the same. Platforms and it requires you to actually be a lot more creative, cause you kind of have to think outside the box to really build a brand. And that's not everyone's comfort zone, right?
Like I think the people that have kind of ended up gravitating and sticking it out in this industry are the people who are, obviously they're the true believers in, what the industry can become, but they also are the ones , that like to try to figure. How to, push the envelope and figure out what's next.
, and carved their own trail. And that's kind of what we were trying to do at prohibited was [00:02:00] just like, Hey, you know what, when we started that company back in 2015 the content and the brands were pretty horrible, I mean, there's still some work that needs to be done, but it's come a long way, in that, six, seven years.
Dan Humiston: Yeah. I think I would have called this cannabis 1.0, a lot of the brands I think came at it backwards. They're like, we're going to throw out our brand and then we're going to find the audience Tony on fate in order to make that work, it's gotta be luck.
If that happens, I think to create a brand you really gotta, go after , the audience that you want and build the brand. According to that, do you see that changing in cannabis? 2.0.
Kieve Huffman: We're certainly trying to help lead the charge on that. I do see that's the path forward to success because that's what works in every other industry in the world. It's like, you generally go, okay, who is our audience? And then let's build backwards from that and figure out what products make sense for them and how we're going to reach that audience , and look, it's [00:03:00] understandable, right?
Like, because of the fragment. Ways that this industry has had to roll out the fact that there's no interstate commerce, by the nature of what you're doing, you are limited to the audience that you can market to, which is a very localized audience. There's a little bit.
Fresher there because just getting your product on the shelves is really the most important thing, versus building a brand. But for any of the brands that are going to have longevity and I, and I do see the 2.0 is where this is starting to happen and will continue to happen. Are the brands that are.
With an audience in mind from the start that build an authentic connection to that audience and build brand loyalty, because I think we were talking a little bit about this earlier, Dan it's like, in, in any other industry, like people like. Kind of go into the store already knowing what they want.
They're like, I'm a, I'm a Nike guy or I'm a I, I'm an apple guy or whatever it may be. And all of the hard [00:04:00] work was done, before to build up that brand affinity and that brand loyalty. And we haven't really seen a lot of that yet in cannabis. And so, Yeah.
so I, I really do think that 2.0 is we're going to start to begin to see some of that.
I also hope more brands start to be created, not only from an aspect of like who is the target audience, but. With the national and or international audience in mind from the outset. Because this is going to open up right in the brands that are going to win are going to be the ones that have a more universal appeal.
To that target audience . I say that we create brands that are going to travel well. Right? Because it's like this audience exists everywhere and it's very easy for them to understand. It's very easy for a retailer to understand like, oh Yeah. , we have these people in our community, so I, I do think that you're right.
It's a 2.0, and I've heard some people call this 3.0 cannabis. I don't know what, what [00:05:00] 0.0 it is, but regardless we've, we're entering a new phase, especially coming out of the pandemic. , and I, and.
Dan Humiston: Well, Let's talk about engage a brand you're building brands from specific communities that have been overlooked, the sort of the white space within the industry. Tell us how, tell us some of the targeted areas that you're focusing on right now.
Kieve Huffman: Sure. So I'll give you a little bit of insight into, in how we approach deciding what what brand we're going to launch. So, we look at what we consider to be an underserved audience that doesn't really have , any brands within the cannabis. Specifically targeting them.
And then we kind of overlay that with do they over-index and consumption right now? Just those two things. And then you could put about, I'd say probably 30 or 40 of those onto a dark word and, , shoot a dart at it.
And you got an opportunity for a white space. And so our first [00:06:00] brand is a brand called heavy grass. But it's going after the hard rock, heavy metal audience. There's no other brand in cannabis. That's targeting that audience. There's, 28 million hard rock, heavy metal fans in the us alone.
25% of them. Consume I think that's probably low, it's about $1.5 billion market opportunity, right? And it's kinda crazy. We're the only brand that's actually going after this because maybe it's not considered to be cool or, or whatever, but, Hey, I'll take uncool and being, the 800 pound gorilla in a targeted niche.
Dan Humiston: Sure
And, we talked a minute goal about how difficult it is to advertise in how you gotta think outside the box. You got to skin the cat a different way, and you guys are doing some creative stuff. And the community that you've gone to has helped dictate some of those ideas.
Maybe explain some of the more creative methods of marketing that you're using to get to this community.[00:07:00]
Kieve Huffman: Sure. this community very much is about going out to concerts and festivals and being with others that, are like-minded that , love the same music. And obviously during COVID, it was. Challenging for us to do this in the same way that we're able to now start to do with this year.
But for instance, so we have this van , we call the van axle roads and it's just this tricked out like early nineties van that. Which shag carpeting and put metal posters up inside. And we've got an Nintendo machine in there and the stereo and a smoke machine. And we can take that out on the road with us.
And people just gravitate towards it. And that's that's one example of, of an innovative way, when will take that to the festivals, we'll take that to outside the concerts. We also will take that to dispensary's. , it speaks to the lifestyle and it's authentic, and people love it.
And, [00:08:00] those are the kind of. Marketing activities that you have to come up with that are a little bit unique. It's going to where the people already are, right. , that you're targeted. Versus just trying to blast out a TV campaign or just a, a Google campaign And, let's face it cannabis and music they're experiential.
. And so, you need to be where these people are experiencing them usually together. At a lot of these concerts,
Dan Humiston: Yeah. And you're the only one there too, because it's not like you're bud and bud Lite and Coors Lite and Coors all trying to get to that same. You're the only guy there targeting these markets.
Kieve Huffman: Yeah, it's pretty incredible. , I remember one of the first times that , we took axle on the road and we had an activation and , we've gone into other states that aren't even legal states sometimes because we do sell other things, we sell them, apparel, merge, accessories, cause we're all about building the lifestyle.
[00:09:00] And so. Anything that we want to present, fits that lifestyle need, then we're out there. So we were actually at a con out a festival in North Carolina of all places. We had the longest line out of any of the other tents there for the entire show. And we had people literally crying, saying I have been waiting for.
A brand to come and speak to me, and it was like, or I've got, my sister's got, such and such an ailment and the only thing that helps her as cannabis and the fact that you're a cannabis brand that speaks to her and her lifestyle, this is so inspirational.
And like, when are you coming to North Carolina?
Dan Humiston: Oh, that's way. Cool. That is way cool. We won't have time to talk about this, but I'm just thinking licensing. There's all kinds of opportunities there. Just go on and on and on. Let's talk about raising money. I know you did a ton of raising when you were at prohibited.
So you have a lot of experience behind this. Will you be raising any money to fund , this growth[00:10:00] of engaging.
Kieve Huffman: We will, we raised some money. It was more of a, a pre-seed sort of friends and family around. We did have some institutional early stage cannabis investors come on board that have been incredibly helpful. And that was to allow us to get. These first two brands. So we have heavy grass, which is the metal brand.
And then we have brand that we're just now launching called neon roots, which is focused on the electronic dance music and rave scene. Completely different audience, completely different product sets. But we're going to be now raising some additional capital to Take these brands outside of California, because right now for the THC products that we're offering, we're only in California market.
And , we're getting a lot of inbound interests because we have such active Instagram followings, and we're known as the. The hard rock brand, for heavy, you know that. And so people are going, Hey, we've got a lot of metal heads, can you come to our state? [00:11:00] And so in order to be able to to support that expansion we're going to be raising some additional.
Dan Humiston: Oh, man, that's exciting. I'll have all of engage your brand's information in the show notes. So if you're interested in learning more about the investment opportunities, or if you're interested in maybe helping them get into other states, I'm sure somebody from their team will be happy to talk to you.
And, and Let's see where this goes. It's been great. Getting to know you. I so enjoyed this conversation. Like I said, I love talking branding with an expert in a, it's a great opportunity for me to pick somebody's brain. So thanks for doing this today.
Kieve Huffman: Absolutely. I really enjoyed it, Dan, and , happy to talk anytime.