As marijuana becomes more acceptable and its consumer base grows, companies are aiming for prestige
Despite being expensive and sometimes rare, cannabis isn’t typically considered a luxury good. It’s too closely associated with slovenly, underperforming young men to convey wealth or style. But as cannabis becomes more acceptable and the consumer base grows to include more women and affluent professionals, some companies are aiming to become prestige brands.
With limited opportunities to advertise, packaging is one of the few ways a brand can catch a customer’s eye. It’s also how aspiring top-shelf brands signal their ambitions. California’s Canndescent, which calls itself “ultra-premium”, uses a burnt orange motif in a nod to the French fashion house Hermes. Another California brand, Beboe, was co-founded by a celebrity tattoo artist, Scott Campbell, and its pastille edibles – “candy tarts of bouginess” – come in lovely little tins. Many dispensaries try to attract affluent shoppers by fashioning themselves after art galleries and boutiques.
There’s a lot of money betting similar principles will apply to cannabis. Beboe was acquired this year by Green Thumb Industries, a company in Chicago. CannDescent just raised $27.5m from investors.
Some cannabis companies telegraph their chicness by hugging the earth as tightly as possible. As a federally illegal drug, cannabis can’t be certified organic by the US government, but the Colorado company L’Eagle (pronounced “legal”) pays an independent firm to audit the crop it sells at its dispensary, which its co-owner Amy Andrle describes as more farm-to-table than Apple Store. The company offers “the luxury of knowing what you’re putting in your body”, she said, not just “a beautiful box”.
It’s a pitch with obvious appeal for what the industry likes to call a “wellness” product. And it may grow in resonance. In recent weeks, hundreds across the US have become severely ill and six have died from a severe respiratory disease that may be linked to vaping.
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Barney’s has also formed a partnership with Sherbinski’s, a California cannabis company which, thanks to its ties to rappers and other tastemakers, has a mystique similar to the streetwear brand Supreme.
The cannabis jewelry line Genifer M, which styles pieces shaped like cannabis leaves, recently made its New York fashion week debut at a show put on by designer Korto Momolu, who’s best known from Project Runway.
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While luxury products will probably find some foothold, one entrepreneur expressed skepticism that the existing brands would be the eventual winners. Jason Osni likened luxury brands in the current market to “casting Daniel Day Lewis in a high school musical”. Instead he founded a more affordable brand called “Old Pal”, which he describes as appealing and within reach. The company’s vision is simple, its web site says: “It’s just weed, man.”
SOURCE: This article was written by Alex Halperin and first appeared on The Guardian.
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