Marijuana Business Magazine March 2020

Marijuana Business Magazine | March 2020 64 brand and communications for GCH, a cannabis consumer products company founded by Willie Nelson that owns and operates the Willie’s Remedy and Willie’s Reserve brands. “You have to translate aspects of a person’s life into your product. You want to respect the artistry and, in his case, 80 years of history.” When Hogan sat down with Nelson at his kitchen table in 2014, he outlined four directives that have guided how GCH promotes the brands: • Keep top of mind people who are in jail for cannabis-related crimes. • Remember that cannabis is a crop that has the same environmental and agricultural issues other crops have. • Cannabis is a medicine, so it’s criti- cal that patients have access to it. • Personal freedom. “His point of view has always been that this is a plant, and this is my body, and I can do whatever I want with a plant and my body—it’s a right,” Hogan said. “That was the first way he shaped the brand.” Nelson also has collaborated with fellow Farm Aid benefit concert artists to release their cannabis collections on the Willie’s Reserve label. Nashville singer-songwriter Margo Price debuted the All American Made Collection at the Emerald Cup in Santa Rosa, California, in December 2018, and Denver rock band Nathaniel Rateliff &The Night Sweats launched the Nightstache Collection before sold-out shows at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado last August. Willie’s Reserve also offered a strain grown by Humboldt, California-based Catalyst Unlimited that was named in honor of Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real. (Lukas is one of Willie Nelson’s sons.) “I think artist brands and all celebrity brands are having a positive impact on the space,” Hogan said. “It’s meaningful to farmers in California that Willie Nelson is in this business, because he’s been getting weed off them forever. It penetrates different barriers.” Washington DC-based Holistic Industries, a vertically integrated multistate purveyor of both medical and adult-use marijuana, will debut the Jerry Garcia cannabis collection later this year. Holistic will develop all aspects of the new brand—including products and accessories—in partnership with Jerry Garcia Family, a company run by the late musician’s daughter, Trixie Garcia. Holistic views the partnership as an opportunity to honor the late musician’s legacy. Holistic Industries Chief Marketing Officer Kyle Barich said partnering with celebrities is effective because they’ve already found ways to connect with people. While Holistic Industries had been approached by more than a dozen celebrities, it turned them down because not all public figures would be authentic to the brand, Barich said. But Garcia, who played lead guitar and sang for the Grateful Dead, was a no-brainer. “Bob Marley, Willie Nelson, Snoop Dogg and Jerry Garcia are the Mount Rushmore of cannabis,” said Barich, who spent more than 20 years running adver- tising agencies in the pharmaceutical and health-care space and brought Viagra to market for Pfizer. While cannabis is still somewhat taboo, attaching a well-known name helps the public warm to the idea, much like when former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole helped Pfizer change the conversation about Viagra from impotency, which men refused to talk about, to erectile dysfunction. “Twenty years later, if a guy has this problem, it’s not a big deal—he says ED,” Barich said. SKIN IN THE GAME While many celebrities partner with businesses in name only, others are deeply—even financially—involved with cannabis companies. Mike Dirnt, co-founder and bassist for rock band Green Day, invested an undisclosed sum in Santa Cruz, California-based marijuana and hemp grower Goldenseed and has been closely involved on the creative side of the business by helping with branding, promotional ideas and social media, said Scott Goldie, the company’s founder and CEO. “He’s very hands-on with us,” Goldie said. “Mike has about 700,000 followers on Instagram. If he posts, we pick up 700 to 1,000 followers. He helps us promote and gives us visibility.” Dirnt said he chose Goldenseed over other cannabis companies because of its commitment to honoring the past and future of the cannabis plant. “They treat organics like a religion at Goldenseed,” Dirnt said. “They share their knowledge of sustainable farming and respect the industry as a whole.” Another celebrity who’s hands-on is San Francisco Bay Area rapper and Cookies cannabis retail owner Berner, who teamed up with Culver City, California- based Ronin Content Services to launch Social Club TV, a streaming service that features shows such as “Marijuana Mania,” “HighTech” and “Pot Pie.” “Having a celebrity as your partner can be very beneficial because people are already tuning into that person,” Ronin CEO Josh Otten said. It’s critical that companies understand who their target audience is before ap- proaching a celebrity about a partnership, and it’s important that the celebrity is involved in the business, Otten said. “I’ve talked to celebrities who want to find a brand that’s willing to license their name and put it on a box and pay a royalty,” Otten said. “That doesn’t add enough value to build an entire brand if they’re going to be passive and not an active player.” & Marketing Art of The Branding Mike Dirnt Courtesy Photo