Marijuana Business Magazine March 2020

Marijuana Business Magazine | March 2020 70 & Marketing Art of The Branding Jann Parish joined Green Growth Brands, a vertically integrated multi- state THC and CBD company based in Ohio, after years in the fashion industry. She was responsible for developing branding strategies for Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger and, most recently, Victoria’s Secret. How has your fashion industry experience helped you brand Green Growth Brands? There are some similarities in that you’re looking to acquire and retain customers. And those universal truths are: • How the brand makes you feel. • The values that it possesses. • What elements about the brand are attractive to you and how you relate to them. What people who’ve come out of CPG or fashion retail know how to do is talk to the customer. Advocacy in the fashion space is typically about building your tribe. It’s about people who are like-minded. I’ve found the cannabis space to be one that requires that sense of com- munity and that sense of advocacy. How do you get consumers to open their wallets for your brand? Identification. Take 8Fold, which belonged to The Source and which we acquired when we acquired The Source. It was their open-price-point product. We wanted to keep the price point because it was very accessible, and we wanted to make it stand out from the rest of its competition. As an example, we created a summer line, and each product told the story around that. Or in fall, we had Tailgate. When holidays came around for 8Fold, we had products that spoke to that moment in time, too. They were giftable. That has at- tracted a whole new customer where one didn’t exist before. That kind of goes back to that idea of what CPG and fashion retail executives can bring to the table—storytelling and some additional color. What would you say to those who believe companies should focus on price rather than branding? Our moniker at The Source is “best flower, best price.” The customer is very aware of price—and, of course, they want the best possible deal—but that is no different than any other consumer category out there. It’s no different than fashion or toothpaste, for that matter. What I will say about branding and this space is once upon a time the soft drink industry was nascent, the bottled water industry was nascent. Branding is what sets them apart. How do you do consumer research? The first thing you do is develop a loyalty platform. Understanding what your consumers are buying and when they’re buying it is the biggest piece of that. It’s probably too soon for syndicat- ed research and large-scale studies, given the state-by-state challenges. Research is possible with the cus- tomer base you have today. Loyalty (programs) can give you a back view of where marketing strategy has been effective, trend spotting, talking to the customer as to why they don’t buy something—that’s going to be what you can use in the near term. What about reaching out directly to customers? The biggest piece of research for us are these conversations we have with consumers who come to our educational seminars and the store. The relationships that customers develop with your sales associate or budtender are also really important. A lot of what we do is listening to our sales associates and hearing what they have to say. One of the things we also do—particularly with our CBD brands—we’ll approach a customer as they shop, talk to them and then get their feedback. We’re not in a retail or CPG space yet where we can have really defined methodologies. What we’re relying on is the early adopter and new customer feedback about products and service. (These interviews have been edited for length and clarity.) JANN PARISH CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER, GREEN GROWTH BRANDS, COLUMBUS, OHIO Jann Parish Courtesy Photo