DO CELEBRITY MARIJUANA BRANDS MATTER? SNOOP DOGG LAUNCHES GROUND-BREAKING MARIJUANA BRAND: “LEAFS BY SNOOP”
Original Post Date: October 10, 2015 | Rebrandingcannabis.com
By Claire Grusin Kaufmann
Recently the Cannabist announced that Snoop Dogg launched his exclusive cannabis brand “Leafs by Snoop,” at a private event held in the Denver area. And while other celebrities have products in the works, (i.e. Bob Marley’s Marley Naturals and Willie Nelson’s Willie’s Reserve,) Snoop Dogg is the first A-list celebrity to officially launch a self-branded line targeted at the recreational market.
The brand was launched in a limited-time exclusiverelationship with LivWell, one of the largest dispensary operators and cultivators in Colorado. “Leafs By Snoop” cannabis products are made under a Colorado marijuana license belonging to Beyond Broadway, which does business as LivWell and will grow all of the brand’s flower and manufacture its edibles and concentrates.”
So, not only are we seeing the emergence of celebrity marijuana brands, we are seeing these brands forge strategic partnerships with dispensaries and processors. When they expand to new states, how will that work I wonder?
But the question remains, do celebrity brands matter? Beyond the ratings gold and the very obvious cache, what exactly is the point? Celebrities have long been apart of creating branded products, mostly seen in clothing lines, beauty products, or event restaurants. But is celebrity endorsement necessary to sell a product that sells itself? In that vain, does marketing any marijuana product matter at all? If the product consistently sells out no matter what, then maybe it is premature to call for the development offull fledged cannabis brands?
I would argue that we are really four to five years away from seeing brands actually matter. Until flower doesn’t sell out at 100% then I don’t really see the point (and this coming from someone who has studying cannabis branding for quite some time.) I can see ancillary products (i.e. the Firefly and Pax for example,) being far more brand sensitive than flower.
Another concern no one is talking about is liability. In an industry still struggling with potency and consistency, the right place for celebrities to be endorsing products? While I think it is compelling that Snoop got to market first and while I think celebrity-endorsed cannabis brands are interesting, I’m not completely convinced they are necessary–at least not yet
In 2023, it turns out celebrity cannabis brand still don’t matter much, and only a handful of the original brands are still thriving.
One of the core issues is that many of celebrities partnered with growers and then didn’t closely manage the process after that. For that reason, many many celebrity cannabis brands experienced inconsistencies in quality and struggled to retain customer loyalty over time.
In the CBD space, in the last few years we saw Martha Stewart launch her own CBD brand, “Martha.” It launched with strong brand awareness, but failed to gain loyalty for the same reason many CBD brands did - the delay of benefits made generating loyalty nearly impossible.
Willie’s Reserve is one flower brand that still does have a strong reputation, mostly because rumor has it that Willie has been more involved with the product development itself. I think his attention to the project resulted in better products and a solid launch overall. Cookies is the other “celebrity” cannbis brand monopolizing on the rapper persona of company founder Berner. Cookies has also been successful because it invested in brick and mortar retail, enabling them more control over their costs throughout the supply chain. (But mark my words, Cookies is in for a bump ride. For the same reason we don’t seee Vodka brands called Cupcakes, nor a cigarette brand called Candy Canes, the company Cookies will be bogged down with so much litigation. Maybe they should just change the “s” to a “z?”.