I help companies in Cannabis & Psychedelics reach key decision-makers and investors at scale—through the combination of Highly Capitalized Network + LinkedIn.
Where are the Cannabis #marketers? I recently attended CannMed24 in Florida. As a former marketing guy from Procter & Gamble, I was crying marketing ''nerd tears'' over the amount of amazing #innovation on display😭. But a startling realization hit me: there were no Cannabis #marketing professionals present. There were amazing #leaders at the forefront of #RandD in Cannabis. Like Dr Ethan Russo, MD, Dr. Bonni Goldstein MD, and major companies like Advanced Nutrients, Trulieve and Cookies—but not much #commercialization. It was an ''Ah Ha'' moment. I realized that's probably why so many Cannabis products I saw at Hall of Flowers are basically all the #same. Flower is flower, vape oil is vape oil, edibles just edible etc. Only differentiation is through brand identity or #nonsensical THC levels. There's a huge #disconnect between R&D & consumer engagement. For example: -->There's no groups (that I know of at least) conducting regular, #qualitative insight focus groups with consumers in Cannabis except for one or two agencies (e.g. omnibus consumer #insights). -->There's no groups regularly fielding #quantitative needs-based market #segmentation, habits & practices, or satisfaction/dissatisfaction studies to understand the market's consumer groups & market's Jungian #archetypes. One moment really stood out to me. There was a #poster on a tripod showing research proving high bio-availble-CBD cures #restlessleg syndrome. (I looked it up: a condition affecting 29 million Americans). Yet, no one is commercializing this life-changing product to the standards it deserves. Imagine if even half of these #sufferers spent $200 a year on effective medical CBD products. (I added that up: $2.9 billion in annual revenue). Thinking about my experience at Procter & Gamble, where we pushed, harassed, #tortured and browbeat R&D teams to #innovate billion-dollar ideas, it was shocking to see so many R&D people and their innovations at CannMed24 just lying around.... with #few poised to reach the market effectively. I counted at least 7, billion-dollar ideas (as seen through a P&G lens). At P&G, we not only developed but also #commercialized innovative ideas, turning them into billion-dollar products. For example, P&G found the psyllium-based supplement market growing at 7.3% CAGR to reach US$3 Billion by 2033 & #positioned brand Metamucil to ride that #wave. At CannMed24, there were plenty of investors and plenty of innovations, but not many people who could apply the science to #commercialize these ideas. We need to #bridge this gap between groundbreaking research and commercialization to truly realize the potential of Cannabis science. I can’t wait for CannMed25! Ultimately, we'll only succeed when we can #apply the science to our product development. But most marketers are more interested in #SEO than Science. Indeed, whoever wins in the coming years in Cannabis, will have understood & mastered the #appliance of the science in #Cannabis
Amna Shamim
6mo
Cannabis companies are notorious for not valuing marketing properly. I've spoken with so many companies with great products who are spending all their budget on R&D or incremental improvements and far, far less than they should on marketing. They think they just need to put it in stores and people will choose it, magically, without any education of their consumers or brand awareness. It'll somehow just magically happen with the same packaging as all the other brands on the shelf. Cannabis brands operate too much like tech startups, thinking they're totally unique and will solve every problem once the right people just stumble across them. I've seen so many startups stall for this reason and I'm seeing it all too often in cannabis too. I work with cannabis consumers every week and I know how much they struggle to differentiate between products and to find what they need....because so few great products are investing in marketing.
Marketer here! 🤚 I got about 10 people to attend Cannmed, and I already have half a dozen ready to throw down for next year BECAUSE of how i shared my experience. Hemp products are very restricted on what is allowed to be said about the product. Unless it has fda approval, the cbda cannot be marketed as an RLS treatment. I'm currently running a market research study on one of my products for women's health. Regardless of what the results show, we can't talk about it on social media ads, Google ads, etc. Invitation to check out my pages across all platforms and see how I've done it for the last 2.5 years. Yes there needs to be a better job connecting the consumers with products and market research, etc. I truly believe the answer to this is at least partly in hands of the most trusted profession in the country for 2 decades now...🤔
Stephanie Beno
6mo
Interesting that you mentioned RLS Our research has shown CBD alone does not provide the relief needed We studied it with Parkinson's We have done our market research as well Pancreatic cancer treatment $2.4 billion per year Wound care $21.5 billion Parkinson's disease treatment market $5.87 billion Global skincare market $145.3 billion Breast Cancer Market $28.4 Billion That's us just getting started We have all IP on RARE genetics We have a patent on processing We have patents on formularies "Indeed, whoever wins in the coming years in cannabis, will have understood & mastered the appliance of the science in cannabis" Mark Collins MBA Couldn't agree more 😉
Kieve Huffman
6mo
Marketing and brand development are areas woefully underserved in the cannabis industry. Some of it is hubris as everyone seems to think they are a marketing or branding expert. Some of it budgetary as this is an industry driven by a product-first approach. Why spend on marketing and branding when the product is so amazing it will sell itself... Good post Mark Collins MBA!
Agree completely with your points, The communication issue cuts both ways. The scientists are notorious for eschewing marketing, believing that the well-designed product will speak for itself. Marketing folks tend to devalue R&D , thinking that you can slap together a product overnight and start selling.
Brand Strategist | Building high growth brands that people actually care about.
6moAs a cannabis marketer, I'd say you're preaching to the choir! 🙌🏼 But the chasm between us, and those innovating on the medical side, has only grown wider every year I've been at this table. Mostly due to a lack of financing and a shift in focus to retail volume over differentiation when a market goes rec vs medical. I also think there's a ton of "adult-use" first brands that still don't understand cannabis is a functional ingredient and there are endless opportunities to create a unique formulation targeted to a specific outcome. There's a general belief that going that route would "cost $10 million and require clinical trials, etc." So, they choose instead to fight price wars and a race to the bottom for the chance to become the cool retail brand, for a hot minute. Some of this is expected growing pains of a brand new industry. In many ways we're still figuring out how to connect all the necessary dots. But a lot more of it is a lack of deep strategic experience sitting at the decision-making tables of many of these cannabis companies. Not because expertise isn't available to them, but often because they either don't believe they need it, or it's not worth the investment.