Building a winning emotion-based cannabis brand

ts nots an understatement to say that differentiating a cannabis brand based solely on functional product attributes or price is a challenge. Marketers may be better off leveraging emotional & aspiration-based (E&A) points of difference.   

E&A focused differentiation is the apex of brand development,  When a company can strongly link their value proposition with a person’s conscious & sub-conscious beliefs, values and aspirations they can generate high brand loyalty, premium pricing and powerful ‘word of mouth’ marketing.  Just ask Apple, Harley Davidson and Jack Daniels consumers. 

Recreational cannabis is an ideal category for E&A branding given its lifestyle, social and entertainment use cases. There are many ways to dimensionalize a E&A focused brand, include fun/entertainment, social equity, heirloom status, ‘reward me’ and consumer self-actualization. 

This may also be the most practical branding strategy.   It is very difficult for cannabis firms to sustain product (e.g., high THC) and price-based differentiation.  Most consumers simply cannot tell the difference between products, especially with restrictions around promotion.

Creating E&A brands is not simple and necessitates a thorough understanding of your product features and gaps  I have used this simplified brand development framework with clients:

1.     In your target markets, perform a thorough consumer segmentation analysis that goes beyond age, income or gender to include psychographic classifications that span regions and groups.  Pick an under-served segment for your target;
 
2.     Understand your target consumer in terms of their needs, shopping behavior, and product usage. Using qualitative research tools like focus groups and anthropology, explore their motivators, biases and as well as cultural considerations.  Create a brand persona of your target consumer to ‘walk a mile in their shoes.’
  
3.     Build a differentiated E&A and product feature set that delivers on the target consumer’s functional & emotional needs, usage & buying patterns and psychographic profile. This will become your unique E&A value proposition or brand promise;
 
4.     Develop compelling messages, narratives, icons and images that can bring this brand promise to life as well as integrating it within your broader brand portfolio;
 
5. Align your operations and sales teams to understand and consistently deliver on this brand promise.

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