Editors’ Note: This is the transcript version of the podcast. Please note that due to time and audio constraints, transcription may not be perfect. We encourage you to listen to the podcast, embedded below if you need any clarification. We hope you enjoy!
As the former head of U.S. Marketing Communications at AB InBev, Lisa traded her crown as “Queen of Beers” for a new moniker: “The Cannabis Publicist.” She established Trailblaze to bring a more sophisticated, disciplined “big CPG” approach to cannabis brand storytelling and help new players in this nascent industry find their way into the mainstream. (Plus, the “Bud Girl” pun was irresistible).
With over twenty years of experience working inside some of the world’s most admired companies, Lisa has earned a reputation for building culturally relevant consumer brands through creative campaigns and flawless execution within high-stakes, regulated environments.
Under her leadership, Trailblaze has become a go-to marketing communications agency for Fortune 500 companies entering the burgeoning cannabis industry, as well as start-ups looking to put their brands on the map.
This show is presented to by 8th Revolution:
At Eighth Revolution (8th Rev) we provide services from capital to cannabinoid and everything in between in regard to the hemp & cannabis industry. Our forward-thinking team can diagnose, analyze & optimize every detailed nuance of your company to keep your business safe, smart, and profitable. Our flexibility and experience combined with ongoing research create unique insights into how to best grow your market share. Contact us directly at [email protected]
Bryan Fields: @bryanfields24
Kellan Finney: @Kellan_Finney
[00:00:00] Bryan Fields: What’s up guys. Welcome back to that episode of the dime I’m Brian Fields. And with me as always is Kellen Finney. And this week we’ve got a very special guests. Lisa Weezer, founder of trailblazer. Lisa, thanks for taking the time. How are you doing?
[00:00:14] Lisa Weser: I’m great. Thanks for having me on
[00:00:16] Bryan Fields: excited. Dive in Kellen.
[00:00:17] How are you
[00:00:18] Kellan Finney: doing? I’m doing well, just watching it snow out here in Colorado and excited to talk to another east coasters that will be decided before
[00:00:25] Bryan Fields: the show. So she’s in the Eastern time zone. So I think that would have to put her on the east side of the map. Cool. So Lisa, before we dive in, it’d be great for our listeners.
[00:00:33] Get a little background about you and how you got into the Canada.
[00:00:36] Lisa Weser: Sure. In my previous life, I was head of marketing communications at AB InBev, which you probably know best as Budweiser and bud light, the king of beers. And I oversaw brand communications for their entire us portfolio of beers and non beers.
[00:00:51] Half of the category, Like seltzers, et cetera. And that included, all of their super bowl spots sponsorships of, everything from the [00:01:00] Grammys to, basically every sports league. So it involved a lot of travel, a lot of events, a lot of, marketing and advertising, celebrity work, et cetera.
[00:01:09] And getting to work with a lot of big names and big budgets. So moving into cannabis was very humbling in that. A lot of those resources. But it was around about 2017. I think when I first saw constellation make their initial investment in canopy growth, which was about a 10% investment, it’s now almost 40%.
[00:01:27] That was a real bellwether moment where I saw everybody around me kind of start to freak out in the alcohol world. Cause it was like, okay, this is happening. These worlds are coming together. Alcohol is going to stop fighting their Awana and actually. Back it. And for me that was really a signal that it was time to bounce and start my own practice.
[00:01:46] And at that point I had done about six Superbowls and, it was starting to feel like Groundhog day. So I was ready for something new. So I had made the leap to start my own. Which I really launched in 2018, starting by getting into cannabis beverages since I knew that space [00:02:00] really well.
[00:02:00] And, started humbly taking kind of any client that I could work with, small budgets, startups. My dream was to get back into working with big brands again. And within about two years, we had become an agency of record for canopy growth, ironically. So the company that triggered me to get into the industry so it has come full circle.
[00:02:18] Bryan Fields: And I’m really glad that you shared that. So before we dive into some of those specifics, moving from a, such an established well-positioned career to cannabis, was there hesitancies, were there people around you saying Lisa what are you doing? It’s cannabis. Can you take us through that?
[00:02:32] Lisa Weser: Yeah. I didn’t tell anybody that I was doing it right off the bat. I think I was most afraid to probably tell my parents, even though I’m in my forties, you’re still afraid to tell your parents that. Cause they always want you to have that solid job having. I’m stuck.
[00:02:45] And I was shocked that my parents really backed it. I think that they understood the opportunity with cannabis and also had seen, what my lifestyle had been like for the past several years behind the scenes of job like that it’s a dream job, but it is a lot of work. It [00:03:00] is a lot of travel.
[00:03:00] It is a lot of strain. And and ultimately I think that there’s a big difference working for somebody else’s brand versus building your own brand. And I really feel time, if I was going to work that hard to do it for myself, so got a lot of faculty in there. That said, in my role I’ve been a spokesperson for a lot of brands.
[00:03:17] So the day that I had to turn all my socials over from Budweiser to cannabis was definitely frightening because at that point I was still getting calls from other CPG companies. And I did feel that once. Signaled and branded myself as cannabis that I might not ever be able to go back. And that it could be like the death knell for my career.
[00:03:36] Shockingly, and to my great surprise and pleasure. I think it’s probably the thing that made my career, I really thought Budweiser was going to be the height of my career. But cannabis, especially at the time that I got in it, there weren’t very many people doing it, especially in marketing and PR.
[00:03:52] So it was actually a way to really build my brand and stand out. And because I knew so many people in the entertainment [00:04:00] industry, The CBG industry, they all knew I had made the move and once they did, they started referring people to me. Cause they all were like, oh, I know somebody doing cannabis.
[00:04:08] So to this day, four years in a hundred percent of my business is referral based. I’ve never had to do marketing or go try to pitch a new client. It’s still all comes in referrals from my network, which has been fantastic.
[00:04:20] Bryan Fields: Yeah, that’s amazing. And I know one of your clients is Mary Matt, and we had the fortunate time to speaking with Howard about the the genius marketing opportunity.
[00:04:28] So I’d love to get from your perspective, when Mary med approached you about the brownie idea, can you take us, what your role was in that and what it was like, moving on from, let’s say the origin of that da getting the photo and then how you approach the media.
[00:04:41] Lisa Weser: Yeah in this case they didn’t approach us with the brownie idea.
[00:04:44] They approached us with a challenge. If you’ve talked to Howard and you know him, he is a storied marketer in his own. And a pretty tough cookie when it comes to a client, there’s they always say there’s nothing worse than having a client that comes from the same background as you, because they know exactly what they’re doing and they’re going to push you harder than [00:05:00] anybody else.
[00:05:00] And that’s how he knows it. When he hired us, he said, I want a PR star once a quarter, we’re gonna he hired us on fact, but was said, basically prove yourself. I want a stock, but he didn’t really give us any parameters other than, here’s some of the things we’re going to be doing this quarter.
[00:05:15] So we took a look at what they had coming up. And one of the things that was coming up was the launch of this brand Bobby’s baked, which was an edibles brand that included. Little brownies. But the problem was that they were a mark. They were launching it in one market, Massachusetts, not even in Boston, in a small dispensary, about 90 minutes outside.
[00:05:33] And it was, so it had really limited availability. Also. They were launching it right before the holidays, which is a terrible time to do anything because it’s such a busy time for reporters and there’s so much other news going on. So we looked at that and decided that we wanted to build a staunch around that moment.
[00:05:52] We always keep what we call a cultural calendar. So my team at the beginning of the year, we look at everything that’s going to be going on in the year [00:06:00] from, the Superbowl in the Grammys to some of those silly little days national brownie day. And you see them on Instagram now, right?
[00:06:07] It’s oh, it’s sibling. Dog day, whatever. We put all of those on the calendar as well as the cannabis moments, like four 20, and we’d look at the clients who are representing and we try to make some matches and see if we can find some fun ways to bring their brains. To culture.
[00:06:23] So in this case, we saw national brownie day with coming up coinciding with the general timing that they wanted to launch this brand. So we approached them with three ideas. One of them was for this brownie. The first idea we approached them with, we actually liked better, but what’s going to cost. Six figures to do once we started specking it out and it just wasn’t in the budget.
[00:06:44] So we went back to the drawing board with this brownie idea and presented it to Howard. He loved it helped us build on it because, we had the idea, but we couldn’t make the brown and he had to help us get that done in their facility and he had to sell it in. It what might’ve seen as silly, [00:07:00] risky idea into his leadership.
[00:07:01] So he really Take it to the finish line so that it could actually execute. And then, he trusted us to do it. And it was really a true agency, client collaboration, where we all rolled up our sleeves and figured out how we were going to get this done. And it turned out to be, one of the most viral stories of the year, even at the end of the year, which we’re still blown away.
[00:07:20] I think it’s still surpassed even my biggest Superbowl ad in terms of
[00:07:23] impressions.
[00:07:24] Bryan Fields: Yeah. And I’m really glad that you shared that because I was trying to compare it to a super bowl impression and I wasn’t even sure, because once the numbers get up to that size, it’s almost really challenging to know because the numbers are almost silly at that certain point.
[00:07:36] So take us through that process. You get the photo. How do you go about, communicating with mainstream media about this? Because there’s always sometimes a hesitant we’ve found with. Covering cannabis companies, whether it’s their audience is different or there’s a stigma attached. So is that a challenge that you had when you wanted to get this photo and try to get into the.
[00:07:54] Yeah just to back up, part of the reason that we decided to peg this to national brownie day, and part of [00:08:00] the reason that we have a cultural calendar is because reporters have an incredibly hard job, right? They have to. Several stories a day sometimes if not, per week and they have to sell them into their editors and for a story to get written, it has to have a sense of urgency or reason to write it today.
[00:08:17] So when you’re pitching, they’re getting a hundred or more pitches a day, so you have to give them something with a hook. That was part of why we picked this day is so that there would be a moment Granted national brownie day is not a day that you probably even heard of before.
[00:08:29] It’s not like it’s a huge moment, but we knew that it would give them a reason to. But beyond that, we knew that they needed to have a strong visual assets. In talking to Mary med and to Howard, we said, here’s what we need to make this successful. And, we need you to be able to actually make the brownie.
[00:08:45] And it needs to be big enough to be. Significant right. If we’re going to get the types of results that we want. So we went and we looked at Dennis and we looked at what the biggest one was. We did, we scoured Google to see what anybody else had done, what visuals existed so that we [00:09:00] could come up with kind of the base parameters of what we needed this thing to be.
[00:09:03] And then we set up. We need a strong photo. We need one really strong visual asset. It can’t be photo-shopped, it can’t be overproduced. It has to be like a money shot, but it has to feel authentic. And that was really what we asked for and that’s what they delivered. They. Organize the photo shoot the day of very low fi just getting a photographer in there with a camera and figuring out how to shoot this thing, getting the actual people that they fit in the photo, which turned out to add a lot of fun, the expressions on their faces, I think got a lot of the commentary and pickup.
[00:09:35] And that’s always true, when you are, when you’re building something for marketing, especially. In a digital world and especially during a pandemic, when everybody is looking at a screen all day, A strong visual is what you have to absolutely lead with. The other thing that we asked for was just a by the numbers give, so we knew that we needed to say this thing weighs this many pounds.
[00:09:57] It has this many milligrams. We [00:10:00] actually had infographic built to go along with the photo that didn’t get as many as much pickup, but we were able to pitch and say, this thing weighed this much. It took this many sticks of butter, this many. Flour. And I think that really helped to bring it to life for reporters and help them understand the magnitude of it.
[00:10:17] And that helped with the pickup
[00:10:18] It’s so well done. And I really enjoyed as a marketer by trade, going through the process, seeing it, recognizing what was actually happening and then going back and figuring out, like, why is this thing so amazing. I keep staring at this photo and I don’t understand why I’m obsessed with the concept of it.
[00:10:33] So two quick questions for you, and then we’ll bring Kellen in. I apologize. Lisa did you know, in your gut that this was going to work, like when you saw the photo, did you have a feeling that this was going to hit? And then second, at what point after you started pushing out and doing some of the press for it, did you recognize this thing is really taken.
[00:10:51] Lisa Weser: Sure. Look, we were asked to do a viral stunt and it’s always the worst. When someone asks you to make something go viral because you can’t make something go viral, [00:11:00] especially when you’re doing PR, which is earned, meaning you’re not paying anybody to write anything. You’re not putting any money behind this.
[00:11:06] You’re completely counting on the site guys to pick this thing up. That said I’ve done a lot of these things in my career, so I know. What the formula is in terms of what people will pick up, what you can’t control is timing. I once worked on a campaign and a stump, it was supposed to launch in the day with us, a launch turned out to be the Boston marathon bombing.
[00:11:24] If something else happens in the news, it can completely. Over and we didn’t have a ton of flexibility on the state because we had decided to do it on national brownie day. But we knew that we had a formula that was intended to work. We had, the great photo a great story behind it.
[00:11:42] We know that the first idea that we had I’ll, I don’t know if Howard shared that the first idea. There’s also the same week, there’s a national gingerbread day and we were going to build the world’s biggest gingerbread house that was addable in decorate it with a bunch of edibles. But then when we were looking at fabricating it and the [00:12:00] legalities of transporting it and how it was going to be done, it was getting really expensive and really complicated and time intensive.
[00:12:06] And we just couldn’t get it done in the timeframe. Sometimes the best ideas are simple and like who hasn’t had. An edible brownie experience or a formative one. It’s just the first thing people think of when they think of an edible. So we knew that it was going to be so relatable to the masses. And even if you’ve never touched cannabis what a cannabis brownie is.
[00:12:25] So I think that this idea actually ended up more effective than a gingerbread house ever could have been. So sometimes you get a happy accident when you have the challenge of time and budget. So that was the first piece of it. But with, there’s never a guarantee that it will work in terms of what we knew it was working.
[00:12:42] We actually announced it the day before national brownie day by design because we knew that reporters would need time to get our call or email or text. The story, that they were going to have to get that it was going to take some time. So we wanted to get it to them the day before.
[00:12:57] And there’s always that nervous moment, the [00:13:00] first six hours of that day, we send it out and, we were waiting and there weren’t really, there was maybe a story, two stories, but we weren’t getting like the. Spot. And I remember telling Howard wait for it. And around I think maybe 1:00 PM, 2:00 PM in the afternoon, it really started picking up TMZ picked it up.
[00:13:18] We started seeing some influencers tweeting about it that had a lot of followers, so it started getting traction on social. And then, you know what happened? With a stunt, if you’re successful, is that people start writing stories about the stories. So you stop having to pitch it and send it to people.
[00:13:33] They just start seeing it and writing about what they’re seeing. And then, people start riffing on it, meaning it, and it gets a life of its own. And by the afternoon of the day that we launched it, that was happening. So that the next day was national brownie day and it was running. One of the funniest things was the first person I pitched it to was.
[00:13:53] At USA today who covers a lot of the national holidays. And she said, Brownie day just never gets a lot of traction for us. I’m probably gonna [00:14:00] pass on this, but send it to me anyway. So I did and they didn’t write about it and tell it went viral and then they wrote about it. So they initially passed, but then once it became, everywhere in interesting, then they decided to write about it.
[00:14:13] And USA today is probably the most mainstream mom and pop publication that you’re going to get. So to have a pot brownie on the cover, of that lifestyle section, Yeah, that’s
[00:14:24] Bryan Fields: super satisfying.
[00:14:25] Lisa Weser: Yeah. That’s when, it’s a,
[00:14:26] Bryan Fields: it’s a huge achievement for the industry as a whole though, right? Like you’re not just fighting in an individual battle.
[00:14:32] You’re fighting also the stigma battle of cannabis and kind of parlaying that together. So that’s a huge achievement for the industry, especially for Canada cannabis.
[00:14:41] Lisa Weser: Yeah. And I think that’s what everybody in the industry is trying to do is to mainstream and normalize this thing. That was goal a, our second goal was just to help put Mary med on the map, the, our tagline it’s actually that we put brands on the map, we really like to work with emerging brands that people maybe haven’t heard of, or don’t know a lot about yet. We do work with some really big [00:15:00] names but we work with a lot of smaller names and Marion bed is a smaller MSO that is doing everything right. That is really awesome. It writing kind of a star ship upright now.
[00:15:09] But that was really a moment that I think helped them get a lot of media attention not just amongst press and consumers, but also amongst the analysts and investors and, potential retail. So created a lot of excitement and I think business traction for them above and beyond. It’s good for the industry, but it’s also good for it’s, it ultimately is about a lot more than just one good PR stunt.
[00:15:33] I think that it can deliver business dividend. And it even bumped the stock price for, it actually stayed up, but it really bumped it for about a week. It really did. It really did deliver for a $3,000 investment.
[00:15:44] Bryan Fields: I was literally just going to say that.
[00:15:49] Now I want to
[00:15:50] Lisa Weser: make sure people know it normally can cost more than 3000.
[00:15:53] Kellan Finney: I was going to ask a question about that. Has it been even more satisfying being able to utilize all these skillsets that you [00:16:00] generated working on kind of a bigger brand like Budweiser and then coming into cannabis, you mentioned like the first idea was going to be six figures, which probably is not a big deal in the Budweiser world, but in the cannabis world, it’s that’s not even a possibility.
[00:16:13] So has it been super satisfying, being able to. Utilize all these skills and then having to work within new boundaries, if you will, from like a creative perspective.
[00:16:24] Lisa Weser: It has, I think it was initially frustrating getting into the cannabis industry because I am an ideas person at Budweiser.
[00:16:31] They really pushed us to constantly be pushing that envelope and bringing ideas. We did things like send Budweiser to, Mars, and we did crazy campaigns that were designed to keep people talking about 150 year old, declining brand, which is a challenge. So I’m initially getting into the industry.
[00:16:48] We would have great ideas and bring them to clients. And if that still happens that they just can’t afford to do them, or they just don’t have the infrastructure. And just the human resources to help get some things like this [00:17:00] done. Even if they love the idea. And that happens again and again. So absolutely, last year I think.
[00:17:05] We really started to get traction working with canopy growth because we were able to launch Martha Stewart CBD. And that was really, we started to work, with some bigger celebrity names in cannabis. I know, there’s a lot more mainstream celebrities that are now getting behind brands, developing their own brands.
[00:17:21] And that was a real moment to do something big and do something mainstream. But we were working with an ALA celebrity and we had, a much larger budget on that project. So even though success is never guaranteed, we knew we had a formula. There was no question that was going to be successful.
[00:17:35] It is, I think in general what’s been fun about cannabis is that, even at this point in my career, 30 years in to constantly have to like, Solve problems and figure out how to do things faster and cheaper. And, with a small team is invigorating. It’s like a Wordle.
[00:17:51] It keeps your brain sharp. I don’t know, time for word all because I’m doing this. So yeah.
[00:17:57] Bryan Fields: Have you found since you’ve been in the cannabis industry, [00:18:00] the communication with reporters has been less education and more about pitching the stories or are you still focusing more on the education and communicating to them some of the benefits of the products and less about the stigma.
[00:18:09] Can you share more about.
[00:18:10] Lisa Weser: It depends on what the product is. There’s always a certain level of education, but at this point, most of the major publications have at least one reporter who is dedicated to this beat. Even the wall street journal, granted they’re sharing it.
[00:18:23] Like beer or vapes or cigarettes. But nonetheless, there are people that are dedicated to the segment and they do understand it. And that is really helpful. I think what’s more important in PR across the board in marketing is you have to communicate relevance. So it’s not just product communication, but like, why the hell should they care?
[00:18:44] And why do they need to write this story versus the other 89 stories? Somebody emailed them in. Our right. So it’s really about building relationships with the press and being able to consistently bring them things that are relevant to understand what they write about and what they don’t write [00:19:00] about.
[00:19:00] So that you’re, you demonstrate that you understand their job and their beat and what they cover. And and yeah, that said there are some things like, rare animals. You fit come out. CBN for example being something newer that, Brad has required more education.
[00:19:15] I think we’re starting to see ourselves getting past the here’s what THC is versus here’s what CBD is. We were definitely doing that at the beginning, that is starting to change. There’s a really Nick a mix, but ultimately it comes down to relevance and whatever you’re doing, whether it’s for that paper or.
[00:19:32] You have to make it relevant for people. And that’s where ideas like the brownie, really can be successful because, you’re giving them something that they know they’re going to get clicks on, that they know is going to perform. You want to help them be successful and giving them a story that you know is going to perform for them.
[00:19:50] Bryan Fields: Queen of beers, to cannabis publicist. I love the tagline. Do you see the two industries merging as the future kind of moves in that.
[00:19:58] Lisa Weser: Oh, yeah. They already [00:20:00] are. I think I said upfront that when constellation started moving in on CA on cannabis that got interesting, but today, I recently spoke at a cannabis conference and, one of the, one of the biggest players SAB, Miller, cores, they now have very well, they have, a lot of development.
[00:20:18] They work with trust beverages, so they have a lot of. Development going on in this industry, my former boss, who was, who, the CMO that hired me at Budweiser just moved over to Pabst and they have perhaps labs in California, which is dedicated to THC beverages. They’re real. Tilray has a partner.
[00:20:36] With with AB InBev that they called fluent w where they’re developing beverages. So at this point, there’s a ton of that going on. At the macro level, as well as there’s been a lot of really exciting startups, like can or recess that have, co come up very quickly and gained a lot of distribution.
[00:20:54] The other thing I’ll say is that what I’m seeing a lot of. These beverages, especially [00:21:00] CBD beverages are starting to really being on beer distributors as their route to market. Perfect example, canopy growth. We launched their first CBD beverage in the U S called Quatro through a partnership with Southern Glazer’s wine and spirits which is the biggest wine and spirit distributor in the country owned by or.
[00:21:19] Their partner is constellation brands, the biggest alcohol, one of the biggest alcohol companies. So the same company that is, distributing your whiskey and your vodka is now distributing your CBD beverages. And those distributors are actually really interested in learning more about the segments.
[00:21:36] I actually was just invited by some beer distributors to come and talk to them about CBD beverages because they want to learn more. I think that they see. That there’s money to be made. This was the same way that energy drinks first rolled out was through beer distributors. And now, beverages like monster, have been such a share that way.
[00:21:53] So it’s coming together, not just, not just from a brand perspective, but just in terms of a distribution model. And I think that’s [00:22:00] going to be really interesting, especially when we hit federal permissability someday and you start to see THC sold in an alcohol store, and that will happen.
[00:22:09] Kellan Finney: You think that they’re going to merge.
[00:22:10] And so there’s going to be like THC alcoholic beverages from infusion standpoint, or do you think they’ll always just run parallel to.
[00:22:18] Lisa Weser: I think it’s going to, I think it’s going to be a long time if ever before those merged they’re just, I think that would be like the last line to cross is where, you have them, you have an alcoholic beverage.
[00:22:29] That’s also infused with THC and frankly, that could get a little dangerous.
[00:22:37] Bryan Fields: But
[00:22:38] Lisa Weser: I do think you’re going to see them side by side on the shelves. Absolutely. And that THC beverages, I think that they have the potential to overtake alcohol beverages being one of the biggest sites. Some segments it’s growing right now is non-alcohol. Alcohol. So you’re starting to see a lot of zero alcohol.
[00:22:57] I Oh, doulas was the only thing that exists when I was coming up. And now there [00:23:00] are so many, no alcohol versions of what would normally be a cocktail or a beer spirit. So I think people are really starting to move into this space where they’re less interested in alcohol, but they do. The industry calls, mood, modulation, right?
[00:23:14] Being able to control how they feel. And I think you can really dial that in with cannabis, whether it’s CBD, THC, et cetera. Then you can with alcohol and it can get a lot more nuanced and that science is still early. I think it’s going to continue to evolve and you don’t have the negative drawbacks that you have with alcohol around.
[00:23:33] Depends. How you feel about addiction and cannabis? I don’t believe cannabis is addictive, but anything can be from a habit, but I think that it’s a lot less dangerous than alcohol can be and certainly better for your body. Then alcohol can be for most people. Guys.
[00:23:46] Bryan Fields: Yeah, where we’re in alignment with that we are extremely bullish on the beverage market and think it is still being like, slept on as the fact of what we’ve seen with the seltzer market and how that’s just, I would say exploded might be understating how quickly [00:24:00] it’s risen its popularity.
[00:24:01] So Lisa, what’s the biggest difference you’ve found between messaging between the two different candidates.
[00:24:06] Lisa Weser: Messaging could be your versus messaging cannabis, correct. It’s unfair. But Everybody accepts alcohol marketing, and cannabis marketing still remains. So taboo. A perfect example of this is when we applied for the Guinness book of world records with the brownie we got back that said that they no longer accept any admissions of products that are tied to cannabis.
[00:24:26] A federally illegal adult use drug. And we were like, but it’s the Guinness world record. From Guinness beer and adult use about rich, right? So there’s definitely this hypocrisy around this category where, marketing alcohol is, acceptable and even promoted. You’ll see names all day of, wine moms and red mouth and, and day drinking, but, cannabis.
[00:24:52] For any adults people don’t want to let their boss know that they use cannabis or their kids know that they use cannabis. Whereas you would have a [00:25:00] glass of wine, in front of your boss or your children at an, at an event anytime. So it’s that natural hypocrisy and the tabbing nature of it that I think is still gonna take a long time to over.
[00:25:12] But that’s where, things like the brownie that are done in a lighthearted humorous way. And that also, get the today show where my mom is going to hit. See it, hit the late night, where people are going to see it starts to, I think slowly make a difference in the public consciousness.
[00:25:27] And that’s already happening. When you look at the acceptance rates of America, on both sides. The aisle know the majority of Americans are comfortable with cannabis, approve it. For adult use want to see it legalized or at least don’t care anymore, whether or not it is and also see the economic benefits as well as the, the wellness benefits.
[00:25:46] So I think that,
[00:25:48] Bryan Fields: yeah, and I think it’s really well said, because as you perfectly stated, people see alcohol commercial, the time they don’t blink twice, they don’t assume that Kellen’s sitting in. By his computer drinking all day. But when you tell [00:26:00] someone else that you consume cannabis, their immediate assumption is, or like I forgot what the politician was, where he asked the reporter, are you high now?
[00:26:07] And it’s just, it just shows that we’re still so far away. So I guess the question for you is given your experience and the importance of Superbowl from a marketing perspective, when will cannabis companies have the allowance to do that type of messaging? And is there hope in the near future that cannabis can have that public statement where we can start removing this.
[00:26:26] Lisa Weser: I tell you whenever the first CannabisSuperbowl ad comes out, I sure as hell hope that I’m the one that’s working on it. If it doesn’t happen, it will be because ABI does such a good job of blocking out all competition including other beers that I think. I see it, it’s going to be when there is an cannabis beverage from one of those big existing advertisers, I’ve worked with Pepsi.
[00:26:49] Obviously with Budweiser these are all brands that, on some level have their. Fingers or at least their debt, their R&D involved in cannabis. And so I [00:27:00] think what you’re going to see is probably CBD beverages first that will come out from, from the Pepsi’s and the AB InBev and the Miller Coorsof the world getting the first super bowl ads.
[00:27:11] And that’s going to be, a big step in mainstreaming. In the meantime, one of the main things that you learn early in the alcohol industry, after the days of Joe camel the alcohol industry was very smart in creating their own marketing regulations to avoid the government, regulating them.
[00:27:28] So they created some pretty clear regulations around what is and is not allow. In alcohol marketing that the entire industry, self polices and adheres to things like you can’t use Santa Claus, you can’t use cartoons. You can’t show alcohol depicted, people drinking in water or in the car, even if it’s parked, et cetera.
[00:27:49] That doesn’t really exist in cannabis yet, but we are starting to see organizations like Cresco who are starting to put out their own marketing regulations. And so I think. There [00:28:00] are some things that cannabis can learn from alcohol and tobacco for that matter to help accelerate this process by just like sticking to the rules from the get-go going to market in the right way from the get-go and self policing so that they can, grow brands in the right way.
[00:28:16] And they’re not going to have some of those setbacks that the other adult use industries have
[00:28:20] Bryan Fields: experienced no more of those candy cigarettes anymore.
[00:28:25] Lisa Weser: I had those in my time
[00:28:27] Bryan Fields: count. Do you agree with that from an alcohol standpoint? Yeah, I think it’s needed,
[00:28:31] Kellan Finney: honestly, from a cannabis perspective. I think it’s the only way that we’re going to be able to have like legitimate advertising opportunities is if we’re able to.
[00:28:41] Put rules together and approach like Googles and Facebooks and all these normal advertising outlets. With a pre-established set of rules, I think is going to help the conversation. You know what I mean? It can’t hurt.
[00:28:54] Bryan Fields: Yeah. I think if
[00:28:55] Lisa Weser: anything, cannabis is going to have to play a cleaner game than anybody else.
[00:28:58] Just because we, it’s [00:29:00] already such a taboo for the reasons we’ve talked about. There’s already so much topography that there’s less room for error. So we need to approach it that way from the get go. And there’s definitely been some bad actors in the space, there’s.
[00:29:12] Skittles, Skittles looking products that have come out and, some other things that are riding that line. But what I’ve seen is a real clap back from the industry of, other actors in the industry shutting that down for the protection of, the greater good, so I think that self policing is already happened.
[00:29:28] Bryan Fields: The one concern that I have. So here in the east coast is that we’re just unfamiliar with some of these like well-established brands. So sometimes I see friends would send me a photo of some of these underground products and they say, look, how cool this is. I can get it. And it’s no, someone didn’t buy that illegal dispensary.
[00:29:42] And here are the reasons why, and they’re like, oh, I didn’t know that. In the other way that goes, he sent it to a friend or someone else’s parent or that a child had set. And now you’ve like you were saying we’re fighting uphill. So behind and we already feel like we have two hands tied behind.
[00:29:54] It’s going to be really challenging. And I’m fearful that if we don’t do something quicker from a messaging standpoint, that [00:30:00] more bad actors could continue to infiltrate the industry.
[00:30:04] Lisa Weser: Yeah, no, you’re right. You’re right. But what I am seeing is that there are a lot more there are a lot more marketers from.
[00:30:13] Established CPG and retail moving into the cannabis industry that I think are going to make a really big difference. One of our clients is med men. Their CRO who oversees retail and marketing is from Zappos. One of the most successful DPC. Out there. And, we’re continuing to see cannabis companies attracting, people from fashion, people from Nike, people from some of these more established brands. I think, that they like what, even with trailblaze, we, one of the things that we say right off the bat is. From day one, then trying to bring a more sophisticated, disciplined approach to cannabis. But even if you are, even if you are not a big CPG doesn’t mean.
[00:30:51] Try to act like one, even if you don’t have their budgets, if you’re a married man, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try to market like one. And we really believe that’s possible and [00:31:00] I’m really enjoying, starting to see the caliber of experience and talent in the industry really start to, to lift and change.
[00:31:08] As these businesses get a little more sophisticated,
[00:31:11] Bryan Fields: perfectly set. Influencer partnership. How do you feel about celebrities attaching themselves to cannabis brands?
[00:31:19] Lisa Weser: When it comes to attaching themselves to a cannabis brand that already, that it sounds problematic. And there’s definitely a level of that happens in cannabis and really in every industry always celebrities that are just cruising to take a check.
[00:31:32] And you can smell that a mile away. I think I’ve worked with celebrities like that and it is incredibly painful. You can tell when they, their heart is not in it when they’re just in it for the money and when they don’t really want to do anything. That’s outside of their contract or in their contract for that matter to promote that brand.
[00:31:47] I think that it’s not bad for the industry because look, any level of celebrity, if it’s especially a well-regarded celebrity is going to help bring attention and normalization. But I think what we really want to see [00:32:00] is celebrities that are getting into it for the right reasons that are using these products.
[00:32:04] That it is authentic to their brand and who they are and a natural extension of their brand. So yes, there’s people like Seth Rogen right there who make a lot of sense, but there’s also, people like Martha Stewart who, I had the privilege of working with her over the past two years.
[00:32:20] One of the hardest working women in America, she is in there making those formulations. She tasted every gummy, every CBD, gummy on the market available in critique them to figure out what she wanted hers to taste like. And the texture, the consistency, the flavors, overseeing the packaging every, absolutely every detail.
[00:32:39] And then also, really going above and beyond. To talk about, these products in her interviews, on her social. She does not have to do that. And obviously, really really cares. Does he use CBD herself and with her pets. So when you have a celebrity like that who is really all in, I think that’s very good for the industry and it’s [00:33:00] doing what we really want to see, which is, to bring new people into the industry, stuff’s fantastic, but I don’t know that he’s bringing people into the industry that aren’t already cannabis users.
[00:33:09] I think Martha is bringing people in. Even if just as CBD users, but that can be a gateway to acceptance or to try and other types of products. And she attracts everybody from, 104 to 14, so it’s a pretty broad spectrum. I’m for it. And it definitely, from a PR perspective, look, having a celebrity is always helpful for, getting a little more attention.
[00:33:31] Again, giving reporters a reason.
[00:33:33] Bryan Fields: Yeah. And I think that is so important, especially from a stigma standpoint, martha has her brand and people trust her. So when she is going through that process and she stands behind a product, others lean onto that and they feel good about trying the product because, maybe they wouldn’t try CBD, but if Martha’s name’s attached, then more likely to consider it.
[00:33:49] If they’re a big fan of the loyalty of the product. So a hundred percent agree.
[00:33:53] Lisa Weser: And mark, I think it’s also the level of the unexpected. There are people that you expect to have a cannabis brand and people that you don’t expect. [00:34:00] So again, like you expect Snoop to have one when Martha and Snoop are advertising together, that is unexpected.
[00:34:06] So in those it’s that type of novelty that, to me is always tr gold is what made the brownie successful too is that sense of novelty and unexpectedness? And we’re seeing a lot more of that in cannabis. It’s more people come out of the closet or even become, adopted as new users.
[00:34:22] Bryan Fields: Maybe that’s your Superbowl ad right there. Martha Stewart and Snoop dog, and one boom. That’s the one industry that’s pretty relatable. Come on. Did you have something that you wanted to chime in?
[00:34:33] Kellan Finney: I was just say Martha’s image is so powerful for candidates and changing the stigma. You know what I mean?
[00:34:38] Just what she’s crafted over her career from targeting. That’s soccer, mom, demographic, if you will. I think that’s one of the most important demographics, culturally speaking, from an influence perspective for our changing the stigma. So
[00:34:53] Lisa Weser: that’s also who has the purchasing power.
[00:34:56] Kellan Finney: They are
[00:34:56] Lisa Weser: 100% deciding what’s coming into the house. They [00:35:00] also, when it comes to brand building and word of. Maybe so many of my friends in their thirties and forties come to me and asked me what to buy. Especially if they’re buying cannabis for the first time, they don’t know what to look for in a dispensary.
[00:35:13] They don’t know what CBD brands or formats to try who they should trust. So I think that, that particular demographic does a great job of educating each other and sharing products and. So I think that’s where we’re going to see the most growth in the industry. So that’s any celebrity or product brand that can speak to that demographic, that’s really where it’s at right now.
[00:35:34] Kellan Finney: And I also think that demographic stands to gain or benefit a lot from CBD. Anecdotally, it’s supposed to help with anxiety. I’ve never raised local children, but I imagine. Gotta be pretty stressful and causing side.
[00:35:48] Lisa Weser: Trust me.
[00:35:51] Bryan Fields: You’ve also never been a mom. I’ve never been a mom. I said, don’t
[00:35:57] Lisa Weser: be.[00:36:00]
[00:36:00] That’s the thing is this is also a population that, has been told to drink wine, and to use all it and copy and to use all of these, or, to take, sleeping pills or, all of these different products that they have been marketed that aren’t really working out for them.
[00:36:14] I, myself, in that I didn’t start using cannabis until. In my forties. I had used it obviously in my youth is everybody experiments, but then I hadn’t really had access to it. And I was in the alcohol industry. Had a lot of alcohol around me and in my life, but, didn’t even really consider using cannabis.
[00:36:31] And so when I started to get into the industry and educate myself, I actually use cannabis almost every day now in, in different ways. And especially when it comes to micro-dosing. And that’s I think what’s so interesting about this category. It’s not very often that you see a completely new segment come out of nowhere.
[00:36:46] And a segment that, people can adopt for the first time we look in beer, if we did not capture people when they were 21, it was all about like capturing people, right when they enter the category. So to have something like this, where you can actually capture people [00:37:00] that aren’t can be heavy users later in life and their thirties, forties, fifties, and beyond is really.
[00:37:06] Yeah.
[00:37:07] Bryan Fields: People walk in dispensary’s and they don’t know what they’re going to buy. Or for me back in the day, I’d walk into a gas station and it would be bud light, right? Like I would walk in and that’s solely what I’m looking to purchase, where people now are still open for kind of manipulation is probably the wrong term to use, but guidance towards a specific brand.
[00:37:21] And it takes, key assets like yourself to help communicate the messages towards those targeted demographics to connect with those people. Yeah.
[00:37:28] Lisa Weser: And that’s why PR I think is so important because bud light can buy ads and surround you with bud light, right? Like they, can put it on TV.
[00:37:36] They can put it on billboards, they can send it to your phone. So like you’re never going to not be getting those messages. Cannabis can not do any of that. And in some states it’s incredibly restrictive. So cannabis has, and they can’t even target a Facebook ad that you write or Instagram.
[00:37:51] You have to get really creative in cannabis. And that is why I think there’s been such a huge opportunity for PR in the normal CPG marketing world, [00:38:00] PR is always a little bit of the redheaded stepchild with the slightly smaller budget, right? Like the big budget goes to the social media team, the digital team that’s making all of those buys for the people that are, financing all of the Superbowl ads in cannabis and can’t do any of that.
[00:38:14] So it really. Rely on the news media and and on influencers and on, some of those more subtle earned tactics where you have a lot less control and you need people that know what they’re doing.
[00:38:26] Bryan Fields: Do you think that it’s more of a forgotten one because brands can’t correlate success when they work with PR agencies or you think it’s just a misunderstanding of what actually is going on behind the scenes?
[00:38:35] Lisa Weser: I think it’s all of it. I don’t think people completely understand what PR is. I think they can definitely, I think they all want it, but they don’t necessarily understand it. They absolutely underestimate it. And they often underfunded. Even though the brownie tactic cost $3,000.
[00:38:53] My team costs more than that, right? There’s manpower behind that. You do have to, I think really invest in having [00:39:00] a strong PR partner and PR to me, the biggest thing that I learned at Budweiser is that PR is always on a lot of people will contact us and say, I’m launching a brand.
[00:39:11] I like, they basically want to hire us for 30 days. They’re like, I want to get some slides on my investor deck, I want that Ford logo and. And we don’t do that. Like we really only work on a retainer basis with clients year round. You should be telling your story all the time. You constantly have to find new ways to talk about your brand, bring your brand to culture.
[00:39:32] And that’s where that cultural calendar I keep referencing comes, comes up because, there’s more than just four 20, there’s times all around the year, when you can be talking about your brand in different ways or the people at your company telling your founder’s story.
[00:39:45] And I call that always on. So that’s how we like to work with people. And people that will really invest in that and understand that PR is a critical part of their entire marketing and brand building machine. And it does not sleep.
[00:39:58] Bryan Fields: Lisa, since you’ve been in the [00:40:00] cannabinoid industry, what has been the biggest misconception?
[00:40:02] Lisa Weser: About cannabis in about cannabinoids. I think I think that people don’t think that all they do is get you high. So that is what’s interesting about cannabis is that in the alcohol industry, alcohol is recreational, right? That’s why people use it, in cannabis, there is, there are medical people and there’s recreational people and there’s a lot of people that are both right.
[00:40:23] That are hybrid. So I think, people think about using cannabis to get high. I’ve mentioned. I use cannabis almost every day. I’m almost never high. I’m a huge fan of a two and a half milligram mints. I use both CBD and THC for a variety of things. Chronic pain, sleep, anxiety, or just recreational purposes instead of having a glass of Warrington unwind.
[00:40:45] So there’s a lot of different ways that you can use cannaboid at different levels to control all types of different. Physical and mental symptoms and states. And I don’t think people fully comprehend that. I did not know that we all had an endocannabinoid system [00:41:00] in our bodies and that, that is you can target with all of these different products to have different effects.
[00:41:06] And I think what really sold me when I first got into the industry, I have, some conditions that I have chronic pain and I was taking, to add. Twice a day. And just by taking, CBD countries under the tongue every day and two weeks I was off Advil, which was mind blowing to me.
[00:41:22] And that was just for some pretty minor symptoms. So that really showed me like, look like you don’t have to be a cancer patient to need. To need cannabis. There’s all kinds of different ways that you can use it to enhance the life, your creativity control pain levels, anxiety levels, get off all kinds of meds, which look, I’m not a doctor.
[00:41:41] You can’t make claims. You have to figure out what works for yourself. But, there’s not a lot of cannabis can’t do in my opinion. And I don’t think people fully comprehend that.
[00:41:51] Bryan Fields: Well said before we do predictions, we ask all of our guests, if you could sum up your experience in a main takeaway or lesson learned to pass onto the next generation, [00:42:00] what would.
[00:42:00] Lisa Weser: I think the first thing would be just like to not be afraid to take the leap into something new for myself and my entire career, I’ve always tried to be on the leading edge and get into things. I didn’t totally understand. I started in tech, I ended up launching the first ever smartphone when nobody ever knew what a smartphone was and it turned out to be the iPhone.
[00:42:21] When social media first launched and people didn’t understand that. And I was trying to explain to clients what is a tweet? What is Twitter, or Pinterest, people didn’t totally understand it, trying to get in there and figure out what, What these new industries are, what these new technologies are and figure out how they’re going to apply to your brand is really important.
[00:42:39] And cannabis was the same way is knowing that it was going to become this big, huge industry that was going to affect. All of these different, functions in society ultimately, but I didn’t exactly know how, but just, taking that leap of faith and getting into it, I never really had regrets about doing that.
[00:42:55] So I think that’s been one of the biggest lessons for me is just to go for it, when you’ve got something that you’re really [00:43:00] passionate about. And I think the other thing would just be like that you’re never too old to try something new or learn something new. Like I said, okay. I see people get into cannabis, whether it’s a career or whether it’s just using it for the first time in their thirties, forties, fifties, seeing my parents, who are boomers and getting interested in it again, after, a 40 year break, from the sixties right.
[00:43:23] Or whatever. So yeah, I think it’s really about, you’re never too old.
[00:43:27] Bryan Fields: I love it. Hi, Lisa prediction. This’ll be a two-parter I’m going to have to add the second part. Cause I need to know this answer. When will we see another brand? Try and replicate the similar stunt that Mary med put on second part.
[00:43:43] What year will we first see a cannabis in the soup bowl? Cannabis-based commercial in the super.
[00:43:51] Lisa Weser: Okay. So I’ve already had people come to me and try to replicate the brownie. I
[00:43:55] Bryan Fields: was assuming
[00:43:56] Lisa Weser: that other clients that have wanted to do something similar. So I think it will [00:44:00] probably happen within 90 days in some capacity.
[00:44:03] But I think it’s less about trying to replicate the brownie itself than the idea of the brownie and buy it really captured attention in terms of the Superbowl and when we’re going to see cannabis in the Superbowl. Honestly I think that’s probably still a good four or five years away, not just because of where cannabis is, but just, I happen to know a lot about the behind the doors.
[00:44:25] Deals and how locked up they are. And like I said, I don’t think that’s going to happen until that the Pepsis and the AB InBev that hold those multi-year contracts are ready to bring those products to the market. But what I think you will see is you will and hopefully. Here. Next month, you’ll see, this is that guerrilla marketing that we always saw.
[00:44:46] We always had the Superbowl really locked up at ABMBev where other people couldn’t really advertise. But what we see is competitors buying local ads, or like doing digital stunts, different things to distract and to get their own share of voice, even though they couldn’t buy an ad.[00:45:00]
[00:45:00] And sometimes that’s a lot better value, super bowl ad you know, the going rate is three, 4 million, right? There’s definitely ways to do that more cost effectively. So I think we will see that. I hope we see it this year. I’ve certainly been trying to encourage some clients to with my ideas of how to do that.
[00:45:14] But yeah, I don’t think we’ll see the actual ad for a good three to five
[00:45:18] Bryan Fields: Marketing world within another. Yeah. So counting your predictions. I think
[00:45:23] Kellan Finney: that we’ll see another stunt for sure. I don’t know if it’s going to be with food though. I think maybe someone might get creative with a beverage or kind of a different form factor.
[00:45:32] You know what I mean? As far as the super bowl, My guess, is that like a legitimate Superbowl commercial is not going to air until probably the 2030s. But I do think that you’re going to see some sort of stunt, right? Like even in, in Colorado, there’s I think native roots or something.
[00:45:49] Tried to buy the name of the stadium. So like I could like it’s in the Superbowls in at Sophie stadium this year in California. I wouldn’t be shocked if there was like some sort of stunt [00:46:00] where someone put up a big banner or some sort of like random marketing from that perspective occurred.
[00:46:06] Someone runs on the field with a cannabis branded poster or something. I could see something like that happening, but I don’t think like legitimate commercial in the super bowl for college.
[00:46:15] Lisa Weser: Brian, what? Say what? I got the idea. I just haven’t been able to get a client
[00:46:23] eventually I can’t give it away right now.
[00:46:27] Bryan Fields: Like I, I’ve tried to unpack like the viral marketing effort and I’ve shared ideas on that. And I just don’t think people realize how hard that is. And I can’t even imagine the conversations you’re having Lisa, where people come and he’s can’t you just replicate this idea again?
[00:46:40] Yeah. If it was only that easy, then sure. You would have done this a million times by now. But like even me who studied marketing my whole life, I’ve tried to unpack. Okay. I understand why the brownie went viral, but what other product categories could do that? And it’s really hard to come up with that.
[00:46:53] So I can’t even imagine how I’m sure. We’ll see that a bunch of times we’ve seen the Cheeba chews, try it with their truck that [00:47:00] obviously didn’t work out. I didn’t even see it. It’s disappointing from their standpoint, when probably already happened and we might’ve missed it.
[00:47:07] It wouldn’t surprise me if someone tried to piggyback off that, like you were saying, have a life of its own and try to double down on that. So I would say probably ASAP, if not already. And then in regards to Superman, Obviously it’s hard since you’re way more plugged in than we are and knowing the timeframes and how that works.
[00:47:22] But I would’ve liked to guess three years is what I was hoping for. And my thought behind that is once New York comes online, I think a lot of people will start to accept it more from let’s say, United States standpoint. And then I think the expectation is okay. The stigma’s slowly started to get reduced and because of.
[00:47:37] People are wanting to expect that. And then I wonder if one of these larger MSOC maybe partners with someone and then challenges in, or if we see a big purchase by beverage company with a cannabis company, and that’s the messaging that goes on because it’s a pretty good platform to announce this is our new partnership,
[00:47:53] Lisa Weser: What’s unfortunate.
[00:47:53] Cause I, I speak with a lot of the TV networks and they all have these advisory boards, these standard boards [00:48:00] and the bottom line is right now, they will not permit. Cannabis advertising and tell it’s federally illegal. It’s like banks, right? And that’s, perfect example. We worked with Martha Stewart CBD on launching that she has a regular segment on CBS this morning and today’s show and they would not allow us to do a segment on her product.
[00:48:20] Even though they were just DVD, because of that reason. And and it wasn’t even THC. So that is the, I think there’s a lot of these old school policies that are just written in, and there’s like the switch that like until it’s federally illegal and that’s affecting everything and it’s affecting advertising.
[00:48:35] So I really think that’s going to have to be the lever, unfortunately, before we can actually get. TV advertising, not just in the Superbowl, but anywhere, but that said just the nature of the way that those types of advertising deals get locked up. It is probably, as you said, can have to come, from one of, one of
[00:48:52] Bryan Fields: the big dogs, maybe someone just comes a little more rebellious, a brand that maybe crosses a line a little more decides, what.
[00:48:59] We’re [00:49:00] just going to do a surprise tactic and see, and we’ll deal with the repercussions because platform like that to try to swing for the fences might be the best one to do. So Lisa, for our listeners, they want to get in touch. They want to learn more and they want to ask you to help them go viral.
[00:49:12] Where do they get?
[00:49:13] Lisa Weser: Our website, a company’s trailblazer website is trailblazer.co C O and they can email me [email protected]. And we would love to talk to them when they are ready to invest and ready to go big and ready to be always on. That’s the right time to bring us on.
[00:49:31] Bryan Fields: Awesome. Thanks so much for your time, Lisa. You bet. [00:49:33] Lisa Weser: Thanks for having me on.
