To Brand Or Not To Brand.

It may not look like it, but I actually pay attention to branding, and not just in the cannabis industry. At first I hated it, because whilst working at an unnamed major software/gaming company, I felt like our “brand” was one of my biggest restrictions to my creative-based job. The other companies I worked with (that will go nameless for the desire not to be sued by companies that make more money in 90 seconds than I will in my lifetime) were similarly cursed.

Branding can be a cage. It can hold you down and force you into a corner that could very easily keep you from growing and make you forget what got you to where you are in the first place. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Not if you do it right.

Cannabis branding may seem at first counter intuitive. After all, did “The Wizard” down the street who you bought bags of weed from have a brand? Well, in a way he did. You tended to buy your herb off someone who you liked, who had a good vibe and maybe sometimes forgot how much you owe him. They may not have had their own logo or catch phrase, but they had a brand.

But now that marijuana is going mainstream, cannabis branding is essential to not only attract the more discerning cannabis consumer, but frankly to help preserve the professional image of the emerging marijuana industry that we are all a part of.

In my mind, the key to branding is capturing the essence of who and what you are. Are you conservative and have high attention to detail? SHOW IT. Are you more loose and don’t like to be locked in too tightly by labels? SHOW IT. Don’t allow your brand to rule you. Start by making the brand reflective of YOU so that it can SERVE you. Not the other way around.  The best way to discover the brand within you, is to hire someone who makes it their life’s work.

One of the leaders of the cannabis branding movement is Jared Mirsky, the CEO and Founder of Wick and Mortar based out of Seattle. From logo design, to creative briefs, to packaging and everything in between, Wick and Mortar is doing the best work in the cannabis world from what I’ve seen.

My brand is still developing, but the main ingredient I see is “Dork”. But how do you brand “Dork”? Any suggestions? Perhaps I need a sesh with Jared. Which by the way, if you don’t want to watch the interview, I have posted the text of it below for my text lovin’ babies.

Don’t forget to share this post and follow my blog. I want to start a dialogue with y’all and start growing this cannabis education vibe into the mainstream so that we have well informed consumers that make well informed decisions. No more reporters eating 120 mg infused chocolate bars!

Power To The Flower, My Babies!

Scojo The Herb Advisor

Scojo:	Greetings and salutations, everybody. I am Scojo the Herb Advisor. I’m a Leo. I like romantic walks along cliffsides, and I prefer a Sagittarius, to be honest with you.
Jared Mirsky:	I’m a Sagittarius.
Scojo:	You’re a … I’m not saying anything. I’m not touching that one. I am happy to be here with a dear friend and a genius in my mind. If you don’t know about branding, well, first of all, you’re an idiot. No, you’re not. We love you. But you need to learn about branding. And if you’re going to learn about branding, you’ve got to talk to this man, Jared Mirsky.
	Jared, let’s talk about, you just rebranded. You went from Online Marijuana Design, became Wick and Mortar. You’re the guy that I go to for advice about branding. Why does somebody need to care about branding? Tell us what you guys do.
Jared Mirsky:	So we are a cannabis-focused branding agency with 10 years of experience, in an industry where experience does matter, especially when you’re helping someone craft a message that conveys a number of different things to a number of different people. And I think in an industry that’s been in the shadows for as long as it’s been, there is still a stigma attached to the industry when you look at all of the brands that are currently in existence. They still look like they are from 8 to 10 years ago. What we’re doing is we’re elevating the industry by creating meaningful brands that mean something to people.
	Again, a brand is the promise that you make to your customers. So ultimately, what we’re trying to do is create that story. At the end of the day, we’re building brands. And we want to change the perception of the industry by creating companies in ways that no one else has.
Scojo:	One of the things I kind of liked about seeing a lot of your work is that some of my previous incarnations, working for major corporations, stuff like that, branding really became more of a limitation. Like, “You shouldn’t do that because it’s against our brand,” and all that stuff. But what I see from you is, like, branding is more of, like, a launchpad. It’s, like, giving that company some sort of identity that they can move forward with.
Jared Mirsky:	That’s right. Many of the companies that come to us have absolutely no idea what to do, the process to take. And because creating a brand in the cannabis industry requires experience, people look to us to help create that for them. And so, when you consider how many steps are even in the branding process, missing one of those can be extremely detrimental. I mean, when you look at the landscape of brands in the industry today, roughly about 90% of them are poorly branded. So when you brand yourself right right now, it’ll practically sell itself, where in turn, you’ll spend a lot less money marketing. If you only need to brand yourself one time, think about how much money you’ll save by doing it right the first time, versus trying to polish a turd, so to speak. You know?
Scojo:	Now, looking off into 2018, is there anything you’re excited about this year?
Jared Mirsky:	Growing pains are always tough, but growing, nonetheless, is good. So with that said, I’m really excited for all the new revenue streams we’re going to be approaching, licensing deals we’re going to be establishing, our own brands we’re going to be creating, and a few things I can’t talk about just yet. But I think the most exciting thing we’re working on right now is our docuseries: Rebranding Cannabis, and really seeing how that’s evolving, essentially. Rebranding Cannabis was created, this docuseries was created as a way of showing companies how creating better brands will essentially shift the stigma placed on the industry.
	If we stop designing stuff like we did 10 years ago, and think about things like … think about designing these products like a commodity, and like brands in existence today, then we’re going to have a much more attractive-looking industry. Wouldn’t you agree?
Scojo:	That’s true. And because of the nature of the beast prior to this, we kind of need to stay professional. Like, we don’t want to look like a bunch of stoners that have no idea what we’re doing.
Jared Mirsky:	That’s right.
Scojo:	You know me. I have no life. I spend my days in the edit bay doing … editing video. That’s about all I do. But, I am going to edit together a nice little video message to Jeff Sessions. Do you have a message for Jeff Sessions today?
Jared Mirsky:	Fuck you.
Scojo:	We’ll be sure to give that a little accent to it when we get done. Well, again, I can’t say too many good things about Jared and the work he does.
Jared Mirsky:	Appreciate that.
Scojo:	If you check out the website, he does absolutely phenomenal work. I am Scojo, the Herb Advisor. You can check me out at TheHerbAdvisor.com. This is the Seattle CannaCon, not to be mixed with Comic-Con, because we’re way higher than the people at Comic-Con. Just going to put that out there.