The Future of Marijuana Branding
No matter what anyone is saying, marijuana is becoming legitimate. Over half of the states in this country supports at least medicinal marijuana. Multiple states now have recreational marijuana being legalized. Colorado regularly boasts about how it can build schools with the money they’ve reaped with Marijuana. Dispensaries and marijuana grow farms can support whole communities of people and crime are at an overall low in these areas, with occasional spikes to merely suggest otherwise. But with the acceptance of marijuana comes the regulation and the legitimization of marijuana branding.
As I’m sure many of you know, many people love to mimic things with Marijuana, such as the $7,000 Pikachu joint and Pokemon themed bowls. There are a lot of problems that happen with this free association between artistic integrity and deliberate copyright infringement.
For example, Hitman Glass created a very famous glass dab rig called the Dabuccino (Which we sell!) However, if you haven’t figured it out already, Dabuccino, and the glass rig that it is designed as looks just like a Frappucino from Starbucks. Starbucks, not being stupid about how specific their branding is, sued them and won for $410,580. Incidents such as these are becoming extremely common in the more open marketplace and people in the marijuana industry need to start being careful with their branding.
Read more about Hitman Dabuccino here
The good news is that there are already extremely popular brands that are recognizable for their concepts, Starbuzz (coincidentally, and dangerously similar to the previous purveyor of lawsuits) and Al Fahker, can stand on their brands. But there are countless products such as Fruit by the Drop, YGRT eliquid, Kandy Krush, and more base their entire brands off of similar titles to existing products.
While most of these will be fine being within a hairline of copyright infringement, that doesn’t mean they won’t be approached with lawsuits and C&D’s from large corporations with a lot of money to throw around to preserve their brand.
Instead, you will want to be more in line with brands such as Hitman, Mad Hatter Juice, and more that can create their brands and stand on their iconography. But as of right now it’s understandable why they would want to associate with recognizable brands.
Since we are still in that fledgling state of marijuana acceptance, there will be many people who are unsure of what to invest in. Because of that recognizable brands will be the closest to a safe choice they have. Which means the winning strategy will be to make a recognizable brand that is approachable and safe.
With Sessions, we believe in the concept of being approachable and understanding. We have an open format where there is little clutter, hardwood floors, and an approaching aroma. We have no problem sitting down and talking to you about every product we have because we know there is a steep learning curve to entering this world. If you ever have any questions about where to begin or what to do, make sure to give us a call at
