When Creativity, Cannabis and Commerce Converge - Branding Bud Live - Episode 2
THE SUMMARY
"For anyone who wants to join the cannabis industry, it's still a great moment." — Andreas Neumann, Chief Creative Officer, Jushi Holdings Inc. It's a tough time for a lot of #cannabis #businesses, but the adventure is just beginning.
THE CO-HOSTS
David Paleschuck, Adriana Hemans
THE SPECIAL GUEST
Dre Neumann
THE FULL TRANSCRIPT
David Paleschuck
Greetings and welcome to Episode #2 of Branding Bud Live. The weekly live stream that's 100% THC | 0% WTF. I'm David Paleschuck, founder of the Branding Bud Consulting Group, and author of "Branding Bud: The Commercialization of Cannabis", the first book on cannabis branding. I'm joined by my co-host, Adriana Hemans, a consumer insights and cannabis expert. Hi Adriana. How are you?
Adriana Hemans
Thanks, David. Good to be here. I see also a comment here from one of our viewers that they love the new tagline. (100% THC | 0% WTF) I love it too! You’re so clever, David. I just wanted to say we're back for our second episode. For those who are new, I should mention the show is interactive. So we encourage you to drop questions, and participate throughout the show. Branding Bud Live is not just about us up here, It's about building our community together. So feel free to join, in the conversation.
David Paleschuck
Thank you, Adriana. Speaking of building community, we've got a great guest today, Dre Neumann, the Chief Creative Officer of Jushi holdings, which includes both cannabis brands and dispensaries. So, we'll not only be talking about products and dispensaries today, we’ll also chat about the purchasing experience. Jushi’s brands include on the retail side Beyond Hello, NuLeaf, and Nature's Remedy. And on the brand side, Tasteology, Seche, Nira, The Lab, The Bank.
Dre has been at the creative forefront for decades. He's worked at Saatchi and Saatchi, among other among other well-known agencies, and in 2020 won a Grammy Award. So he is well versed in many aspects of cannabis, creativity and commerce. We're going have a broad and wide conversation today about branding, cannabis and creativity. That said, please welcome Dre Newman.
Dre Neumann
Hi, guys. Hi, Adriana. Hi, David. Thanks for having me. Exciting.
David Paleschuck
Our pleasure. How are you today?
Dre Neumann
Excellent, and lovely intro. Thank you.
Adriana Hemans
Thank you! Dre, as an icebreaker before we jump into our audience participation game. We’d like to hear your perspective, as someone who has such an extensive background both in branding and of course in cannabis. Where do you see those two worlds of cannabis and branding converging? Would you kick us off with your views on that?
Dre Neumann
Originally from Europe, I've worked with a lot of European brands – and in Europe, as you know, there are many countries, languages, different rules, and regulations. So it's very interesting, if you have worked in advertising in other countries, cannabis marketing and advertising is not as complicated as everybody makes it out to be all the time. You have to deal with a lot of regulations and have lots of problems to overcome. The interesting thing in US cannabis, is that you can build brands basically in every state and no other states know about it. So this is like in Europe, for example, Procter and Gamble, has different names for products in different countries. “Mr. Clean” is “Meister Proper” in Germany. So it's the same product with different names.
So it's very similar to that. And I feel my European background trained me for this situation, you know, but it's going places we don't see so much on the brands are starting to get certain ones stand out now, in flower in the different categories is all different flowers, probably the least brandable category. As soon as it's processed, I think like, even down to prerolls or vapes, and concentrates and edibles. I think there is a big opportunity now to be the one for the future. And you have the outstanding ones already, you have CANN and KIVA Caminos. Stiiizy, a strong brand in vaping, and Cookies has blown up too. We’re still at the beginning; and I think everybody has time to come into the business and make their mark. I mean, we're just getting started.
Adriana Hemans
This is the new era of the brand and cannabis.
Dre Neumann
It is yeah, I mean 100%. But it's hard. There's so many different packaging concepts and exciting ways to package it plus the children safe element to it. And in the end, people really want to see the flower. And they want to wonder want to taste it and smell it, they want to buy the flower, you could put it in a normal bag, in my opinion. So when we have stores where we just focus on our own house brands. And our house brands are displayed as where we can, for example in Nevada, we can actually show the flower in the store. And it talks about the real product instead of oh, there's some fancy packaging, they cannot even see the product. That's the problem, I think other categories are different because once the flower is processed, it’s easier to brand and market. Much like a strawberry versus strawberry jam. The strawberry is perishable and, in many ways, non-distinguishable from other strawberries. While the strawberry jam is processed, and packaged complete with its backstory and brand appeal. Much like the strawberry is a commodity, so is cannabis flower.
David Paleschuck
I agree with you, and I appreciate your European analogy.
Dre Neumann
We're like brave contenders in this new business. You already have to be brave to partake. We face incredible hurdles on all fronts. From retail to brands That said, that's the job, right? And we don't have to cry about it all day long. There's a lot of learning taking place, and there's so much more still to know, in the data coming in the first data coming you know, analyzing that and then I think we're very early still. I just want to encourage everybody who wants to join the cannabis industry I think it's still a great moment because always you think it's too late, right? It's not too late.
David Paleschuck
That's right. And it's true always, the first ones in are blazing the trail and the ones to follow usually have it easier.
Dre Neumann
That's right. As you know from the history of America, those that pioneered their way west were snow-plowing the way for everybody else to follow.
David Paleschuck
Because Dre has branding experience across multiple verticals, we wanted to broaden our focus a bit and look at branding in general. This information is from a report created by Ipsos, a global research company. They analyzed 200,000 pieces of creative, and cross-referenced it with the success of the campaign. For the purposes of this study, they defined a campaign as successful if people were able to recall the ad and brand behind it unprompted.
Which of the following brand assets is the least-used, and the most likely to increase the success of an ad?
A. Slogan
B. Audio
C. Color
D. Characters
Dre Neumann
I think it's important to try to connect with obviously intellectual properties which have the same brand values and then push those out and that that's going to stick with the people and that involves all those things in some shape or form. Audio is a wonderful thing you could evolve on. Music is like cannabis in a way. It's like the same thing it has no count, it's just a feeling, right? So music and cannabis go very well together. I think there's not enough done in that area to partner and get relevant exposure from those partnerships with songs and artists. So I think there's a lot to do in this field. People are trying, but hasn't been done right yet, in my opinion.
David Paleschuck
I always joke about, the phrase, “meeting customers where they are”, but we know that's really what brands need to do. And there's a couple of brands right now that are specifically music genre based, for example, Heavy Grass, a new brand from Engager Brands. What's interesting is, they know who their target market is and where the metal-heads are. They know the concerts they're going to; they know the events they're interested. So, from the get-go, their brand is really crafted for a specific consumer. For them to put a sound to their brand is a lot easier than perhaps other brands looking for an audio hook to or sound to encapsulate their brand.
Dre Neumann
But I would say art is a feeling right. You can say like music is a feeling with no canvas. It's very similar to the cannabis experience, right? It's just, it's, it goes very well together, I think so that's a that's a that's a great way of trying to connect with a certain niche audiences where the heavy metal audience will like and then you have as well like the heavy hitters, for example, this brand is interesting is kind of, for me, it's like based on like, it looks like Sons of Anarchy kind of this kind of vibe, right? With just been thrown out there. But it's heavy, and it's strong. And it's for people looking for lots of THC and, and low prices. That's what we see a lot these days. So those whatever, when you say heavy in something as well as, as a word, it's probably likely to get together get some traction with.
David Paleschuck
Right. It's interesting. Well, let's see. So, so you spoke about audio. Is that your final answer?
Dre Neumann
Yeah, I say audio because I wanted to do something in audio.
David Paleschuck
It is proven to increase awareness in traffic. If a picture's worth 1000 words, I guess videos are worth way more! Let's take a look. Let's see what the answer is.
Adriana Hemans
The answer is B. Audio. And this is for across the board, not just cannabis. In the report, they showed a chart that said only 6% of ads use branded audio - but it can increase the success of your ad by almost double.
Dre Neumann
That's amazing stuff.
Adriana Hemans
It’s interesting to think back to the most memorable ad campaigns for general products, like Alka Seltzer, (Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz), or “Where’s The Beef?” It just sticks in your brain, right? And people can remember not only the ad itself, but also the brand behind it more easily.
Dre Neumann
Yeah, yeah. I mean, is this this is great, because it's like it's an image, you get the moment that's what's its emotion, right? So it's connected with you on a different level. And it can connect with you without any canvas, as I say, like, it's just you, you hear it, and you're there. Right? So it makes sense. It makes sense, very similar to cannabis experience.
Adriana Hemans
Let's talk about cannabis branding, specifically. So we have a cannabis branding expert, which is a perfect guest for our show. And I'm just wanting to hear from Dre more about what it's like to manage a whole house of brands. Because you have so many as part of Jushi what is the strategy for like, do you target specific types of cannabis consumers like what does that landscape look like?
Dre Neumann
So in our case, I want to be very honest. So basically, we like when we started, we, we acquired. So we have different categories, we have certain brands we acquired. Because why did we acquire them because we thought they were Colorado brands are very powerful in the state and they had a legacy and had a story. So we acquired The Bank and The Lab brands. The Bank and The Lab (a vape and concentrate brand with a backstory in Colorado). They're the ones who invented live rosin. The inventors, we have them on board. So we got took that story, and we are fleshing it out now. So you, build on that and you try to make really exquisite product with this stuff. So and that was a journey itself, because we acquire a lot of grows, we have to we have to do our thing to it, we have to bring in our strains and all that stuff. This takes a while until you really actually can say this is actually on the level it was in Colorado, so we had a whole journey towards like now finally, we have fantastic concentrate and fantastic flow and Pennsylvania for example, that took a while, but we had to when we took over those clothes, we had to replace the existing brands, we bought it with our own things. So it was a journey on that then there's brands we a very cool story I think is like and this is really based on data we saw that that the trend is going great quality, great quality, low price. We were looking at the office LEDs and we saw a there's a lot of stuff just goes into distillation, you know, which is still really good stuff it falls down and it's just then disappears in a distillation machine. Say there's a market for that. So we created a brand for this like it's very honest, like it's kind of an adventure. So that was the brief and honest adventure. This is sashay as we call it has a little French accent too. It's like and it's affordable, it's pre grind, sometimes it's like sometimes infused, it's if you don't know what you're getting, you're getting the good stuff from the bank and which has fallen down so you might be lucky to get something really good or it's a lower testing stuff but it's it doesn't over promise let's call it and that is really flying off the shelves people like it you know it's the philosophy of it. It has to do with this outdoorsy lock, fire surfer vibe, it's affordable. And it's an adventure itself when you buy it because you never know what how good it is. But it's most of the time it's great we never is our best-selling product really right so we invented even a category which is now others are doing that as well you know it's like it's a great thing is to be buckets and the sea buckets and pre grant and lipid infused and stuff so that's a wonderful one and then and then we coming up now with new stuff with new high new prime brands will be growing the better our flower gets we need higher quality brands as well and we need to stay in touch with the with the Gen Z's coming in also on so we have like new brands coming for to cater that as well. And then our edible brand taste ology a whole evolution as well we had like we started with a certain packaging and you only can do this in cannabis in different states. Right? We had original packaging, but we knew our gummies and we're not there yet originally right with the product the quality wasn't there. So we so we launched it in a different form. And now we'll be relaunching it with a complete vegan gummy in Massachusetts. This is vegan is the best shoes we have this master this is great chef had created them. So finally we have our own gummy, and it gets his own deserves its own, like update the brand update of taste ology our, our edible brand is like it's like a big thing. We actually launching it tomorrow in Massachusetts will be exciting. And that's completely new packaging company, new vibe, vegan, gluten free and all that stuff. So super excited about that. So you have to kind of you can see in my story, you go with the flow a little bit, but you and then you have different markets with different possibilities. And then you can test things here and not doing there. And sometimes they're looking different in different states, California now we'll be launching a completely different shapes form of lab just to test new packaging concepts. So where can you do that? Right? Like it's a robot. This is how we manage it, which is really mad. Lots of moving it I said it said before moving at the speed of opportunity and moving at the speed of inspiration as well. But in an organized and corporate form. You know, we have to put that two together and that's what my team is doing. I think that's why we call it the creative team. I think it's good to be free spirited and come up with those ideas, but then they have to connect with the brutality of the day to day need of the stores, the growers, and so on and the flowers and the deliveries and all that stuff. So you always have to be in both worlds as well as the creativity It's why I say that, like, it's not just Okay, let's have some great ideas and do it. It's really very close communication with the makers. You know, like the guys in the GPS, they are our guys who've been tell us what, what comes next. Because certain plants grow the certain strains are better, certain strains are not so good. So it's constantly like, moving with it. It's it as just know that as you as you guys know, it is not a boring day in cannabis.
Adriana Hemans
It's always an adventure.
Dre Neumann
It evolves now into something and you see the data coming back, you know, in the beginning, when I started, like three and a half years ago, four years ago, we, we didn't have any data from the stores, you know, like we only had like three stores, which was purchased beyond the law. But now we have like, nearly 40 stores and we're getting a lot of digitizing the world has evolved in terms of digital pre orders, and all that stuff. So we have tons of traffic on our website. So we're getting so many data back, which we now then slowly but surely, that learnings the brands inherit slowly but surely, and you can do that in cannabis, because I know for sure I could, I could launch tomorrow in Pennsylvania, David's Finest as a flower brand, and it would sell out, right? Because in some of the markets, it just it doesn't matter because there's a flower shortage.
David Paleschuck
You know, Dre, you hit a homerun in terms of connecting with what we're talking about today. And really, really getting into the core of what creativity is how we can leverage and harness creativity and bridge that into cannabis and commerce. Speaking of bridging these gaps as well, one of the things that Jushi has to its advantage is not only are there products, but they're also retail stores. Would you mind chatting with us quickly about the product experience, and the purchasing experience? Your reach extends out into the parking lot – if you will. When someone gets out of their car and walk up to the store, they're already feeling the vibe, whereas a brand doesn't even get looked at until the customer has entered the store and engages at the product level. With a dispensary, you have a longer runway to engage the customer. Tell us about that.
Dre Neumann
That's a great question as I said before so we have the whole line in place but all we have the GP and we have the stores and we of course every brand in the world who has sold in the in the individual state we have we have probably on our shelves right but it's competing with our own house brands or private label as we call it, so I think the most important thing in this game is like having quality product that sounds super easy but if you don't have quality product then you don't even have to think about brand experience or whatever it's deadly they're going to kill it. I know this from Reddit; you know when we have when we launch, we have some of sometimes we have to buy flour with it we're not enough to be buying it it's not good enough it's immediately hits us right like it hits the brand and it's hurts the brand if you release product which is not up to the best, so somebody runs late it doesn't like it any destroy you so it's so important to have quality control to know that your stuff is really fucking great, right? And then I think then you start to start to do any than your responsibilities as a as a as in our case, we have our own store. So we have to prioritize our own brands, of course, and that you see in pricing that you see in certain bundles or packages we offer. And then the others of course they treat it similar in the store, but they come after our own brands, for sure that you can say oh, but it's not just no another secret right is totally, totally normal. I think there's a big advantage because we get a lot of feedback of course. But as I said, if the product is not good, we don't even have to get started. You make sure your product is great. And then you can build it then you can make all the fancy stuff and you'd have your events you have your pop ups you have your music production, the audio, your advertising, if you don't have that don't even start but big advantage Have you OnStar because we see what goes right, we know what's we know what's flying it and we can accordingly communicate to our GPS. And then we produce things which are which are selling, or counter the latest trends. You know, when you see like specific that says che i mentioned earlier, that's a, that's as soon as you as soon as you put this on the shelves, it's gone. And others one as well. So people are starting to ask in other stores, not our own stores in for example, Massachusetts, people love that brand now, and they are asking all over the place with people ordering from us as well. So that that's, that's a natural, I think, evolutionary, that's the advantage when you have that, right when you have your own retail with brands, but they're not limited to our own stores, they have to stand alone, they have to be as good as they have to be able to compete with all the great guys. And there's a lot of great ones out there.
Adriana Hemans
You mentioned building a relationship with your customers directly, like people are actually going to your website and seeking out products and, and you're getting feedback and you're starting to like to build a one to one connection instead of just going through your stores. Although obviously that's an option for you too, because you have so many locations. I'm curious to know when you're thinking about like building that experience in a store. And I shouldn't do that one of the things I find really interesting about your brand is you have such a strong footprint in Pennsylvania, which is a state that we don't hear about a lot. Do you think about like is the Pennsylvania consumer a different than the California consumer? Do you get that granular with it?
Dre Neumann
100%. I think the more towards east coast and medical markets we started in right and then we slowly moved up to California through Nevada and California. So I can tell you the California market is for us like a real where we where we compete with the best where we have only like a limited amount of stores we really compete with the best here and we try and to learn from here and apply this to the other markets. Now let's go to Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania is a medical market. As you know, Pennsylvania is one of those medical markets which was from the beginning the stores are you look kind of hipster but there wasn't mandatory there's a mandatory session for every first customer to have. There's basically white code pharmacist in there. And you have to have us mandatory session if you're a first time customer and then you'll be handed over to the hipster tweed bartender toilet right so and it's kind of California level even California level right now, the customer has been trained now for years to do everything online. COVID helped a lot. So in places like Pennsylvania, there is a I would say up to 80% online preorder business so they are ordering online because it's in California is maybe 10% right because California there's so much flour so much product in walk in any store, there's not so much going on in the store so much competition, so you can't just walk in and get stuff, Pennsylvania you have make sure you reserve your stuff and then you pick it up. So it turned into this kind of this kind of very online, online savvy consumer they're, I think as same in Virginia, which just started so they trending towards that way on in all those medical markets. There's, there's so many hurdles to get in the store. So better you order online to do all your stuff online first, so they trained for that. Then you have interestingly, and it's super interesting, I think, Massachusetts we have one store on the border of New Hampshire, which we had to all open and COVID and it was opened purely online. So there was like there was never somebody in the store the whole of cupboards was even open and this is our biggest performing store in the network. So that's like a monster we call it the train station Tyngsboro is in Massachusetts so it's a lot of our own product of course mysteries we vertically integrated but it's an it's a real online savvy market people are walking in now if now we could open the inside they walk in there's all these kiosks and they are ordering or even a walk in and then they go to the bartender so it's a pretty much they were trained like this are they doing it like your state they make sure they have their stuff people coming from other states to buy stuff obviously and then they want to they want to make sure they get they don't drive for nothing. So that's that that market we in Pennsylvania I think back there we can never lose I want to make a remark that we should never lose I think to be there's so many patients we call them patients it's very important to respect that always even if Pennsylvania turns into recreational which is hopefully happening at some point we will never we will never lose I think that that pharmacist angle to it at least having somebody very knowledgeable who can talk to you about the separate space about your preferred intake methods right like in what is what is what is what can help you with your, with your issues, you have medical issues, right. So that's a very important thing to keep that on because we sold it to Illinois, Illinois, we were part of switching to recreation, we always made sure that medical line is like has their own line. And it's not just overnight, okay, we don't care about you anymore. You know, the patients are really important. And they're very loyal, I think, to the stores, which is important because there's so many stores around always right. It's like, I always say it's like a six mile radius around the store where people go to that store, and then other people deliver in it, or they open it and it's like a battle, right? Isn't where is the cheapest, cheapest weed, where's the cheapest within the loyalty is? It's a big problem, right? They say, everybody sells the same stuff. That's why it's so important. You have great brands of yourself. So if you want sachet, and that great sachet, which is we never know how good it is you go over to be on top of it. So that's, I think, I hope that answers your question.
Adriana Hemans
I love what you just said about the medical patients being loyal. And I'm wondering, like, is something lost when we move from medical to recreational, I see people all the time going into dispensaries and they are driven by medical needs and might be their first time shopping there and they are looking for guidance or looking for education. But in a rec market maybe there's not as much emphasis on that and maybe that's a missed opportunity.
Dre Neumann
Yeah, it's a missed opportunity as in California moved to California moved its own way I think over the last decade right so in this states I think we have it better under control because I think you never had there's really if you see our stores in Pennsylvania this is really like as good as it gets. You know this is like on the level of California or stores the only problem is you have to show still your medical card you have to go through all that stuff if you wait in a waiting room and then you go in but that's already super hip and if you come the first time the mandatory session with the pharmacist but I think it's going to be different there because it's so it's so was so well built through the medical times we went through right it was very it's very solid there and we will always respect those people that's why I'm saying I am sad that you cannot do this in California enough because it's already like been kind of mixed up too much with it. Nobody knows anymore. There's too many stores. I think nobody when I go, I never feel like this anyone can tell me about medical stuff in California.
Adriana Hemans
Since we're on the topic of talking about retail locations, let's take a look at what these what these places look like and you can see just in these little thumbnails that there are some regional variation.
Dre Neumann
New Leaf is our is an acquisition we did in in Nevada we have like three stores there was New Leaf just open one up the only season in on the strip even so that is super-hot competitive market for us great because we can again we can train and if you're a boxer and you're not in you know you don't want to be like Virginia you have no competition and you get out of shape right even if you're the greatest marketer you get other shapes so that's why you have to be in those places like NuLeaf Vegas is one of the toughest markets then nature's remedies and Massachusetts I just had to say recreational markets super cool. Promotions are not allowed really you know online so there's still some hurdles to take but it's what we do always our formula is like free standing building in good parking good parking is a big deal. And all our new stores have fantastic target and they're free standing. Why is that? Because people always it's interesting people don't want to go to the store where you would think the greatest store is down downtown Philadelphia where all the restaurants are and there's a we have a store there but this is our lowest performing store and in Philadelphia because people it's a medical market and people don't live around there really it's only restaurant so it's not something I'm going to the restaurant and let me go as quick to dispensary it's more on my way home I'm driving past the place and parking I'm going in and believe it more call it like low key and not everybody sees you and that's important I think that's why we chose those we choose those locations were very wisely with specific good parking a little bit out of the out of the big traffic places in terms of like foot traffic and like other entertainment or like big stores or something.
Adriana Hemans
it's almost like the convenience store model?
Dre Neumann
now absolutely and it's like something you Leave when you drive home at night you want to go past somebody park you go in if nobody knows you I guess it's still sad I think there's still some hurdles to take I see this with a there's some stores in LA which you know like I think Sweet Flower they’re opposite of the Amazon and Sony Pictures in Culver City, so I asked him I went in there ask them how much traffic you're getting from those offices? He said, “Not much really”. To me, that was surprising, right? You would say. “This must be the best location on Earth, but they don't get much traffic because it's not a thing you go do on your lunch break into dispensary and then your boss probably sees you.
Adriana Hemans
They see you out of their windows as you make your cannabis purchase at lunch.
David Paleschuck
Lots of discretion, safety and concerns other than just, what's been sold in the store. Lots to consider when making a purchase.
Dre Neumann
Exactly. And in some of those places you know, Pennsylvania for example, doesn’t have the real stuff in the store. They just have empty boxes on shelves. Even some counties in California have to darken the window, and nobody can see inside the store. So there's many things you have to think about. That's why though that concept you see like Nature's Remedy, that's a beautiful example.
Adriana Hemans
So I want to I want to throw out our next step or a little quiz. And this is a new thing that we're bringing out and it's called the dank rank. So this one should be fun. A lot of the people in our audience probably will be familiar already with some of these edible brands in Colorado. But I think we have a pretty diverse audience right there are people from other states that might not be as familiar with Colorado brands. So let's throw it out there.
Name the top-selling edibles brand in Colorado.
A. Wana Brands
B. Incredibles
C. NFuzed
D. Wyld
Adriana Hemans
Let's see the answer. It is D. Wyld.
Dre Neumann
You can say that about most of the markets, Wyld is just killing it right.
Adriana Hemans
Yeah, and Wana brands is doing some interesting things.
Dre Neumann
100%. But it's always like it's never too late. You remember like when, when Yahoo. I don't know if you when some of you might be too young for it. But the When Yahoo was the biggest and there was no Google, everybody was thinking, okay, there's no other search engines going to come and then Google came and then, you know, there's just is always like, room for another great thing. So yeah. The front runner. Yeah, never too late.
David Paleschuck
This is true. Dre, one quick last question. Before we let you go. You know, we spoke earlier about assets, if you had an opportunity to create one asset for your cannabis brand, whether that's an NFT, whether that's an audio file? What would that be?
Dre Neumann
The great thing is that we that we are our worst own enemy, because we can let you I can, I can do whatever I want. So that's the now what's the problem? What is the right thing to do? Right? So we can, I can come up with an idea tomorrow, put a team we execute it, and then it works. So it doesn't work. So I think what we will do is we will focus much more on this what I said earlier, this branded entertainment concepts where we, where we really like, identify are like, really clearly define the brand values of one of our brands. And then match it within with an intellectual property, which could be a band, which could be a book, which could be only a song, it could be anything, it could be a movie, and work on this. In synchronicity, we have to be the producers of it in order to control it right. Otherwise, the timing doesn't work. So that's I think, something I really want to do like to do something really out there in terms of branded call it branded entertainment, with a cannabis brand, which it was executed like non, nobody has done it before, in a way like oh, wow, that's, that's out there. But it seems to work, you know, something to connect, that's what I want to do.
David Paleschuck
And that's what we want to see.
Dre Neumann
Wait until the movie, right? It could be anything else could be it could be only a song like we do we create. But you have to look at the values, right? When you define the values of a brand. And then you just look at it as always as a matching twin somewhere in the entertainment industry, which then we can support and we never have to mention the brand anymore, because that twin will do the work. Now if I support this, and I promote it and don't have to show my name anymore, it will do the job. The great example is like when FedEx was in the castaway movie with Tom Hanks, right? It's part of the story, right? It's like, imagine you sitting in this meeting with executives and you're telling them in the first five minutes, your plane is going down crashing and then our protagonist is seeing an island and never leaves anymore until his picks up and everybody dies. Right? This is a commercial for FedEx forever and delivers the message, right? Like we always deliver because he's delivering highly emotion, the end the package to the to this woman. He was staring at the package in this address since I'm in Midwest for four years. So that's the kind of stuff I think can be done.
David Paleschuck
That's right. Absolutely. And it's emotional. It's really definitely on our senses. Dre, thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate your time. We love that. We love what you're doing in the industry, but we'd love to be able to take your experience from outside the industry and bring it into the industry. And that's really, I think, what's most important moving forward.
Dre Neumann
I’m a humble servant of the plant. I really learned to love this just planned and I think we're all in the service of this plan. And sounds a bit cheesy, but I really feel that I haven't been a consumer before. So thank you. Thank you for inviting me and having me.
David Paleschuck
Thanks you, Dre. Well, that’s our show for today. And we'll be back again next Thursday at 11am PST / 2pm EST. Thank you so much for joining us. If you missed us, watch us on LinkedIn, or on our Branding Bud Live YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@brandingbudlive). Find out more about our consulting services at (https://brandingbud.com). Thank you everybody! We'll see you next week.
Adriana Hemans
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