Why Women-Owned Cannabis Brands? - Branding Bud Live Episode 10
THE SUMMARY
Have you noticed a rise in cannabis brands marketed exclusively to women? Catch all the recent “Buy Weed From Women” activity? Read the reports that show a rise in female cannabis consumption? With all of this activity, why haven’t we seen women ascending to the C-suite? Why has the percentage of women-owned cannabis businesses stayed flat or declined? Why is it harder for women to secure capital? David and Adriana unpack these questions with their guest, Kristina Aducci, Founder and CEO of House Of Puff
THE CO-HOSTS
David Paleschuck, Adriana Hemans
THE SPECIAL GUEST
Kristina Adduci, Founder & CEO, House of Puff
THE FULL TRANSCRIPT
David Paleschuck
Welcome to Branding Bud Live, the live stream that’s 100% THC and 0% WTF. Every week we speak with business people about the business of cannabis. I’m David Paleschuck, founder of 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 marketing executive with over 8 years in the cannabis space. Hi Adriana!
Adriana Hemans
Hi David. Thank you for that intro. I’m so excited to co-host the show with you. We’re bringing amazing guests from across the cannabis ecosystem to share their perspectives. What makes our show unique is that we focus on building a community - and we encourage audience participation. It’s not just about us talking, it’s about all of us building something together. So feel free to drop your questions and/or opinions in the chat, and in a minute, we’ll share them too.
David Paleschuck
Thank you, Adriana. And thank you, everyone, for joining us today. We have a lot of hot topics to get into today. Today, we’ll be talking about:
The rise of women-owned cannabis brands
Women executives, in and out of the industry, and
Cannabis consumers who also happen to be women
We also have audience participation activities as well. We’ll throw a stat up on the screen, and you can test your industry knowledge. We’ll be sharing a few stats with you today, we think you’ll find interesting, so stick around for the entire show.
David Paleschuck
I’m pleased to introduce our guest today. Kristina Adduci is the founder & CEO of House of Puff. Kristina’s brand, makes luxury cannabis accessories. Their products have been featured in Business Insider, Rolling Stone, Forbes and recently in The New York Times. A fun fact - her products were on the shelves of the first legal cannabis dispensary in New York just a few weeks ago.
Adriana Hemans
Hi Kristina!
Kristina Adduci
Very cool. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to talk.
Adriana Hemans
Of course … let's kick it off. When you're not running your business, taking care of your young twins and running around town, what are you up to? What are you passionate about?
Kristina Adduci
I'm passionate about cannabis. Passionate about art and social justice, we like to say we're a lifestyle brand that leverages all three - the power of art to make cannabis chic, easy, and welcoming. And so I grew up in a Puerto Rican household and really didn’t consumed cannabis at all until my late 20s. And then decided I was going to dive headfirst into the cannabis world bring my art expertise in and here we are.
David Paleschuck
That's awesome. I'm curious to hear about your art expertise. We've never had that conversation.
Kristina Adduci
I had an art magazine called Art Zealous. And it was geared towards young collectors because I had moved to New York in the mid 2000s, and had no friends. And so there I was an art collector. And by art collector, I mean small pieces of art. I was at my local, Brooklyn art gallery, and I decided that there weren't enough publications, speaking to young folk about how to collect art; what to look for the difference between a lithograph and a photograph. I was working at the Michael J. Fox Foundation at the time, and had that entrepreneurial bug that I just could not shake, so left there to start an art magazine. It was in three cities, Miami, New York, and LA- the three big art cities. And I had a successful exit when I decided that I was going to dive headfirst into cannabis. And so everything that House Of Puff does, art just follows it's very much integrated into our DNA and who I am as a person. I'm really passionate about it.
David Paleschuck
Wow, very cool. I was I was not aware of that. What trends are you seeing around women and women consuming cannabis?
Kristina Adduci
I would say a big trend is education and creating communities. I think women are building things differently; building alliances and coalition's and you have companies like ours and Miss Grass, Garden Society, and we're all promoting this sort of sense of connection and looking for space with people who share our values. But we're also seeing that men are just as hungry for that. A large portion of our community is male, but I'm seeing a lot of more women on businesses really lean in to education and community, because that's what women want. We have an editorial site, we have a YouTube channel, we really believe in video-rich content. And during the pandemic, when all of us were home, right. We built this community online. You can go on our YouTube channel and look at some of the comments. You'll see a lot and a lot of women saying, wow, “I can't believe somebody like you looks like me, is teaching me how to roll a joint.” That's a really big trend that I'm excited about, and that I hope more women on businesses in the cannabis space lean into.
David Paleschuck
I think you call out something important. And I think this has been something that's been said, for quite some time now, which is in order for people to picture themselves in a certain place they need, they often need to see people like them in the place they in the place they want that they aspire to be to. So I think it's, it's important and what women like you are doing is really changing the face of cannabis. And I think that's, for me personally, what's important about that is it normalizes cannabis. And it makes it more available to everybody. Like you said, people are surprised to see you or somebody like you rolling a joint.
Kristina Adduci
Right, exactly. And especially, I'm a proud Puerto Rican woman. And so, for women of color, it's very important to see that sort of reflection.
Adriana Hemans
We've talked a lot on this show about stereotypes about consumers and how, being more inclusive of different types of consumers in coming into the market is one way to sort of shatter some of those stigmas. And I also want to bring up the topic of the business community, and some of the hurdles that are endemic to stereotypes about women in cannabis who are coming in and either launching a brand or growing a brand. One thing that I keep seeing over and over again, is stats about having difficulty finding access to capital and investment money, which particularly now has to be a huge issue with capital drying up. Is that something that you experienced Kristina in building House Of Puff?
Kristina Adduci
I'm very passionate about the disbursement of funds to women, specifically women of color. Raising capital for small business remains a significant role roadblock for women, LGBTQIA. community, people of color, regardless of industry, right. As a Latina, we're the second largest population, fastest growing group of entrepreneurs, we get less than 2% of venture capital. And then it's even, I think it's like point 8% goes to women of color. And so my own fundraising journey, how to puff raise a seed round. And yeah, there were there were days when I was absolutely crying in the shower, because most of the investors that I'm speaking to are white men and didn't sort of believe or see, my, our vision. And it was hard, we closed our seed round, and we found investors who aligned with us and saw what we were trying to build. But to any anybody, fundraising, especially in this economic downturn, to really difficult especially in cannabis, like we can't catch a break. And so my mom always says, It's Hispanic gone ganjas, right? Like, do with spirit, just keep going follow your passion. And so after crying in the shower, I'd redo my deck a little bit. And I was always constantly changing and, and, and improving our pitch, and we closed our seed round, but it's hard. It's and for women, it's extremely difficult.
David Paleschuck
Let's bring it around to consumers for a moment and talk to consumers. And, you just spoke about the economic environment, coming out of a pandemic, and how we've seen different types of consumption. Quite frankly, some people have changed their form factor of choice because they’ve had to consume more discreetly. Whether they're consuming around their family or somewhere else. That said, we've got a slide and I think the slide that will speak to what's changing. As usual, we never fail to have our audience participate. So we're going to ask Kristina a few questions, and also ask our live audience to participate.
Adriana Hemans
Here it is! What would Branding Bud Live be without CannaFact or CannaFiction? Ready?
Kristina Adduci
Let's do it. Drum roll.
David Paleschuck
Absolutely. That's what it's all about, and asking the audience to participate and test their industry knowledge is what we do every week. So here's the question.
Kristina Adduci
I'm going to say CannaFact.
Adriana Hemans
For those of you who don’t know, Eaze is a cannabis delivery service. We were just talking about how people change not only the form factors that they chose during the pandemic, but also how they were obtaining it. So no surprise delivery had a huge jump in popularity, right? Nobody wanted to get out of their cars or their homes. I think when you see higher volumes, some of those gender disparities start to even out. Another point we made moments ago, less stigma. More women are ordering or open to ordering directly. And the answer is CannaFact!
David Paleschuck
And safety. I think safety has a lot to do with this too. Not everybody feels safe, walking into a dispensary. And certainly, depending on where those dispensaries are, I mean, certainly on the West Coast, you can walk into some beautiful dispensaries, but in other states, they're not quite there yet. So I think I think this also sort of maybe shed some light on the need for women consumers to feel that to feel safe.
Adriana Hemans
And with delivery growing in popularity to that can also give you access to products that you might not have access to at your local dispensary. So they have a broader selection in some cases. So my question for Kristina, since we're on the topic of products and form factors is, have you seen any noticeable differences in the types of products that women are drawn to in general consumers?
Kristina Adduci
We are accessories. We don't touch the flower. But I would say of course, like beautiful ones, right? At House Of Puff design is important. Products that are not confusing, easy to use, especially like the canna-nervous. And more specifically products that elevate cannabis, cannabis above any stigma, right? There were stereotypes about parenthood, on my mom, women have a lot more to lose by being socially open about cannabis than men do. And so it's important to for us at House Of Puff to design products that are not counterculture that are not juvenile that because those things don't appeal to us. We don't want to feel like, we're doing something wrong. We want to feel like the responsible, stylish adults that we are right. And I think women are really attracted to mission aligned companies. That's something that for me when I'm shopping is definitely something I consider.
David Paleschuck
Everybody here (live chat discussion) seems to be talking about discretion. Stacy mentioned discretion. I said earlier, safety. I think it's really interesting, comfortable with cannabis and the delivery. Now that we're talking about all these, Women owned brands versus men own brands, and you just touched upon something I think is interesting. Why don't we bring up the next slide and we can talk about, gender-based brand design, and I'll go into this. We've exaggerated some things here. If you look at the male-based brands, we have the Blues Brothers, the Beard Brothers, the Jungle Boys, and Medmen. So we've talked up the “boys”, “men” and “bros”. On the female side, we also have the House Of Puff, Flower by Edie Parker, Van Der Pop, Miss Grass. What's really interesting to me - I think these just highlight it - but if you look across many advertisements, promotions, product imagery, most of the female-owned brands were female-targeted products leveraging lifestyle and context. I think it comes through on the right side of the slide. Conversely, most of male-owned brands are product and benefit-specific without the broader context. Do you want to talk through that a little bit, Kristina?
Kristina Adduci
It's how women envision the product in their home? I think that women have certain preferences. Let's face it, I think we have our own values, we have our own experiences and cultural preferences, regardless of gender. Everybody does, right? As a Puerto Rican woman, I obviously have certain preferences when it comes to products for me, the images on the right obviously appeal to me more, right, they're, they're thoughtful, you can tell that there's intention behind it. And, certainly as a mom, I have preferences when it comes to products that, align with my value and lifestyle. Like, let's face it, like I love watching shows like Rick & Morty, but I'm never going to be smoking out of a Pickle bong, for example. Those images don't really appeal to me, but I understand how they appeal to others.
David Paleschuck
I've been in marketing and branding in CPG, for many years, and in cannabis for 12 years. I think one of the things I've noticed, is that men typically focus on a product and its features, whereas, women tend to focus more on context. Specifically, how does it benefit them within a context.
Kristina Adduci
I'm just going to call out our own image, that image probably appeals to a lot of women, because that's what their kitchen table looks like, or perhaps what they want it to look like. And especially for the canna-nervous. Making them feel comfortable when seeing an image, and having them see themselves in that image, I think is incredibly powerful.
David Paleschuck
Do you do you feel there are gender stereotypes that that have to be avoided?
Kristina Adduci
Yeah, a lot. Please elaborate.
David Paleschuck
I think one of the terms I remember when in CPG was “pink it and shrink it”. That was the answer to taking a man’s product and tweaking it to be a smaller and daintier women’s product. I think that's old school thinking and I think we're way beyond that. What are those things that you use to appeal to your community?
Kristina Adduci
I think first and foremost, we're very intentional about design and functionality. We ask ourselves all the time, how can this fit? How can our products be integrated into our customers overall lifestyle for women? Will it look good in her handbag? Will it contribute to the ambiance of an interior. We look at colors of the season. So fashion shows fall, winter, spring summer. Does this product make our customer feel good, both when they're using it, and when they're not using it? Women wear many hats, and we like efficiency. So all of our products, for us are multi-use. And so to make the cut, and the House Of Puff lineup, our products have to be an active part of a life well-lived. And we do a lot of listening. We ask our customers and our community, What do you want? What are your pain points? What are your preferences? What do you need when you're consuming cannabis? That's how we differentiate ourselves from a design perspective and communicating with women. And quite frankly, our split is 60%/40%. We have male customers that love our products as well.
Adriana Hemans
Max called out that he uses his House Of Puff piece.
Kristina Adduci
Yay! A House Of Puff male customer and we love it. Proves my point!
Adriana Hemans
Fun fact about colors. Studies surveyed men and women to see what the most preferred colors are, and blue is most preferred by both men and women. And the color that is the most divisive that women really like, and men really don't like, is purple. Both genders dislike orange and brown.
Kristina Adduci
I Yeah, I'm not a big brown.
Adriana Hemans
Not very serious.
David Paleschuck
FYI, the two most used colors in cannabis are blue and green as well. And Adriana to your point, , the most bifurcating color is purple. I'm always intrigued when I see a purple cannabis brand, I always ask who is it designed to appeal to? Kristina, do you have any thoughts on male-owned brands that appeal to women or try to appeal to women? Do you think it's contrived or not on-point because it's not coming from a woman and filling a specific women’s need?
Kristina Adduci
Good question, David. Wow, I feel like you're trying to get me in trouble. I'll keep it 100%, I think that brands owned and run by men that are targeted to women often think reductively about what women want. You think about CPG brands early on their evolution, like you said, they “shrink it and pink it” instead of thinking about the sort of unique stigmas and challenges that that women face. Think about Victoria's Secret, for example. I don't know if most of you will know, it was run by men. And they were creating bras and lingerie that were twisted around and ultra-uncomfortable. In fact, it was designed by men for men – but for women to wear. Women want to embrace our bodies and feel comfortable. Honestly, I think many brands lack a true understanding of what women want. And I'll leave it at that. But there are companies out there where it works, and we see you.
Adriana Hemans
Shall we do another audience participation round?
David Paleschuck
Let's do it!
Adriana Hemans
Alright, let's get into it. So we talked a little bit about consumers and what consumers are looking for and how they're ordering and form factors. So let's get into the business side of things. This is CannaQuiz. And the question is, which sector of the cannabis industry has the highest percentage of women executives?
Which sector of the cannabis industry has the highest percentage of women executives?
A. Hemp
B. Consumption lounges/events
C. Testing labs
D. Brands
C. Testing Labs
David Paleschuck
Wow! I was thinking there’s more women in branding and marketing because it’s more creative. I’m surprised to see that there’s more women in the industry in lab testing.
Adriana Hemans
it's testing lab. So let's show this chart so we can show how the how the breakdown goes. It is I think like I don't want to say the wrong number before I see the actual chart. But it is like pretty dramatic how we see a lot more representation in the testing lab area, it might be hard to read the numbers 43% in testing labs, the next one down is consumption lounges, 48%. Then we have wholesale cultivators at 40%. The thin orange line shows the average of US businesses with women executives, and that sits at 29%. So you can see a lot of verticals within cannabis are above the national average for all businesses, and quite a few are below. Overall, if you if you take all of all of the business types in cannabis and aggregate. We're slightly below the US national average. But it is encouraging to see that some areas of the business are ahead of the national average. Curious to know what you think, David? Are you surprised by any of these?
David Paleschuck
I really am. Again, it's, there's some sort of old school stereo stereotypical thinking here, in some ways, I thought. I thought if I had to think about where women would fall in the industry, it would either be creative or analytical. So I was sort of either thinking, branding, or, or testing. In fact, most of the people I know, in cannabis in data, or women, I'm just trying to think I'm trying to think of, of a man that that I've worked with in data in cannabis. So it's just interesting
Adriana Hemans
History as a whole is well-represented by women. I think there are more women in executive positions in insights and research, way above the national average, which is where I came from doing cannabis, consumer research and now working in software. So it's interesting to see that there's a lot of both creative side and analytical side. And I want to call out a comment from Stacey, “half of our R&D department is women”. So yes, that's awesome. Thank you for your comment, Stacy.
Kristina Adduci
Wow, that a testing labs. I didn't see that coming.
David Paleschuck
Nor did I. And it's interesting. This sound right, it's typically brands and branding and marketing., the data folks are typically the end, the lab testing, folks, the analytical testing, folks are typically the All in all on the back, and they're all being very quiet as they do their job, , but it's the branding vendors and marketers that sort of scream out. So it's interesting. I was not expecting that. Very. Absolutely. So, um, , let's, let's bring it full circle. I'm curious, , so why, why women owned cannabis brands? that's something that, , we see, we see more women concert consuming, we see more women in the industry, we see the back and forth the tug of war that takes place, , from time to time between different communities within the industry. I'll leave it at that. And, and so what can we do about it? what, how do we open up honest, transparent conversations and let everybody in and find their place in the industry instead of pointing fingers at each other? How? How do we, , how do we go about doing that?
Kristina Adduci
Well, why not? First of all, to circle back to your first question, why not? Women make up 51% of the population are the fastest growing consumer demographic in cannabis. I think that women understand how to meet the needs of this enormous and new base in cannabis. I also think about minorities, it's about inclusivity, right, promoting diversity and inclusivity in the marketplace, by buying products and services from women-owned businesses, we're helping to ensure that the marketplace reflects our diverse society, and the needs and perspectives from everybody being taken to account. And also for me on a personal note, positive impact on local communities. And when women succeed, we all succeed, and this is this is true, this is a fact. When we succeed as entrepreneurs, we're more likely to invest in our families in our communities. And what does that do that helps create jobs that helps create that's economic growth? Women-owned brands - especially in cannabis - we need more of them.
Adriana Hemans
Why not? Kristina, this reminded me of a question talking about economic growth. What are your plans for expanding House Of Puff? What's next on the horizon for you?
Kristina Adduci
We are a cannabis accessory brand based in New York, as we know who adult rec just went live Housing Works on December 29. So New York is a very special place right now. That's where we built the brand. Our offices are in Midtown. Come, come check us out. We're going to keep scaling our brand. We're DTC (Direct To Consumer). We're B2B (Business To Business). The next logical step may be “brick & mortar” in New York. Potentially, we'll see how the regulations shake out, but it would be exciting to have a House Of Puff HQ in New York. Am I right? Absolutely! So yes, your VIP!
David Paleschuck
What was that like to be part of the first legal cannabis sales in New York?
Kristina Adduci
It was it was incredibly special. Housing Works is an incredible organization, and they are really putting a focus on bipoc on brands, New York brands, women brands, I think we're one of the only accessories that they're carrying right now. There's also not a lot of supply coming in. It's moving so quick and everybody can't keep up. So I'm sure the big display that we currently have will be whittled down. But I have to say all the photos I got from people standing in line for hours, and to into shop House Of Puff products. As a New Yorker, it was I even choked up talking about it. It was just it was just so it was so impactful and powerful and I'm excited for New Yorkers and the brands that are being built I think you're going to see some really cool stuff.
David Paleschuck
My friend was joking that the line was longer than a “drop” at Supreme!
Kristina Adduci
My husband went he waited an hour.
Adriana Hemans
I feel like we need a live feed of people standing in line outside of housing works like this. Put a camera mounted right outside the door.
Kristina Adduci
A Branding Bud Live on tour!
Adriana Hemans
We're halfway there already.
David Paleschuck
I love it. I'm curious, , being in New York now. I mean, New York has taken a minute to pull it all together. Do you feel they're on the right track? Do you feel things are, headed in the right direction?
Kristina Adduci
Yes. I think what New York has done a great job. The bill that they've created is putting social equity at the at the top is, is something that's never been done. And, I know that there's been bumps along the way in any rollout in any state, there's obviously going to be struggles. But there is light at the end of the tunnel. And, we are going to be a force to be reckoned with. New York is coming in hot!
Adriana Hemans
Seriously, everybody's talking about it. Kristina, we like to ask all of our guests who come on a question … and the question is, “Can you recommend a book or movie or an experience that cannabis business people should know about?”
Kristina Adduci
Hmm, good question. I'm going to I'm going to be biased. I'm going to say I wish everybody could attend a House Of Puff event. Every summer we throw a Hamptons cannabis soiree at my house. And it's cannabis cocktails, it's infused foods. That was networking. And we're integrating cannabis and entertaining. And we have a wait-staff (aka me). And I just passed around prerolls instead of wine. We have mixologist creating the incredible cannabis cocktails of because again, a lot of the folks who come to the cannabis soiree like our New Yorkers, they've never even tried cannabis cocktails, for example. So it's really incredible to see someone take to not drink alcohol that evening and take a first sip of a cannabis infused cocktail. And it's such an amazing experience.
David Paleschuck
I've heard quite a bit about your summer event. So we're, we're excited. I may take you up on that. Yeah.
Adriana Hemans
You can't take it back now. Because you said it. Yeah.
Kristina Adduci
Usually in August, so just hold the entire month of August for us.
David Paleschuck
Kristina, thank you so much for sharing time, yourself and your brand with us. Additionally for talking through what's been a hard topic for the industry to digest. “Why Women-Owned Cannabis Brands?”. As you stated before, “Why not?” Adriana and I have talked about it so many times, amongst ourselves and with others and thought, we need to bring this topic up, we need to talk through the topic, we need to shed some light on the topic. So we did and we thank you and all the folks that joined and participated for that.
Kristina Adduci
#buyweedfromwomen
David Paleschuck
Kristina, before you go where can everybody find you?
Kristina Adduci
Follow us on Instagram at the House Of Puff and on YouTube too. My personal Instagram is kristinaadduci. So yeah. So sweet again. Please feel free to slide into the DMs.
David Paleschuck
Thank you so much for so much. Have a great day. That was awesome, wasn't it? So good. She's amazing. And everybody who chimed in, was amazing too. Thank you, everybody. That’s our show for today. We’ll be back again next Thursday, January 19th at 11a PST / 2p EST where we’ll be chatting with David VanEaton, Senior Band Manager at Boveda about “How Non-Plant-Touching Businesses Achieve Brand Authenticity In The Cannabis Space”.
Adriana Hemans
If you miss us in the meantime, you can re-watch today’s episode, or any of our previous episodes, on our LinkedIn page, Branding Bud Live, or on our YouTube channel. There are links below, so give us a follow. Bye Bye!
Find our previous episodes on YouTube here👇
https://www.youtube.com/brandingbudlive
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David Paleschuck
Bye Bye!