Tis the season again. No, not Danksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas-light-untangling*, or any other holiday traditions. Trend predictions – issued from all corners – mark the end of the calendar as well. From toys, to fashion, to paint colors, forecasts of hot trends get plenty of play this time of year. In the cannabis industry, much of the…
The 2018 MJBizCon show’s attendance numbers prove it; there has never been more interest in the cannabis market than there is at this moment. And with new states and markets coming online soon, in various permutations of legality, a cannabis-hostile U.S. Attorney General ousted, and increased favorable press coverage around all things CBD, it’s clear…
THE CBD CONSUMER IS NOT HOMOGENOUS When we speak with cannabis users, we like to dig a bit deeper beyond favored strains, go-to brands, and such. So when we polled 1500 CBD consumers, we were interested to find out much more than their thoughts on CBD. We wanted to know – beyond being a “CBD…
As we round our way into the remaining weeks of summer, with rising temperatures and dew points still expected for many across the country, it’s a good time to revisit a cannabis format that is typically overlooked in the edibles category: beverages. Specifically, non-alcoholic beverages infused with THC or CBD or both. When we looked…
(Download a complimentary copy of the report referenced below here.) CBD consumers buy from a wide range of online and brick-and-mortar stores. To date, consumers have been shopping brand websites (31%), online retailers (24%), and natural foods stores (21%), plus cannabis dispensaries (31%). But we’ve reached a pivot point. Many convenience stores have embraced CBD…
For contributors to cannabis industry thought leadership often appearing under ‘Advertising, Marketing, & PR’ covering any topic other than the outbreak of vaping-related sickness nationwide would be tone deaf. The issue has demanded attention from the industry for some time but developments continue to unfold, some as recent as Monday of this week. We have surveyed the landscape of…
(Read the full article on “POINTS: THE BLOG OF THE ALCOHOL & DRUGS HISTORY SOCIETY” here.) Americans are consumed by fads in food, drink, and wellness. We swing from one subject of fascination to another: antioxidants, açai, resveratrol, fat free, healthy fats, active cultures, spiked seltzers, organic, biodynamic, anything free range, you name it. Yet…
Buffet, ICP, and leadership in a crisis The headline is admittedly misleading. If I truly knew which direction we – as a nation and as an industry – were headed, I would be fielding calls from Warren Buffett. Suffice it to say, that is not happening. However, there are indicators we can watch and trends…
Consumer products companies specializing in hemp-derived cannabidiol (CBD) have been responding to unabated consumer demand by expanding distribution, seeking new mainstream channels to reach consumers. Mainstream stores from Walgreens to DSW Shoes to big-box grocery now stock CBD products, from a few SKUs to an entire store-within-a-store. CBD’s unabated popularity among consumers has generated increased…
Taking a page from the e-commerce giant Alibaba, which runs massive sales annually on November 11 (or 11.11) for the unofficial Chinese shopping holiday Singles’ Day, the rewards app Shopkick recently announced a new “10.10 Shopping Festival”. Consumers buying from direct-to-consumer and retail brands through the Shopkick app collect rewards points in the form of…