Imagine Pot Was Legal. How Would You Brand It?

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/cliff-kuang/design-innovation/imagine-pot-was-legal-how-would-you-brand-it

by vaksel • 17 years ago

32 37 17 years ago

I would use a panda. A cool panda, but not too cool so that children will get confused. Because, remember, stay in school.

rriepe• 17 years ago

Random and funny isn't too far off the mark.

Certainly there'd be big companies that were successful. Anyone that could put out a lot for cheap would be a big brand for sure, especially soon after legalization.

But as far as actual brand success-- where the brand itself helps the company-- there's no telling. The "counterculture" nature of the market makes any attempt at branding a shot in the dark. So a stay in school panda has a pretty good chance.

dbz• 17 years ago

Image brand names.... Pot in the box <- Chain weed selling store "Let's be blunt, it's good" <- Catch phrase or whatever

What an interesting world this would be...But we wouldn't care how interesting it would be because we'd be high? Right?

unalone• 17 years ago

Make it a grungy panda and I've got a university full of students who'd like a word with you.

rawr• 17 years ago

If a bunch of supermodels were to come to your house and have sex with you, which kind of condoms would you use?!

Cross that bridge when you get to it ;-)

byrneseyeview• 17 years ago

It's a valid question! Nicky Barnes would brand his heroin by using electrical tape instead of scotch tape -- apparently, it worked. But most drug sellers compete based on customer service, since it's hard to control branding.

miracle• 17 years ago

Hopefully Pot will be legal in the USA so the rest of the world (especially china) can take over world domination :)

jrockway• 17 years ago

Yeah, because people in countries where pot is illegal never smoke it...

patrickg-zill• 17 years ago

A related thought: I guess Coca-Cola, with their "Coke is it!" ad campaigns, might begin to re-brand themselves...

sharpn• 17 years ago

'electric smoke'

joeyo• 17 years ago

From Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle:

  To inspire himself, he lit up a marijuana cigarette, 
  excellent Land-O-Smiles brand.

Of course, this was in an alternative universe where the Axis powers won World War II...

bprater• 17 years ago

News about pot legalization and stories like these seem to be hitting a feverish level lately. Are we on the verge of seeing some real changes on this front?

jgilliam• 17 years ago

Popular opinion is accelerating in favor of legalization. See this chart from fivethirtyeight: http://is.gd/1TbjZ

icey• 17 years ago

Random aside, but could we avoid using URL shorteners here? HN already truncates URL text after a certain length, but at least we can have a clue as to where we're going before we click a link.

limmeau• 17 years ago

Steve Yegge wrote about it back in April[1]. He compared legalization of cannabis to software requirements which look easy until you really try to work out the details.

[1] http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2009/04/have-you-ever-legali...

cb5• 17 years ago

Decrim > Legal

Somethings are better to remain/become a cottage industry.

This is one. While these prototypes would fit what I imagine the packaging a cottage industry cannabis operation would produce, if there were the impetus to move the product out of its current packaging, I shudder to think what the marketers for the likes of mass-produced/consumed beers would come up with.

Also, I imagine the cognitive dissonance of the anti-drug commercials, like the one with pot smokers hitting the child on a bike while pulling away from a drive-thru window contrasted with commercials touting the virtues and benefits of legal pot would be too much for some to handle.

So for these reasons, and others -

Decrim > Legal

philwelch3• 17 years ago

It's illegal to advertise tobacco on television, and hard liquor is never advertised either out of social norms. Also, open and legal production of cannabis would improve quality and variety while open and legal distribution would help too.

Whenever I go grocery shopping, there are the mass-produced cheap beers, but there are also good imports and microbrews. The wine aisle has even greater variety. Why would weed be different?

pyre3• 17 years ago

Hard liquor is never advertised on TV?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanqueray http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kahl%C3%BAa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacardi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Morgan

"Got a little Cap'n in you?"

These are all off-the-top of my head examples of commercials I've seen on TV... maybe you meant broadcast vs cable television? Or are you outside of the US? (I assumed you were in the USA b/c of the no cigarette commercials comment... I think that's only in the US...)

waitwhatwhoa• 17 years ago

tongue in cheek but sublime:

http://www.metafilter.com/72961/Harshing-your-mellow#2168021

SamAtt• 17 years ago

When I look at the other suggestions there seems to be this idea that your Mom and Dad are suddenly going to start smoking pot if it's legal. I doubt that. So the ideas that mimic Coke or Beer branding don't do much for me.

If it were me I'd target the younger audience and use humor. Shoot for the energy drink audience who've gotten themselves so hyped up that they probably need it. Maybe use some of the footage from those old 50s films where everyone ends up dead at the end from pot use. Then follow it with a tag line like "Marijuana...It's not just for crazy people who jump out of windows anymore!"

I admit, I do love the back of the box in the article. There's some real mileage to be gotten out of "Alcohol is way more dangerous". But I can't see using that in the initial marketing since any decision to legalize would be preceded by a long debate that would certainly put those points in the public concious.

Femur• 17 years ago

Coming from a product that can get you arrested as well as a history of highly variable cost and unknown quality and source, I would push safety, quality and consistency as main selling points.

"Our marijuana is grown in the rolling hills of Upstate New York - a region which has a long history of quality agriculture. We guarantee that our pot, containing 3.5% THC by weight, will give you a smooth and pleasant high that is a hallmark of Femur brand marijuana."

balding_n_tired• 17 years ago

There was a novel about this 30+ years ago. _Acapulco Gold_, maybe?

snprbob86• 17 years ago

Why should we expect pot to be packaged, branded, or distributed any differently than cigarettes or beer? The truth lies somewhere between those two, with a few tweaks.

I'd expect pre-rolled joints to be kept in small packages with large warning labels and sold from behind the counter, exactly like cigarettes. "Loose" pot would likely be sold the same way. Habitual smokers would just walk up and ask for their brand.

Like beer, there would be "grow-houses" analogous to breweries. You could go take a tour, order some <strike>bar food</strike> munchies, and your favorite designer strand. Casual, or "sophisticated" smokers would endlessly debate the various aspects of the high and experience.

I think the more important question, and the unique part, is what to do about the paraphernalia? I don't foresee Walmart carrying bongs anytime soon. There would likely be more head shops springing up, with few big, existing players opting to go for that market for image reasons. This may change over a longer period of time.

pyre3• 17 years ago

What about 'pot chew' for chewing tobacco users?

ken• 17 years ago

I'd suggest famous and successful people who used it. "Thomas Jefferson" brand with a picture of his Declaration. "Mr. X" brand with a picture of the cosmos. I'm sure you could find a bunch of more recent celebrity endorsements, too.

321abc• 17 years ago

Pot is already effectively (though not officially) legal in Holland. Just look to how Dutch coffeshops have gone about branding and marketing their products.

Also, you might want to open any issue of High Times. They advertise a million hemp and pot-related products, many of which could just as well be advertising pot itself.

keefe• 17 years ago

At the current clinics they often distribute it in these pseudo-medical test tubes that are highly amusing... The bottom line is if they legalized, there's no real need to market anything but the dispensaries giving it out.... I think it would really depend on the type, you can see this happening already - vapor room in SF advertising a place to smoke up, other places advertising good prices or delivery services... that's an appropriately rambling response to this particular topic.... oh look a cheeto!

jlees• 17 years ago

An interesting exercise in theory, though I can only imagine the last 'brand' as ever actually hitting the shelves. The rest of it just ain't practical..

snorkel• 17 years ago

I would... I would uh... oh man, I forgot. I would... can I borrow a 20 from you? I'm so hungry, dude. I got... wow! Oh I remember... wait, what are we talking about?

philwelch3• 17 years ago

You'd have to associate it with companion products, not just the obvious junk foods but also things like music. I could easily see record stores and concert concessions being major retailers of marijuana.

patio11• 17 years ago

Realistically speaking? I think Big Pot is likely to pay rappers to hawk it in their videos to "adults of a legal age" snort.

Yeah, yeah, I know legalization advocates think that pot is likely to be grown primarily by local artisans and not by violent drug gangs, as it is currently, or commercial agriculture operations feeding into megabrands like all legal mind-altering substances. That is because legalization advocates have an enormous capacity for self-deception, quite possibly helped by the fact that they are stoned.

jstevens85• 17 years ago

My guess is that if pot is legalised, it will be manufactured in a similar way to cigarettes.

gaius• 17 years ago

Do you know much about the tobacco industry?

pyre3• 17 years ago

It's not necessarily grown by violent drug gangs. There are federally registered legal growers in some places where it's legal (I know that there was such people in the US for a limited run before it was shut down), but it's not like any university researcher that gets their hands on some for an experiment gets it from gangs... let alone the medical marijuana community and the businesses that have arisen around that.

thunk• 17 years ago

"SkunkWorks - When the free world depends on your creativity, Skunk Works!"

Imagine Pot Was Legal. How Would You Brand It?

Related Stories