Cosmic Live Resin

Project Summary

Working with an emerging brand in a highly competitive niche market, I first set out to understand the brand, its products, and the company’s founders. After extensive interviews and research, I produced a set of assets and tools that could communicate and build upon that value.

First, I needed to establish a strong and consistent brand voice and identity. Next, I created educational tools and marketing assets to communicate the product's value to knowledgeable consumers and influencers such as budtenders in dispensaries. And finally, I built digital tools and connections to allow consumers to find and order the products online.

The Challenge

Working with a high-end niche cannabis product presents many unique challenges.

First, many people do not even know what live resin is. They may be intimidated or afraid to ask questions in the dispensary environment. I needed to produce content that would explain to both professional budtenders and curious consumers what the product is, how it is made and why it is so amazing.

Second, as a small craft brand with a limited budget, how do you stand out against more established brands already dominating the space? For this, we sought to nurture relationships with tastemakers and influencers that could understand and communicate our value to new and prospective consumers. Forging these relationships required developing a deep understanding of the niche culture and speaking in a strong, authentic voice that that culture, in particular, would appreciate.

And lastly, how do you reach consumers directly, given the regulatory environment, which requires that all sales go through a licensed dispensary? Since social media and even email channels are closed to cannabis products (we had multiple accounts deleted without warning), I needed to build a digital bridge to connect consumers with platforms where they could find and order our products. I needed to enable e-commerce for a product outlawed from many marketing channels.

 Solutions

My first step in solving these challenges was to develop two Primary Archetypes to represent the consumers in our audience:

1. The OG Heads: cannabis connoisseurs and taste-makers, many of whom work in the industry and influence decision-makers at dispensaries.

2. The Canna-Curious: relative newbies eager to explore the emerging world of adult-use cannabis.

To reach these consumers, I first wanted to develop a strong brand voice that would resonate with the Heads and educate the Canna-Curious. For the Heads, I needed to convey our pedigree as legacy operators and our deep roots in the cannabis scene. And for the Canna-Curious, I wanted to position ourselves as a trusted source of approachable information.

With these consumer groups in mind, I produced both physical and digital marketing assets to accomplish these goals:

• An Infographic Sheet to explain the process, value-add and technical specifics

• A Table Tent to convey Cosmic’s philosophy, values and award-winning quality from the dispensary shelf

• Social Media and Email Campaigns designed to speak to these archetypes using co-branded products and influencers

• Branded Pages on Weedmaps and Leafly, marketplace platforms that enable customers to legally find and buy cannabis products

• A Website that could serve as a digital bridge from our marketing campaigns to Leafly and Weedmaps, enabling a clickable customer journey. A consumer can now discover the products on Instagram, click the “link in bio” to the website, then click a link to Leafly or Weedmaps and order the product from a dispensary or delivery service in their area.

UX Methods

• Brand Strategy Interview

• Comparative/Competitive Analysis

• User Experience Mapping

• User Personas

• Information Architecture

• Wireframe Flows

• Customer Journey Mapping