A new, comparative analysis of cannabis retail sales data shows celebrity-backed cannabis brands tend to outperform traditional cannabis brands on the market.
According to Seattle-based cannabis analytics provider, Headset, celebrity brands in the California cannabis market outsold traditional cannabis brands by a healthy margin in the first quarter of 2023. Data from Headset also showed celebrity cannabis brands cost less than the $23.14 per item that traditional brands normally cost. In the first quarter, traditional cannabis brands averaged $26,591 in monthly sales. Ten cannabis brands exceeded that number, with five brands making over $100,000 in monthly revenue.
According to the data, the top celebrity cannabis brands for the first quarter of 2023 include Cann, Seth Rogen’s Houseplant, Mike Tyson’s Tyson 2.0, Wiz Khalifa’s KKE / Khalifa Kush Enterprises and Carlos Santana’s Mirayo by Santana, all of which collect over $100,000 in monthly revenue.
Cann, a low-dose marijuana beverage maker whose investors and brand ambassadors include Gwyneth Paltrow, Rebel Wilson and former NBA player Baron Davis, outsold traditional cannabis brands nearly 30-to-1. The company early on partnered with Imaginary Ventures, a New York-based venture capital firm that helped grow celebrity apparel brands Good American and Skims.
“We thought if we could be the first cannabis brand to get a mainstream celebrity that does not have a public image that’s associated with cannabis, then we could change the conversation and normalize it in a really new and powerful way,” said Cann co-founder Luke Anderson. “We were able to paint a picture that this is something for everybody. It’s not just something for people who want to get really high.”
Although some celebrity brands are seeing positive numbers in California some brands, celebrity-backed or not, aren’t seeing the same successes and are pulling out of California completely. Recently, Jerry Garcia’s Garcia Hand Picked cannabis line was pulled from the state as the company said it was looking for a new local supplier. The brand previously sourced its cannabis from legacy farmers in the Emerald Triangle, the largest cannabis producing region in the state.
“We’re taking a pause in California. We want to ensure CA consumers have the highest quality flower for the long term, so we are in the process of choosing a new local partner for cultivation, production, sales, and distribution of Garcia Hand Picked in CA,” said a spokesperson from Holistic Industries, the brand’s parent company.
Although celebrity cannabis brands are seeing success in California, just having a celebrity-backed cannabis brand doesn’t always guarantee the same successes. One of the fastest ways to build a brand is through building a loyal fan base, which can be difficult for cannabis companies as marketing restrictions and the legality of cannabis at the federal level make it hard for brands to advertise to new customers. Brands have been working to get creative with their marketing efforts and focusing on “buyers and more specifically at their budtenders,” said Tiffany Chin, who leads Snoop Dogg’s cannabis ventures such as Death Row Cannabis. Headset analysts said winning over dispensary workers can be very advantageous for celebrity-backed cannabis brands as those budtenders have an “extraordinary” amount of influence over a customer’s purchase.
“A rapper or some sort of musician or celebrity, they’ll put out a strain and then it’ll kind of get launched and there’s a little bit of hype, but then there’s really not the follow-up,” said Daniel Firtel, president at TRP, a cannabis retailer with 18 dispensaries across eight states who noted his company’s top-selling brands aren’t celebrity-linked ones. “That’s because they don’t have the infrastructure, the team and, really, the level of commitment that is necessary in cannabis.”
