Two Colorado Women Form Cannabis Branding Business

Two young women from Colorado have teamed up to form the company Cannabrand, a marketing/PR firm that deal exclusively with cannabis related businesses.

The women, Olivia Mannix and Jennifer DeFalco, met at college and their shared love of cannabis and marketing gave them the impetus to create Cannabrand. Their aim is to move the image of the modern stoner farther from the erstwhile pothead stereotypes, to a more appropriate demographic: working people. Check out their mission statement below:

Cannabrand takes into account the changing face of your average stoner. Take Ms. Mannix and Ms. DeFalco, for example. A cursory glance at them would not even hint at the passionate stoners that exists at their kernel.

Olivia Mannix and Jennifer DeFalco

“Enter Olivia Mannix and Jennifer DeFalco, two twenty-somethings who, in their heels and sheath dresses, seem decidedly more Condé Nast than Cheech and Chong.”

“Like all industries, cannabis companies need to be branded and marketed effectively,” says Mannix, co-founder of the Denver-based company. She and her business partner knew that they were the ones to launch the company, not because of a shared affinity for marijuana, but because of their ability to spot trends and solve problems. “We had both been avidly following the cannabis industry for years. Once we were aware that recreational use was going to become legal in Colorado, we planned to open a full-service marketing agency catering to the cannabis space,” says Mannix.”

Even being in Colorado, however, doesn’t remove all the risk from starting such a business.

From the Cannabrand website.

“Laws can always change and public sentiment can turn against legalization. To Teflon-proof their business, Cannabrand is thinking outside of the box, offering brand extensions to show off their business creativity and simultaneously raise public support of cannabis legalization. They have the blog CannaBuzz, with its tagline “Covering cannabis culture and the recreational movement” with posts like the one titled “What it’s like to be a mother in the cannabis industry,” written by a woman on their creative team. It also means that they are looking beyond Colorado. “We envision opening branches across the nation, and we will continue to influence policy and the federal legalization of cannabis,” says Mannix. In other words, they are way more Fortune 500 forward-thinking than High Times laissez-faire.”

I think this is indicative of the nation morphing into a much more cannabis-friendly environment. As the facts become clearer, more people are setting aside their long-held prejudices against marijuana and stoners and embracing it as a safer alternative to alcohol, and an industry that can generate billions. The lies are starting to fail and the truth is all that is left standing.