BK: Tell me about the changes happening at Flowr.
AJ: It’s all about the “balanced achievers,” that’s the conceptual target of the brand. We believe that cannabis is a tool to enhance your way of life, your personality, and as such revitalized the brand’s pillars to address the needs of that target.
NW: “Balanced achievers” became a rallying cry for the brand—it was a creed we created.
BK: What does it mean, “balanced achiever,” and how does it apply to weed?
AJ: Cannabis, we think, is more than a distraction. It’s a tool to enhance our way of life and as such, we believe it needs to be grown with care, which is why we pride ourselves on growing high-quality cannabis. Our indoor facilities present a high-precision approach to cannabis and we deliver a premium experience—high THC strains.
BK: What does a “balanced achiever” smoking these days?
AJ: BC Pink Kush is our flagship sku right now and that, to us, epitomizes the promise of the brand.
BK: Nicole, can you talk about the new logo, the giant, cascading F?
NW: It came from our work with our creative agency Zerotrillion. Cannabis is an icon that can stand alone and it was important that we made something instantly recognizable, but not flashy or gimmicky. Nothing green, nothing cliché. We didn’t want to talk down to consumers. And we wanted our logo to have meaning. To that end, we saw over 100 concepts, but liked the isometrical F for the ascending staircase, when we saw that...
BK: What happened?
NW: Everything else disappeared.
BK: You came from the beer industry, right?
NW: Yeah, and I look at cannabis today like the explosion of craft beer—one day, there was nothing, the next day, there were hundreds of brands. So it’s a lot for consumers to take in and with cannabis, there’s regulations to add on top of the challenges. I think we’re still at the very beginning of the industry. The next 12 to 18 months will be a huge opportunity for brands to establish themselves.
BK: Dre, why don’t you take this one. So you guys are revealing a new look now online, new logos, new colours. What’s next with the ongoing evolution?
AJ: We’re doing things progressively. Earlier this year, we did the first reveal of the brand, the logo, the new colours, and that was essentially on social media, and then we launched a new website. We were going to do experiential marketing this summer, but of course all that has had to change.
BK: I’m sure you never expected to be launching a rebrand during a global pandemic.
AJ: COVID-19 or not, we’re very careful with the way we spend money, but this is definitely not anything we—or anyone else—could have planned.
BK: How has COVID-19 changed things?
AJ: The fact that we can’t visit stores or talk to consumers in-person is an obvious shift, but it doesn’t prevent us from deploying our messaging online. We’re very excited, as you can imagine, about showing people all of our work. We’re proud.
NW: With COVID, you don’t know what the new normal is going to be and I feel like that’s similar to working in marketing in cannabis. You never know when the marketing regulations in Canada will change or loosen up, and you have to proceed with caution. One thing we feel strongly about is staying firmly on mission at all times, and of course building and working with the regulations—and the conditions—of the times.
BK: It’s cool that your message is, in essence, we grow high-quality weed.
AJ: We stay focused on that core mission—we grow indoor premium dried flower for the Canadian market. That’s our mantra. Our focus is always on high-quality. And early days it’s paying off. We are seeing positive momentum as it relates to the sales of our BC Pink Kush.
BK: What is it like to be in the Cannabis industry right now?
AJ: We’ve had our fair share of tough decisions. It’s a hostile market condition for all of us, but we recently announced another capital raise of $20-million and half of it is insider driven, so that’s a sign of the confidence our current owners have in our capacity to get through this storm and be one of the major players in the long run.
BK: Who else might be with you for the long run?
AJ: A company like Aphria, with Broken Coast. I love to observe what’s going on in the market, there’s also 7 Acres, that’s a brand that got my attention. Both of those brands are talking a language that resonates with cannabis consumers.
BK: Take us out of here, guys. What should the kind readers know about the power of the rebooted Flowr?
NW: The rebrand was about building the foundations and looking at where we’ve been, but also about bringing us forward and into the light. I think we’ve achieved that, and now it’s all about having fun with our product and with our brand.
AJ: We want people to try our product. In the end, the whole rebrand, the logo, all of it is an effort to get people to give us a chance. Once they do, in our opinion they like what usually follows.
