Fresh News Now

Marijuana startups are mimicking tech companies’ style of marketing and branding.
Chris Burggraeve, a former Coca-Cola and AB InBev executive-turned cannabis startup founder, estimates that people seeking the “Apple Store experience” for marijuana make up a $50 million opportunity.
Brands like Toast, Herbessntls, and MedMen are among the many companies taking a page out of Apple’s playbook.

With legal marijuana sweeping the United States and Canada, cannabis industry players are taking it on themselves to make cannabis not just okay, but completely normal.

That means a proliferation of brands pushing all the markings of a tech startup — brightly colored products, an emphasis on quality, and open, airy shops — to joints, vaporizers, and dispensaries.

According to Chris Burggraeve, a former Coca-Cola and AB InBev executive-turned cannabis startup founder, weed companies adopting minimalist colors and clean lines makes perfect business sense. Marijuana carries a historical baggage that most of its category rivals, from alcohol to pharmaceuticals, lack.

As an increasing number of states legalize marijuana, companies have the opportunity to not just sell weed but create brands in an explosive industry. While marijuana is not quite a blank slate, companies have the chance to decide whether they want to market it with its old, stoner-centric image or to adopt the trappings of a tech brand like Apple.

“Think about the breakdown: What proportion of people want the Apple Store experience?” Burggraeve told Business Insider.

According to Burggraeve’s estimates, customers seeking the stoner vibe make up a roughly $2 million market. Those who would feel more at home at an Apple Store that sells marijuana products instead of iPads account for $50 million.

This theory helped Burggraeve in shaping Toast, an upscale marijuana brand he cofounded in 2016. A “slice” of Toast is marketed as the equivalent of a …read more

Source:: Business Insider

      

Tory MPs don’t want to get rid of Theresa May yet but they might decide getting rid of her early is better than not getting rid of her at all.

It’s become a well-sourced article of faith that the problem that Conservative Brexiteers have is that they have the numbers to trigger a vote of no confidence in Theresa May’s leadership of the Tory party (they need 15 per cent of the parliamentary party to sign a letter calling for one, that is to say, 48 names) but not enough to win one (for which you need 50.1 per cent of the parliamentary party, i.e. 156 MPs).

It’s true to say that, if you were to pick up the phone to every member of the parliamentary Conservative party, you would struggle to get close to 156 people to commit to voting against May even privately. In fact there is a lot of hostility to the idea of triggering one early because under Tory party rules, if the leader survives a confidence vote you can’t have another go for a year. (That’s one reason why, as Patrick explained in greater detail to readers of our subscriber only Sunday briefing this morning, Johnny Mercer’s outspoken comments about the party leadership are losing him friends among his fellow Conservative MPs.)

But that wouldn’t give me any comfort in Downing Street. The settled will of the majority of the Conservative parliamentary party is that Theresa May needs to go shortly after the United Kingdom formally leaves the European Union in March 2019 and the prospect of extending her political shelf life deep into the winter of 2019, which any failed confidence vote would do, is an anathema to them.

The fear is particularly acute if you are on the foothills of government or even in the …read more

Source:: New Statesman