Pull up the websites of any three cannabis brands that are new to you. Read the “about” page of each one. Then try to explain the difference between them.
You probably can’t. Not because the brands lack creative presentations, but because every one of them reached for the same set of adjectives. Legacy. Passion. Quality. Deep roots. Relentless pursuit of the craft. The vocabulary of cannabis brand copy has been so thoroughly shared that reading one “about” page feels identical to reading any of them.
This is less of a branding problem and more of a positioning failure, and it’s costing cannabis companies growth in ways that most of them are not tracking well.
- Common cannabis branding terms like legacy, passion, quality, and craft no longer differentiate companies when nearly everyone uses them.
- Stronger brand positioning depends on tension, specificity, and a point of view rather than broad adjectives.
- A useful test: Replace your company name with a competitor’s in your brand description. If the copy still works, the narrative is too generic.
When brand language becomes category language
Legacy. Passion. Quality. These three words have been doing so much work in cannabis brand copy for so long that they have stopped meaning anything at all. Every brand that uses them likely displays some version of all three.
When every brand reaches for the same words, those words stop carrying any weight. Here is what the sameness looks like promoting three fictitious companies:
- ABC Cannabis: “We’re a family-owned cultivator with deep community roots, producing our premium-quality products with true passion for the plant.”
- Sunny Farms: “As a craft grower, we’ve built a legacy of excellence on quality and care, creating an elevated consumer experience.”
- Legacy Growers: “Purpose-driven, our farm is rooted in passion and committed to doing things the right way.”
Read all three back to back and try to differentiate between the operations. Can you? Could anyone?
And it’s not just cultivators. Retailers’ and product brands’ messaging suffers a similar fate.
When a brand’s core identity is built around attributes that are universal to the category, the brand has no narrative to set itself apart from the competition. Narratives attract attention.
Take your brand description and swap your company’s name for a competitor’s. Read your brand description again. If it still works, you don’t have a brand narrative. What you have is a category description with a logo slapped on it.
Safe messaging makes brands easier to ignore
Generic positioning feels safe because it’s familiar. Every other brand is doing it, which makes duplicating the behavior feel like the right call. Nobody pushes back on a commitment to quality. Nobody argues with passion or legacy. The whole point is that the language offends no one.
The problem is that following the crowd also gives no one a reason to pay attention. Cannabis brands operating on legacy-passion-quality positioning are making an active choice to be invisible to the journalists, investors, and consumers who otherwise might help their business grow.
Stories sway investors. A potential investor evaluating two companies with similar financials is going to move toward the one with a story that means something to them. Consumers, too, react to memorable stories. A customer with three product options at the same price point is going to reach for the one whose story moved them.
Journalists actively seek interesting stories. When evaluating pitches, they have approximately thirty seconds to determine whether a story is worth pursuing — if there’s a story apparent at all. If a pitch reads like something that could have come from any of the fifty other cannabis companies that pitched at roughly the same time, it goes nowhere.
Pitches are rejected because they are forgettable. Investor conversations stall because the company sounds like every other company. Customer retention plateaus because there is nothing to be loyal to beyond the product itself, and products are always one shelf reset away from being replaced.
Three ingredients that make a brand memorable
Differentiation has three components, and none of them are adjectives.
Tension
A brand built on a belief the industry has been overcomplicating something simple or cutting corners on something that matters has tension. A brand built on a commitment to quality does not. Tension means the brand’s position implies a disagreement with the status quo, and that disagreement is what gives a journalist something to write about, an investor something to back, and a customer something to talk about.
Specificity
A brand’s founding story must be something only this company could have lived. The specific market it came from, the specific thing that went wrong before it existed, the specific decision its founder made that nobody else would have made. Those details are what separates a story from a description. They give journalists intriguing article “hooks,” investors confidence, and customers something to remember.
Point of view
When a founder is willing and able to defend their point of view in public, especially if that point of view is out of the ordinary, that’s a memorable story. People with deeply considered convictions, popular or not, get attention. Convictions give journalists something to write about, investors something to anchor to, and customers something to care about.
Cannabis brands do not need louder language. They need sharper positioning. The companies that break through are the ones willing to say what they believe, explain why they exist, and make clear what only they can credibly own. Legacy, passion, and quality may still be true, but they are not enough to carry a brand narrative.
Make yours memorable.
Michael Mejer is the founder of Green Lane Communication. With a background spanning more than a decade in publicity, marketing, and sales, he is adept at forging connections between trailblazers and the media. His strategic approach empowers business leaders not only to enhance brand recognition but also to foster trust and establish credibility.
