What is Product Brand Health and how can it help cannabis marketers?

 Cannabis brands are doing all they can to connect with consumers. Once products reach the shelf, it’s time for brands to ensure customers choose them during their next dispensary pickup. Around the country, brands engage in unique marketing efforts like in-store activations, special events and other sponsored consumer activities to try and move the needle on their brand purchasing.

But how can a brands know how many consumers in their market they’ve connected with? Sales data can show volume – but it lacks the “why” behind the purchase. Instead, there’s Brand Health data.

What is brand health? Brand Health research is a group of metrics that illustrates how your brand is performing. These metrics start with brand awareness, purchasing, and purchase repeat intent (loyalty). Each of these metrics can tell a brand where it needs to focus its marketing efforts. Additional metrics specific to a brand are also captured, such as if its meeting buyer expectations, whether they’d recommend the brand, and brand associations.

Product Brand Health – the best way to know if your marketing efforts are working!

Product Brand Health data for the cannabis industry provides a state and product type-level view of how brands resonate with consumers. With 14 states and 8 product types, the specificity is unprecedented in U.S. cannabis!

So when trying to understand if marketing efforts have made a difference, brand health is game-changing. Twice a year, Brightfield Group surveys consumers, so brands get an over-time view of how their current marketing efforts are affecting their funnel. By spotting gaps or comparing performance across competitors, brands can guide strategy that aligns with how consumers are currently experiencing that brand.

For example, a brand may have low awareness compared to its competitors but see a high percentage of aware consumers purchase the brand. A data-driven marketing team would get to work on how to boost awareness. This includes dispensary partnerships to educate relevant customers, community event sponsorships to boost brand visibility, and billboard campaigns. Of course, each state has its regulations, but a brand team needs to know its problem before reaching into the toolbox to fix it.

What is Brand Health Data For?

Brand health is the key to understanding your consumer and how their behavior and experience impacts their spending. Brand health data can be used to understand and dig into so many things about your brand. Here are a few key areas that brand health tracking can shed some light.

The “What” vs. The “Why”

Sales data tell you what is happening on the shelf at any given time—Brand Health trackers can tell you why this is happening and what you may be seeing on the shelf in coming quarters.

Brand Health can answer key questions like…

• Who are you gaining/losing share from?
• How have your user groups changed or shifted?
• What habits do your users have that are driving these changes?

Competitive Benchmarking

Sales data can show a brand its volume compared to others in the market but not the overlap of buyers across the competitive landscape. Brand health shows you cross-purchase and helps you better understand the shelf dynamics that may be hidden behind pure sales data. Additionally, in the cannabis industry, POS information doesn’t often connect directly to the purchaser. Not knowing who exactly is purchasing your products leaves a blank spot in your marketing and strategy plan.

Cannabis brand health can answer key questions like…

• What other brands is my buyer purchasing?
• Are my consumers the same as my competitors?
• What brands are heavy cannabis users most likely to purchase?
• Who is buying my brand?
• What are their cannabis behaviors?
• What can I learn about them to help me better cater to their needs?
• How can I innovate to address the market better?

Measuring Brand Saliency

Sometimes brand have strong sales but the measured brand awareness is weak. This dichotomy can be confusing to marketers, but it may mean you have a brand saliency issue. Consumers can’t recall your brand name when asked, meaning their overall connection to your brand is tenuous and easily broken by a competitor that can standout more.

Understanding your brand’s awareness with respect to the market is a vital piece to continuing the brand’s market growth.

Ready to see Product Brand Health data relevant to your state and product category? Get in touch!

Published: 12/06/2023