The Deli Counter
Head of Brand & Product (fractional) for Schwazze, 2024
Strategy:
Schwazze needed a flower brand that could win at the counter, where the category makes its sale. The bet was merchandising as the brand: a card handed across rather than a script.
Design:
Vicarel Studios drew the wordmark and made the thermal portraits. Portal’s part: the strain cards, effects and potency up front, the counter, art direction on the pouches, and the brand film, which I directed.
Leadership:
Portal was executive sponsor as fractional leader: naming research, art direction, production, project management. Colorado’s top-selling flower brand within six months. The merchandising did a lot of that.
Product in Hand
Effects up front.
A strain card: Cadillac Rainbows, effects and potency on the front, a thermal illustration on the back. Three stand-up pouches in thermal gradients, green through violet.
Product in Life
Like a deli board.
The budtender hands you the Chimera card rather than reciting it. You read effects and potency like a deli board and pick. The pouch matches the card.
Brand film
Grow room to shelf.
51 seconds from the grow room to the shelf, sound off. I directed it through Portal, and a commissioned motion graphics designer produced it.
Product in Culture
The counter is the campaign.
Legal cannabis retail copied the pharmacy: a glass case and a clerk between you and the product. There are more flower brands than shelf. The shelf decides.
To Colorado’s top-selling flower brand, the merchandising doing a lot of it.
Head of Brand & Product (fractional) at Portal
Strategy, merchandising, film
Schwazze
Launched, 2024