As the Chief Commercial Officer, Adam Coates is responsible for overseeing marketing, sales, commercial strategy and business development for Westleaf and its retail banner, Prairie Records. In episode ten, we explore all things related to cannabis and its consumption, cultivation and manufacturing as well as what it takes to market a product with an implied stigma - in both medicinal and recreational sectors.

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Time Guide

00:28 - Introductions to Westleaf

00:41 - Cultivation, Extraction & Retail

01:15 - Lack of Quality Consistency

02:02 - Disrupting Categories

02:14 - Prairie Records

02:56 - CCO Responsibilities

03:34 - Career steps to Cannabis

04:17 - Experience

05:06 - Bringing acquisitions together

05:35 - Cross functional sales and marketing division.

05:53 - Product innovation & execution innovation

06:19 - How to create a unique consumer experience?

06:40 - Restrictive Marketing

07:50 - Cannabis Retail

08:19 - Creating something unique

09:10 - Successful Staffing

09:52 - Scale

10:02 - Vertically Integrated Strategy

10:30 - Missing from the space

10:45 - Value Proposition

11:34 - Record stores & strains

11:56 - TOP HITS; curated ‘playlists’

12:58 - Immersive Experiences

13:43 - Post Prohibition Strategy & Regulation

14:43 - Less Harm Done

15:00 - What regulation is doing

15:20 - We need to educate the consumer.

16:15 - Change in Tech

16:42 - The Second Wave

17: 10 - Edibles

17:55 - Onset

18:55 - Feeling Cannabinoids

19:21 - Loyalty and Branding

20:08 - Building social following organically

20:45 - Consumer point of connection

20:57 - Distinction between Med and Rec

22:43 - Production

23:21 - Quality and Consistency

23:50 - Implied Lifestyle

24:30 - Budtenders

25:31 - Changes in the space

26:09 - Canada = Industry Leader

26:43 - Source of innovation

27:35 - Hemp & CBD

28:35 - Doing things differently

29:27 - Having the right culture

30:18 - Conclusions

Social:

https://www.instagram.com/north_report/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-north-report

Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-coates-b2715b17/?originalSubdomain=ca

https://www.westleaf.com/

https://www.westleaf.com/prairie-records/

If you'd like to be a guest on a future episode or want to hear more about a topic, email us at hello@northreport.ca