Colorado-based startup KushMoji is using the emoji model to address marketing challenges cannabis companies face with advertising.
KushMoji is an ingenious app that will allow canna-businesses to navigate around strict advertising roadblocks. Through the “emoji” model, businesses will be able to reach customers much better than before. Two solid years into recreational marijuana legalization and canna-businesses continuously run into issues that, when thinking in legislative terms, they shouldn’t have to. When marijuana was legalized by way of Colorado Amendment 64, it stated that marijuana should be regulated similarly as alcohol. Whether it’s by taxation, Section 22, a. Or distribution and available information, Section 23. While it’s clearly stated that in many ways marijuana will be handled and regulated as alcohol is, there is a wide disparity on what that means for advertising. With alcohol, risk is relatively minimized for those under 21 to see any influencing advertising. At the same time we know marijuana is strictly regulated comparatively to alcohol.
With roadblocks and grey-areas when it comes to advertising, it’s difficult for canna-businesses to build brand awareness amongst their respective audiences. KushMoji is working through these regulations by providing canna-businesses with another outlet - Emojis!
We’re all well aware of the cute, silly, and sometimes sentence-replacing pictures that have taken the digital world by storm. KushMoji aims to integrate a cannabis driven keyboard to user’s phones. The company claims they are “the most innovative emoji app,” which will showcase popular cannabis products and brands alongside an “extensive, feature-rich emoticon library.”
Say bye-bye to the days of sending your buddy a red maple leaf in lieu of a pot leaf. Want to ask your friend if they want to take some dabs at your place? There's a KushMoji for that.
Like Emoji’s, KushMoji will allow you to cleverly send your friends images of what you’d otherwise type out marijuana-wise. Not only that, but the keyboard will also include specialized emoticons that describe how you feel or any other expression. The difference between that and regular emojis, is that KushMoji will provide a description of what exactly the emoticon means! If there is one gripe I have with emojis, it is that I don’t know what probably half of them are supposed to represent.
Seriously… What is this supposed to represent?!
[caption id="attachment_9580" align="aligncenter" width="181"] *FYI it's supposed to be a full-body OK sign... Never would have guessed...[/caption]
But how exactly does an KushMoji keyboard affect other canna-businesses? KushMoji’s business model is based upon monthly subscription fees (approx. 2-3k per month) by companies to have their branding and products integrated into the KushMoji keyboard. The logic behind it, is that 92 percent of online users utilize emojis, so KushMoji is taking advantage of the trend to benefit otherwise unknown canna-businesses.
The app will help brands generate more exposure. For example (in theory), if you want to chat with your friends about picking up some edibles, you can find and use a Love’s Oven branded emoji instead of just a picture of a cookie with some magic sparkles next to it… or is it just me who does that? ✨🍪
Along with being a fun way for marijuana-enthusiasts to communicate with all the emoji’s a stoner would ever want, the app will also offer customers (the cannabis companies) various promotional opportunities and data on who is using their branded emojis. They’ll be able to know, according the KushMoji co-founder Olivia Mannix, “who’s using the brands and who may want to make a purchase."
The company is currently in beta and has yet to charge customers. They do already have a few customers, including; Incredibles, Livwell, Leafs By Snoop, Mary Jane’s Medicinals and Medicine Man. KushMoji is scheduled to launch sometime in March. And of course, in accordance to legalization regulations, only those 21+ will be allowed to download the app.
Would you like to use KushMojis?? Send us some of the creative ways you use emoji’s to communicate about marijuana, and what you’d like to see replaced with REAL KushMojis!