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Helping Businesses Understand The Emerging Marijuana Market

Helping businesses understand the emerging marijuana market with Jeffrey Stein, VP of Sales of Consumer Research Around Cannabis, based in Houston, TX. The company’s goal is to help marketers connect the dots between cannabis customers and the broader North American consumer economy. Consumer Research Around Cannabis provides client-focused research, designed in helping businesses understand the emerging marijuana market. The company offers insights into this category while attitudes and legislation evolve in the U.S. and Canada.

Their research facilitates decision making for clients such as investors, legislators, lobbyists, advocacy groups, advisors, product developers, competitive product companies, and other associated industries. Consumer Research Around Cannabis furnishes credible research to make timely, solid, well-informed decisions. There’s lots of polling out there, such as Gallup and Pew Center polls about legalization. Based on their research, we talk about what are we seeing as far as public opinion or approval in various markets of either adult-use and medical cannabis, as well as what other data points are interesting as Jeffrey looks into this research.

 

Transcription:

Get informed get inspired and get connected.

I’m your host, Bethany Moore. I’m the communications Project Manager at the National cannabis industry association today. My guest is Jeffrey Stein is the VP of sales of consumer research around cannabis, the companies based in Houston, Texas, the company’s goals to help marketers connect the dots between cannabis customers and the broader North American consumer economy and we will learn more about what that means shortly. Welcome to the show, Jeffrey, thank you for having me, Bethany great, great, so let’s dive right in and learn more about you and your background and what kind of experiences you had prior to getting into this cannabis research world?

Well, I spent many years in the broadcast industry in sales and management and driving revenue, in this sector is not only about quantitative ratings, Nielson and things like that.

We’re also about qualitative positions, of your audience and demonstrating that a media properties audience matched the consumer characteristics of a proposed client. So when a client learns more about the qualitative aspects of their media property, they always enjoy more success, more revenue and more return on their investment. That was an area that always fascinated me and where I had a lot of success.

Gotcha, yeah. Data is king. Especially in this day and age. And the more metrics and information, you can get, the better poison, you are as a company is that kind of a concept behind it?

Absolutely, the data is king. Someone once said, “If you’re out there working without research, then you’re just another guy with a story.

It makes a lot of sense. Great, okay, so that’s a lot of good information to have in your background. Good knowledge, good skills really actionable stuff.

So here you are working in the cannabis industry and movement, how did you make that jump from you said the broadcast industry and other sort of customer qualitative metrics, how did you find yourself getting involved in cannabis which has just been legal for adults for just a few years now?

Well, I did some work for a market intelligence company and I was aware of our sister company. The media audit the media audit is kind of the foundation of our survey work it’s a company that works with a lot of broadcasters, publications, magazines looking at hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of consumer topics, so that mediate companies can better position their audience and beginning to work with them. The owner of the company, who’s was always a few steps ahead of everyone else, it seems. We started to talk about the cannabis industry and aware of it, I certainly… And the growth and the legalization in certain states, and we began to talk about looking at cannabis consumer research, and we looked around and said We… There really isn’t anyone really doing this since we already had a very strong foundation in doing consumer surveys we sat down with a few policy shops, cannabis policy shops when we developed a few hundred questions about usage and spending levels and things like people’s public opinions and so forth and added them into our surveys.

So here we are doing a survey that’s covering all this stuff on demographics and plan to purchase an income and education and we added in those questions and that’s kind of how this company was born.

Okay, got it. Are those surveys, they’re specifically about cannabis, or were they grouped into a larger survey about various things?

That’s a great question. It’s grouped into a larger consumer survey and we feel that that’s the reason why we were able to get a good solid research. It’s not a can, research project, it is a consumer research piece or cannabis is just maybe 10% 80% of it. And so people, I think, once they get to the Cannabis section are just more comfortable in answering the questions in in relationship to a bigger consumer survey questionnaire.

Yeah, that makes sense, thanks for explaining that. I asked because I think in some instances, some people may not be comfortable giving their personal information and answering a survey about cannabis, because maybe there’s still a private user, they’re not out as it were, they’re not open with their community or their family that they’re a cannabis consumer so they might be a little hesitant. What do you want my name for?

Like No, I’m not giving you my information. I don’t want the world to know I smoke cannabis. So, it is interesting to hear that it was grouped in with some larger questions and it does make sense that they might be more comfortable ’cause they’ve already just answered questions about maybe other wellness products or things like that. So, wow, yeah, that’s interesting, cool, alright. So to learn more about consumer research around cannabis, the company, you’re the vice president of sales. Tell me more, a bit more about your role and what you do day-to-day and what’s going on with the company, this year.

Well, my role is mostly sales, so I’m working with companies that are not only cannabis product companies, investment companies, but we’re also a data firm as well, so we’re forging relationships with other data companies to start to really cross-to have this information much deeper ways whether it may have to do with, with cigarette use, it to back us rather, or soft drinks, or alcohol beverages. So we’re kind of expanding into that area. We have data on over 65 markets in the US and we do a new… We serve eight as So we survey an entire area for Los Angeles or Miami or New York, the entire DMA and we also have the ability to aggregate data to a statewide level, but our clients seem really to like the fact that we’re doing call it a local market survey, so we’re doing work in Canada as well, we’ve done a Greater Toronto research piece and we’re about to expand that to a national survey for Canada, and we’re working with firms that deal with a lot of CPG because they see the growth of cannabis and they wanna figure out how best to get into that vertical.

Yeah, that makes sense. Are you on the road a lot going to these various markets, or is that something you get to do, from a desk?

I work, I work from my home in Orlando, Florida.

We have lots of meetings, I probably do 10 or 15 go to meetings a week, but I do a little bit of travel. I’ve been to several cannabis conventions and events but I find that working people like go to meetings and of course I’ve met several of our clients but they like to be able to see the data they like to be able to understand what our methodology is how we pull the data. So yeah, I work mostly from my home, me and my three cats.

Oh, three cats, that’s nice, yeah. Well, before we had to commercial break here, you mentioned cannabis conferences. So I will go ahead and remind listeners that NCIS next cannabis business Summit, and expo is coming up in July. You can get more information by logging on to www cannabis business summit com, to register.

So definitely check that out, it’s gonna be, it’s our biggest conference that “ncia hosts throughout the year in addition to the seed-to-sale show and the California cannabis business conference. So this is the big one, it’s in San Jose, California, in July, and again, now is a good time to start planning to go to the conference, pick out your hotel, find your hotel buddy and don’t forget the register, there’s early bird opportunities.

The earlier you register.

So again that website is cannabis business Summit, dot com. Are you planning to come to the conference off? Are you gonna make it to California?

I am, I’m planning to be there. As a matter of fact, I was just working on the form earlier today to see if we can be a speaker there.

Oh excellent, great. Yes, we are accepting speaker proposals for our Fall conference, actually, right now through April 30th, so that’s the California cannabis business conference. It takes place in October, and all NCIA members are eligible to submit a speaker proposal which we take months in advance of every conference.

Alright, we’re gonna take a quick commercial break, here, but we’re gonna come back and talk with Jeff more about consumer trends and research in the cannabis industry, so stay tuned.

We’re back on NCIA’s cannabis industry voice on cannabis radio. I’m your host, Bethany Moore and we’re chatting with Jeffrey Stein from consumer research around cannabis. So let’s talk about some trends in the cannabis industry based on the research going on. There’s a lot of pulling out there, like the Gallup and the Pew Center polls about legalization. That cap is a lot of attention to… So based on your research generally speaking, what are we seeing as far as public opinion or approval in these various markets, whether their adult use or medical only. Well, what we see is obviously in states where it’s more legal and recreation as Leo we’re seeing numbers 48 to 55% legality and that seems to be going up in states where it’s not as legal those numbers or more in the 40s, and as high as low as maybe 39%. But the good thing is that cannabis is here to stay and those numbers show it, even in states where it’s not legal, you’re still seeing 42-43% approval of both medical and recreational cannabis. So I think that’s a great trend.

Yeah, yeah, you could even be elected president, with those kinds of numbers.

Yeah, I mean that is good. I’m sure there’s still a lot of stigma out there about not wanting cannabis on the streets, because of Prohibition-era war on drugs era type of messaging, but in the 40s or even in the ’50s is pretty impressive. That’s most people I think.

So from a bird side view here, some of the top takeaways about consumer trends, whether it’s adult use or medical meaning what are people consuming and how often sure, well in our consumer in our questionnaire, we do ask questions about whether people have used it in the past year or in the past month and then we also ask questions about specific types of usage in… In other words, are they smoking it, are they using edibles and so forth?

And one of the things we see is in markets where it’s legal, we see a much more diverse usage in markets where it’s not legal flowers and buds. Are still the largest percentage of what people are utilizing. But again, in places where it’s legal. And I was looking at Seattle this morning for a client, it’s remarkable how diverse it is between concentrates and drinks and edibles and topical people are utilizing it in many more different ways because they’re finding that they can find cannabis that meets the way they wanna use it.

Oh, absolutely, yeah. tinctures. topics you mentioned. I guess it makes sense that in markets where it is legal, for adults over 21, the entrepreneurs are able to offer more products, makes sense. I’m sure there’s some CBD, THC, confused hot sauce out there somewhere. In that, I’m sure we would like to sample.

Yeah, so, Washington obviously, was one of the first couple of states to legalize cannabis for adults, but what about these red states or states who might consider red states like Kentucky or Virginia, they are very slow to warm up to legalization, to the cannabis industry. What are you seeing there in those markets when it comes to approval and public opinion?

Well, in states like Kentucky and Virginia clearly we’re seeing lower percentages but they’re not as low as you might think. What’s very interesting is that there’s a much higher percentage of people who disapprove and there’s also a higher percentage of people who have no opinion and those two things, tell me that they need to be more educated on what’s going on out there. A lot of these people still don’t understand what CDS are and what they’re utilize what they can be used for and that they don’t have they don’t get you high, that kind of thing. So, that’s still something that we’re battling just as a nation making sure the people are more educated with a more educated… Again, we see the disapproval lower and the no opinion considerably lower.

Yeah, that makes sense in education, I think in a lot of ways, our industry is word-of-mouth education, or you have to know someone who knows something about cannabis in order to learn something about it because there’s still massive restrictions on official government research here in the United States.

So what we have to educate people is coming from research that’s done outside of the country, perhaps, or… And more private research data points.

So really getting to those people with no opinion for starters, would be huge just to inform them what it is. And you’re right, people are still learning with the difference between CBD and THC is… And on top of that, there’s CBD, and CBD, and CBN, that we’re all learning about as well. That I’m personally very excited about.

So I’m also curious about the data points that might be really interesting when you’re doing this research. Do you ask information about maybe their occupation or is their income level, or if they’re religious and go to church or not?

We do as part of the foundation of from the media audit, we have a lot of questions about income and occupation and religion and I’ll give you one example, when we look at people who say they’ve used their bought cannabis in the past month and attend religious services regularly were we see a pretty small number of people who are a pretty large number of people who have used utilizing cannabis, but then when we look at that same question and attend religious services occasionally, as opposed to regularly get out of cannabis use coach through the truth. It’s three and four, and sometimes five times higher depending on the marketplace. I was just looking at Tam or this morning. It’s the difference between 95000 people who said they use it and they attend religious services regularly and almost 400000 who say they use it and at 10 services occasionally. So, that’s one data point that we see the other. When you look at occupation, not necessarily in total number, but when you look at an index we clearly see in many markets that income higher tech jobs, higher educated jobs of people who identify themselves as business owners or partners or managers index, pretty high, and cannabis use as opposed to those who have lower educated, or more middle income jobs.

Sure, and it probably matters that Some occupations require you to operate heavy machinery. In which case, those individuals would have to be careful about everything from prescription drugs to alcohol as well, as Cannabis. ’cause you wanna be safe on the job. But I kinda think it’s funny about the… Sometimes attends religious services versus always does. I’m just thinking of when people go home to visit family for Christmas and you go to church and you have the dinner and then all the cool kids go out to the garage or around the back of that house in the park up. And so it might be a little bit of that.

We see it across incomes as well. Hiring cup jobs in most markets believe it or not, the index for cannabis usage is, conceal higher, that’s not to say it’s not high with blue collar or with lower service jobs depending on the market, but consistently we see higher tech jobs and proprietors and managers and corporate positions with a much higher index.

Sure, sure, I can see that. I think that makes sense, alright, we’re gonna take our last commercial break here and then we’ll come right back and chat more with Jeffrey Stein from consumer research around cannabis. So, stay tuned will be right back.

Alright, we’re back on NCIA’s cannabis industry voice on cannabis radio, and we’ve been chatting with Jeffrey Stein from consumer research around cannabis learning a bit more about trends in various markets around the country, whether it’s adult use or medical or not legal at all.

So just to break away from that talk for a minute I was interested to hear you say you worked for the broadcasting industry for a long time and that probably means you have experience with other industry associations. NCIA obviously, an industry association for the cannabis industry and every industry has its own industry trade association or more than one, even.

And what that typically involves is working with regulators and it sometimes interacting with government officials and doing public education. I’m curious what kind of experiences you may have had from that perspective, from the broadcasting industry that you could share?

Well, I personally have not gotten involved with a lot of regulators, although I have had any number of conversations with state senators, and in various states who have utilized some of our data and I wanted to really more understand was going on their state so that they could better understand how to legislate and how to move things forward. I have been involved. We have some partnerships with some other data companies that are involved in the convenience store industry and that is one that is very interesting because as you know, many of them are carrying CBD products and many of them want to carry more of that, so they want to better understand just what is that relationship between people and what they’re buying and alcohol and tobacco, because those are the things that drive people into convenience stores. So we’ve had a little bit of experience with that as well.

Yeah, right at the broadcasting industry is kind of standing by, especially the radio industry. Our data allows us to cross-tab and say, “Okay what stations? If you’re spending 300 to 100 a month on flowers and buds. Where are you engaging in a newer websites? So as part of the media audit, we have that data and cross tabs with cannabis. So they’re just kind of watching and waiting, to see when and how they’ll be able to start grabbing a piece of that pie, which as we all know, the advertising is very, very limited for cannabis at this point, but it’s gonna change, and we hope to be at the forefront of that, when it does, yeah, absolutely, even as someone who’s been a cannabis activist for full is, I don’t know, 16-17 years.

I’m used to legalization here in Colorado, now but I still… I smile when I hear something on the radio advertising a dispensary or I see a billboard because to me that means it’s being normalized and it’s just really exciting, especially I’m sure every activist, that’s listening to this show can relate to the feeling of it not feeling like this negative stigma for it to just be a normal part of life. So that’s pretty exciting.

So back to being involved with NCAA your company’s been a member for a little while getting involved in our nearly 2000-member business network across the country, or conferences or networking events, why… Why is being a member of NCIA important for a company like yours?

Well, I think it’s important to be a good corporate customer, client, or whatever you wanna call but if you’re going to be in an industry, I think it’s important to be part of the biggest trade organization. I was certainly part of broadcasting trade organizations in my day and attended many conferences and discussed not only did business with people, but discuss the important issues of the day, and I think the same thing “ncia pulls everyone together and as a platform and the foundation to share ideas to share to do business together, and ultimately to be behind you guys, as you press forward with the education to our legislators and to the public in general.

You got it. And on that note, our next lobby days event is coming up May 21st, 2223, and “ncia members have begun registering and our government relations team is contacting congressional offices and setting up meetings and doing that behind the scenes work. That’s really exciting, so I thanks to the NCA members that have registered for lobby days already really looking forward to seeing you there. And if you have not registered yet, please register as soon as you can, the sooner the better, and if you don’t register, we won’t have any meetings for you. That’s just how it works. And thanks for mentioning our education in general, I think it’s good for those who are both new to the industry, as well as those who have been in it for years and I think the kind of research that your company is providing is the research that wasn’t available to a dispense re-owner 10 years ago, or perhaps even five years ago. So now the data is at their fingertips that’s true, and we hope to grow with the industry, and we’re expanding in Canada, we’re getting ready to do some work for the government there, and we continue to expand and to anomaly expand, but expand the questions that we ask and better too, so that we can better serve our clients, we’re all becoming more sophisticated as time goes by, which is really exciting. And encouraging, as we wrap up the show here I just wanna mention “ncia does host regional evening networking events across the country throughout the year in addition to our big two-day conferences but the evening networking events are great for just being connecting with business owners in your region.

We have the Cannabis caucus event series, we also have the industry socials event series. Great way to get connected and informed and I understand at the next event we’re hosting in Florida you’ll be… You’ll be attending our Florida industry. Social, I will a lot.

Awesome, well I hope some of you Florida people can register for the Florida industry, social coming up, here in a couple of months and meet with Jeff. Okay, so that we have run out of time, so I wanna thank you… Jeff for joining us on the show today and I believe the website is consumer research around cannabis dot com is that right?

That’s exactly right, awesome, to hearing from folks out there and helping them answer their questions, and dealing with their challenges in the business world, in of which there are no sorting.

Alright, thanks everybody for tuning into another episode of NCIA’s cannabis industry voice, until next time