Non-cannabis brands collaborating with cannabis brands is nothing new. Regardless, it’s hard to say if anyone was expecting this particular collaboration. BuzzFeed is the latest brand to launch their own cannabis project, partnering with California-based cannabis cultivators NUG. This line will specifically be under BuzzFeed’s lifestyle brand, Goodful. They are offering three different products including Sativa, Indica, and Hybrid as 3.5 gram flower packs. NUG x Goodful is available at select NUG retailers in California.
“We launched Goodful’s line of products to help our audience make small intentional steps to enhance and improve their lives.”
Eric Karp, VP of brand licensing and brand design at BuzzFeed
BuzzFeed has covered cannabis editorially, but they aren’t exactly known for having anything to do directly with weed. Initially you would probably think that BuzzFeed’s audience isn’t exactly the cannabis consuming type; but as it turns out, the data proved otherwise.
Earlier on, BuzzFeed’s team of data scientists conducted research about the cannabis and CBD habits and preferences of their audience. They discovered that many BuzzFeed consumers indeed indulge in cannabis, particularly Goodful’s audience. Furthermore, they were interested in the digital brand bringing them branded products.
Karp explained their findings, “We found that our audience was interested in BuzzFeed bringing them branded cannabis products, and the insights revealed that Goodful’s audience in particular was interested in branded cannabis products and recommendations. From there we connected with NUG which opened up an opportunity for us to do a real-world test and enter the market.”
Why NUG?
NUG’s mission is to ‘Normalize the Cannabis Experience,’ so it really just made sense to partner with a brand like BuzzFeed to help further their agenda. With the way cannabis is sometimes marketed and shown online, it often pulls it further from being normalized. By partnering with Goodful, they are still able to take some control of this and market it in a way that furthers their mission.
“The NUG x Goodful products are high-quality and competitively priced, and consumers will absolutely enjoy their purchase. Beyond the products, this collaboration between NUG and BuzzFeed presents the opportunity to normalize how cannabis products are advertised online. Through branded Goodful posts, we will experiment with targeted localized cannabis ads that are both discrete and classy which will help direct customers to find NUG stores and NUG x Goodful products.”
NUG co-founder and CEO, Dr. John Oram