How Old Pal built a cannabis brand rooted in community

Some cannabis brands stand out not just for their products but also for the distinct culture and philosophy they cultivate.Old Pal is one of them.

The Venice, California-based company has carved out a niche with its emphasis on community, accessibility and a laid-back approach to cannabis.Old Pal CEO Rusty Wilenkin recently spoke with MJBizDaily about the brand’s journey, his insights on the industry’s trajectory and how the company continues to champion its core values.

ADVERTISEMENT Community is central to your identity.How do you think other cannabis brands can foster community engagement? And why is this important to the industry? When we started the business in 2018, education was super, super important – adult-use cannabis was still a new idea.

We did a lot of simple education.We’re not the people that are out there talking about terpenes and their effects on you and things like that.

We’re simple cannabis people.We’re like, “Hey, you can have a great time smoking a joint with your friends.” What we did was classes like how to roll a joint, how to make an apple pipe, which is how a lot of people smoke weed for the first time.

We do fun community events that get people interacting with cannabis in a way where they get more comfortable with it.We’re not a celebrity brand.

We’re not like a Cookies or something like that.Our brand is built on everyday connection with the consumer.

That’s being in the dispensary, executing events, that’s being at the trade shows and events around the industry. ADVERTISEMENT You’re not going to build a massive brand by talking to every single person that buys it.

But I do think you can have really meaningful interactions with the people that sell it.When we look at community, we look at it a lot of different ways.

There’s the people that buy our product, there’s the people that farm our product, an...