Takes on High Times' Top Brands of 2023, Pt 7: The Ten Co

Building and building upon a real-life urban legend

Feb 28, 2024

From High Times:

“By now, everyone has heard about the legendary Blue Zushi rosin that shocked the whole community by going for an unheard of price of $500 a gram. These buckets, which reached a new high water mark for the cannabis industry, were an amazing lightning in a bottle situation for The Ten Co. but there’s so much more to this brand than the hype of the hash.

Coming to Los Angeles by way of London, creator Staks and his partner Gerry have brought consumers to their knees with the Blue, Yellow, and Pink versions of Zushi (all combos of Zkittlez and Kush Mints), along with Wazabi, Zoyi, Wagyu, and Tenbanger. These bright bags with their playful, manga-style characters have inspired more than a few other designs and drawn crowds who claim The Ten Co.’s flower to be some of the best they’ve ever smoked.

Back in 2019 people were going crazy for Zushi and the past few years have done nothing to slake that thirst with prices going buck wild on both coasts.”

Original post here.

BrandDOPE POV

It’s brands like The Ten Co (TTC) that make cannabis marketing so fascinating and exciting.

Born from an underground, award-winning UK extract brand and a WorldStar HipHop veteran, The Ten Co (TTC) is renowned for a hero product: the legendary Blue Zushi. Blue Zushi launched in 2021, rocked the coasts in 2022/23, and subsequently led to a broader Zushi line.

TTC built out Zushi and a growing, well-received broader portfolio by pairing high-quality, small-batch product strategy with elite cultivar branding and packaging featuring iconic, eye-grabbing, wry, anime-style characters on (increasingly) die-cut mylar packs.

Big props for their deliberate, controlled rollout here. That’s how mystique and buzz are built. It’s hard not to go for “The Big Sale” when opportunity presents itself, but restraint — if leveraged right — can pay off more in the end.

TTC then built off their powerful foundation, making several aggressive, A+ marketing moves. Most notably:

Creator partnership with Coi Leray

Stylish ~8MM IG Hip Hop artist and daughter of The Source founder Benzino, was tapped to launch/partner on Pink Zushi. ,
Fit is always the key factor with these deals, and the fit here is just right. Leray’s over-the-top looks are as close as fashion gets to cosplay without veering into ComicCon territory, making her a perfect match for this TTC’s anime thing.
Also, both the artist and the brand are on similar trajectories in their respective categories: they have insider credibility, scale, and momentum, but they’re intentionally far from mainstream. A marriage of equals like this taps new audiences/earns reach, adds relevance, and bolsters status for both parties.

Capsule Zushi apparel drop & activation at ComplexCon 23

By all appearances, it appears that TTC dropped a blazing limited-edition Zushi capsule at the country’s most consumer-driven streetwear convention. No idea how the activation was promoted or how it performed, but the booth and merch looked amazing. Can’t imagine it was anything but a major draw.
This activation was a risky move for sure, but it looks like it was dead on strategically and executionally. By crushing this initiative, TTC announced and positioned themselves to the hypebeast crowd, an extremely influential group that has no problem paying premiums for cool limited edition stuff.
Would love to have seen the event and gear better leveraged in the press. Can you imagine pop-ups like this as TCC rolls out to new markets/states? A CPG — let alone cannabis — marketer’s dream…

Nozu Ultra-Premium Drop

A “best of the best” platinum-priced limited-edition collection inspired by Nobu Matsuhisa’s famed Japanese-fusion restaurant chain. Here’s how High Times described it in an another, recent article:

“Comprised of the best batches they cultivate from each of their strains—the choice packs, if you will—The Ten Co. recently introduced the Nozu line, named in homage to Nobu, the popular high-end restaurant they frequent.

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“At the time we were getting specific batches that would come around and they would just stand out,” Staks says.

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Now while people would be lining up for access to the most premium packs a premium brand offers to begin with, the Nozu line came with a lot of bells and whistles. While by this point people had been dropping branded boxes with their products, they rarely went further than pretty cardboard and maybe a grinder. The first drop of Nozu arrived in the form of what looked like a to-go champagne bag from Nobu. It obviously didn’t have a bottle of champagne, but a Miron glass jar filled with an ounce of their highest end flower, as well as branded napkins, chopsticks, and a rolling sushi mat. It even had a Nozu receipt, and it commanded a $1,000 price tag. Next they released a surf and turf collectors box with packaging that looked like lobster tails and steaks, and a jar of “truffle butter” rosin. Most recently they’ve taken Nozu on the road, and held merch pop-ups in both the New York and Los Angeles Zalympix events."

Branded dispensary

Going for vertical integration is generally a good move if you have the capital, and a great move if you also have brands as strong as TTC’s. Understandably, they went for it in 2021, knocking out a stunningly designed shop in Perris, CA.
Unfortunately, the store doesn’t currently show up on Google and the only findable images are from grand opening coverage in LA Weekly andVisit Hollyweed. Have to assume the shop didn’t make it. Still, give TTC credit for ambition. These last few years have been tough for everyone in this space, especially those who jumped into vertical strategies late/as pricing cratered.

Merch

Commitment to merch is required for TTC’s strategy, which is probably why the brand boasts a designated site featuring a seventeen-piece collection.
Everything is set at the right price point (high) and appears well-made. The designs are professional, but are more/less a fastball down the middle featuring the TTC logo (which is “eh,” btw. Good by pure logo standards, but lacking for a brand with fashion/”lifestyle” aspirations.)
- Love the “dice” elements though, particularly in their collab with Runtz. It would be great to see this equity pushed further, perhaps as a code of sorts and divorced from the logo. It would also be interesting to see design explorations featuring the brand’s “Keep It Ten” signature.
Also, it wouldn’t hurt to show the great work from the capsule collection on the site, even if it’s no longer available. Doing so would keep fans’ minds and hopes piqued in anticipation of future stunts/drops

Product collab with West Coast Alchemy

This is the fabled rosin drop that resold for up to $1000. That’s right: three zeros. Great partner, and likely a great product.

Retail partnership with Cookies

Of course, Cookies was the perfect dispo for TTC to partner with as they launched Zushi line extensions. Platinum brand, similar sensibility, same core audience. Boom.

TTC’s digital approach feels intentionally cryptic.

Consider the brand’s IG presence:

124K main account, private, three posts,
49.1K backup account, private, one post
141K on @_z_u_s_h_i, five posts (featured the ComplexCon activation)
11.1k on @zushi, four posts

They’re pulling big numbers — plus boatloads of positive Reddit and Twitter mentions — on the merits of brand and reputation alone. It’s a loud sort of (social) quietness that has to be deliberate.

It’s probably the right play, given the brand’s measured overall approach. Arguably, they should post a little more frequently to rack up audience while they’re hot. More on this in a moment.

Like their IG, TTC’s website is also stripped down.

TTC.com features core product info and package art (again, brands in categories with big black markets really should show actual packaging), a store/delivery locator, and discreet links to their newsletter as well as their merch site. More “less is more,” for sure.

Worth noting that TTC seems to list its MSRPs on product pages. Big applause. It says they’re intent on maintaining premium price integrity. No need to explain how critical that is — and how hard it is to do — in cannabis these days.
Like most canna brands, the site should push harder to/emphasize its newsletter.

So, per TTC’s overall, enigmatic experience strategy: We get it.

They’re CPG. They don’t sell directly. They’re in a medium consideration category. Accordingly, websites are not a major part of the customer journey.
They’re a cult “street” brand. “Those who ‘know,’ know” vibe. Borrowing heavily from fashion marketing.
They’re looking to grow the brand largely through partnerships and big, PR-able gestures that reinforce authenticity.
- Along these lines, TTC could probably do a better job generating earned media given the brand’s renown and innovation profile.

But here’s the thing about being the cool brand: most cool brands don’t stay cool forever, especially in cannabis.

Minimally, as a hedge, TTC should use its gravity to further develop owned channels, and build more value into the master brand — which can share equity more easily than cultivar/product brands. Naturally, they need to do so with the same sort of underhyped/streetwear/creative comms grammar that’s served TTC so well to date.

In the scheme of things though, these are nitpicks. The Ten Co. has used masterful, multi-modal marketing to multiply the value of their excellent product. This is the model lifestyle strategy that thousands of brands — in cannabis and well beyond — try and mostly fail to execute.

Do you have additional thoughts on this brand? Have you seen more of their marketing? Can you help connect the dots? Please share your knowledge, takes, questions, and/or examples so we can build on this post.