About the project
Treehouse is a 9000 sq ft cannabis retail shop located in Santa Cruz, California that opened its doors on the first day of legal adult use of cannabis in January of 2018. The concept for the name, brand, location and retail space design was crafted to challenge common stereotypes associated with cannabis and bring people together in a casual inviting community gathering space. We wanted to differentiate ourselves in the market and break away from the medical office motif seen in other modern dispensaries. Our design concept was featured in NewsWeek for its integration into the community and highlighting Santa Cruz local culture for its tourist customer segment.
The work.
I was brought in well before the doors opened to design the retail space and fundamental brand components. We operationalized the values from the first step by hiring all local artisans and contractors to custom build the shop. We meticulously poured through operations procedures, the customer experience, our digital presence, and our marketing copy to assure alignment with the brand vision. I spearheaded this effort, hired and managed a team of social content creators, events coordinators, graphic and web designers in addition to bringing in and managing artists and craftspeople all collaboratively bringing the vision to life.
The breakdown.
Foundational brand development is a process that includes the entire founding team and involves creative work and iteration in several focus areas. For Treehouse, it included:
- Bringing the abstract ideas and concept into reality through interior design, merchandising and customer experience optimization.
- Determining visual elements and copy that felt familiar to locals and put people at ease.
- Social promotion of products, events, and community involvement that adhered to the strict guidelines for the cannabis space but still reached our target customers of locals and tourists.
- Development of internal branding program to engage the Treehouse team and operationalize the values in our internal interactions and experiences.
- Creating channel partnership programs for internal advertising of select brands both for cannabis products and our local artisan marketplace that we eventually developed.
The results.
In my time with Treehouse, we were able to produce:
- A completely unique cannabis retail experience that has been showcased to the larger industry in local and national media many times over.
- A brand concept that grew and evolved with the shop, generating close to 300% total revenue YoY from the time the doors opened until I moved on in early 2020.
- An omnichannel promotions engine that saw high volume cohesive promotions in sync throughout the physical and digital space of the shop.
- The creation of a local artists and creators marketplace in the shop that allowed us to participate in community wide events like gallery strolls and music festivals.
If you want more detail about the strategy and approach at Treehouse, send me a message. I love to build brands that bring people together!
Project gallery
The most fundamental marketing project is designing the foundational brand elements including an origin story, values, voice, visuals and written language.
Jessica is a talented marketer. Not only does she have a broad range of technical skills across the marketing stack, most impressive is Jessica's ability to take complicated, technical language and communicate it to target audiences in an understandable and clear way. She's an extremely hard worker; direct and pragmatic in her approach. This makes her suited to early stage but she also has the polish and broader skill set to be able to scale.
Alex Calder, Co-Founder and CEO, Village Labs
Jessica consulted with Space Frontier Foundation during lead-up to our annual conference. She jumped in and schooled us all on what professional marketing looked like in this modern age. We all were extremely impressed. She suggested an entirely new social strategy (which we quickly adopted), suggested appropriate tasks for each of our staff positions based on their availability, provided a "plug and play" instruction manual that was easy to follow. We achieved the sales we wanted, and got the impact that we were hoping for (and more). I highly endorse Jessica's work and suggest hiring her without a second thought. You won't be sorry!
James Pura, President and Director, Space Frontier Foundation
Jessica is a keen visionary with an impeccable ability to strategize and execute a vision from beginning to final stages. She is extremely organized and able to stay on task and keep her teams on task to ensure deliverables are finalized on time and on budget. As a project manager, she ensured our goals were met on time despite having multiple contractors to manage and a tight deadline for opening. Her ongoing assistance in the marketing and events components of our business helped establish a solid foundation that has allowed us to grow and succeed as a top business in our region.
Bryce Berryessa, Co-Founder and President, Treehouse
Jessica is inspiring to work with and her perspectives are insightful and informed. Jessica sets extremely high standards for her own work and is always making steady progress toward organizational goals. She is excellent at offering consistent support, mentorship, and encouragement. Jessica has the ability to create a master plan and lay out a strategy with detailed action items customized for everyone to accomplish efficiently and prevent the team from becoming overwhelmed.
Wendy Christensen, General Manager, Ten15 Inc.
I've been thoroughly impressed with Jessica and have enjoyed working with her immensely. She has wide knowledge of the digital space, and can advise, plan and execute on strategies quickly and effectively. She's shown huge initiative and enthusiasm working with CitizenShipper and is continually adding value to our product. She has excellent management skills, and is highly creative. I highly recommend her without reservation.