A budding new pot company is planting 80 billboards around Greater Boston, launching an app and hiring student ambassadors at MIT, Harvard, Northeastern and Boston University to help spread the word about its weed work.
California-based W*edmaps is trying to get ahead of the green rush before pot shops are set to open in the summer of 2018, spokesman Carl Fillichio said.
As states have enacted increasingly varied legal regimes, we continue to expand our product portfolio to enable marijuana businesses to reach more customers, Fillichio told the Herald yesterday. Our goal is to build brand awareness in the commonwealth now that marijuana is legal.
W*edmaps has a smartphone app and a website that functions as a kind of Yelp for marijuana dispensaries where users can rate and review pot shops on service and quality and view a menu.
Comments on the W*edmaps website run the gamut from comments on choices to tips on growing.
Much better selection of products than other dispensaries I have visited and much better prices, reads one review of a Massachusetts medical marijuana dispensary.
Organic indoor tent set up. This greenthumb girl is itching to get back to it, reads another.
Fillichio said the company is in an advertising and hiring mode. In the law approved by voters in November, the only restriction on advertising prevents companies from explicitly marketing to minors.
Still, the Bay States W*edmaps is pretty bare right now. Dispensaries will not be able to sell recreational marijuana until the summer of 2018, so the company only lists medical marijuana facilities at the moment. That date was pushed back six months to give lawmakers more time to make tweaks to the law.
W*edmaps is hardly the only company looking to capitalize on the growing weed business, said Tom Adams, editor in chief of ArcView Group, a research and investment firm that focuses on the marijuana industry.
Its going to be incredibly fast-growing and very lucrative for the people involved, Adams said. We dont have to create demand for the product, its already there, were just moving it into the legal category.
ArcView estimates the Bay State market for marijuana products could hit $1 billion by 2020, Adams said.
Thats a conservative estimate, he said.
Already, a Colorado-based company has announced plans to build what it calls the worlds biggest growing facility in Freetown, and the mayor of Holyoke recently floated the idea of attracting marijuana growers as a means of economic development for that city.
News Moderator: Katelyn Baker
Full Article: Sign Of High Times For State Pot Biz
Author: Jordan Graham
Contact: 617-426-3000
Photo Credit: Patrick Whittemore
Website: Boston Herald
