Cult Cannabis Finds a Place with Pax

In much the same way as diehard Apple devotees, something about Pax’s sleek design and discrete vaporizing possibilities draws in those who pride themselves on being on top of all things cutting edge.

“The way in which our product is designed is that it not just delivers an incredible vapor experience but it’s also a beautiful product,” Pax’s Chief Marketing Officer Richard Mumby says. “People are very prideful of their Pax. They love using it themselves, but it’s almost become an accessory that people have, either in their homes or carrying around. That’s the thing that’s made it, in part, a very viral product. The nature of the product makes it shareable, but the design of it makes it social.”

The newest model, Pax 2, is 4 inches tall and includes a simple one-button interface that allows for an array of heat settings.

“We’re an interesting company in that we’re based here in San Francisco with two founders with Stanford design school and we apply a lot of Silicon Valley innovation, from a hard goods perspective, into our product,” Mumby says. “There’s a lot of rigor and creativity from a product design standpoint.”

Mumby explains that Pax has two main areas of focus, a consumer insights team that works with the product design team to incorporate customer feedback. With the release of Pax 2, the vaporizer offers a larger oven as well as a more powerful battery. In addition, the Pax 2 comes complete with a desktop USB charger.

In terms of marketing the vaporizer, Pax has faced some challenges associated with selling products designed for tobacco or cannabis. Because of this, Mumby said the company has chosen different avenues of promoting its brand.

“My background is in high growth consumer brands often that are digitally based or lead and many of the approaches that are helpful for scaling a business are less available to us, so we certainly have constraints on where we can place media dollars, but constraints force us to be creative,” he says. “I think that’s been the fun part about this for me and the team on how we introduce the Pax brand to people, contextualize the product and lead them to buy it whether its on our site or its through any of our retail partners. We’ve done a lot of experiential marketing, I think that the contextual basis of the product, through music for example, shows environments in which a Pax would be a delightful experience or product and allowing artists to speak on our behalf, which they do really organically, has been very helpful.”

And Mumby believes all the hard work by his team is paying off.

“No matter the application of our device, people love the tactility of it, the sleek design,” he says. “I think that we can see that in how some of the most discerning style-minded communities have adapted or adopted Pax into their industries or lives. We now sell Pax in, arguably, some of the most design-minded retailers in the country or the world. We’ve been involved with fashion week in New York in a really organic manner. Celebrities and influencers, we don’t pay for any of those relationships, and they just organically fall in love with the way the product preforms or looks and that makes our job really fun.”

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