Building Cannabis Brands with Expert Insights from Kyle Bergman, The Chief Operations Officer at Pinkberg

In this episode of Roots to Risk, hosts Eric Schneider and Isaac Bock sit down with Kyle Bergman, a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Pink Berg, a marketing firm that specializes in helping digitally native cannabis and lifestyle brands tell their stories through customized creative strategies.

Kyle takes listeners through his journey from building the quirky and innovative SW Overalls brand — a unique blend of sweatpants and overalls — to launching Pink Berg, a full-service marketing agency born out of his frustration with traditional agencies that lacked the practical, hands-on understanding of direct-to-consumer (D2C) operations.

Kyle discusses key strategies for cannabis brands, such as the importance of focusing on a niche market first before attempting to scale nationally, drawing comparisons to brands like Athletic Brewing and RXBAR. He also explains how Pink Berg’s unique, profit-first approach to marketing — with a strong emphasis on post-campaign analysis and iterative testing — helps cannabis brands not only survive but thrive in an industry where compliance and creativity are equally important.

Kyle also touches on the broader landscape of the cannabis industry, discussing trends in THC-infused beverages, the future of the hemp-derived space, and how Pink Berg is helping to shape the next generation of cannabis branding.

Whether you’re a cannabis entrepreneur, marketer, or someone interested in the intersection of cannabis and consumer goods, this episode offers a wealth of practical advice and expert insights to help you understand the nuances of cannabis marketing in a rapidly evolving industry.

Transcript:

00:00 Eric Schneider:
This is the Roots to Risk Podcast hosted by Eric Schneider, alongside Isaac Bach. Roots To Risk brings you insights, the latest stories, and long form discussions about the cannabis industry. You’ll hear interviews with industry leaders and their perspective on current and future trends, how they’ve built success and what challenges they have faced. Our goal is to facilitate candid conversations and provide informative content for the cannabis community at large. Let’s go.

00:28 Eric Schneider:
What’s going on, Isaac? How we doing today? How we feeling?

00:32 Isaac Bock:
I’m good. I’m, I’m excited for this one today. Get to talk to a, a close friend of both of ours, so that’ll be, it’ll be fun.

00:39 Eric Schneider:
Mr. Kyle Bergman.

00:41 Isaac Bock:
I know. Bergey

00:43 Eric Schneider:
<laugh>. Bergey the best. Just quick background on Kyle. He’s a, a, truthfully, a serial entrepreneur, bright, energetic, just great person to be around, you know, both professionally and personally. He started a, a brand called SW Overalls, which is the amalgamation of sweatpants and overalls. They’re super comfy, they’re awesome. And then, you know, through his experience at SW overalls and just having a lot of trial and error and, and understanding really how to maximize brand placement and paid media, you know, he started this organization, pink Berg, and I think he takes a really great approach because, and, and we obviously learn more from him directly, but it’s coming from a place of a business owner, not just like an outside agency, which I think is really cool.

01:41 Eric Schneider:
And so I’m just excited to hear about, you know, what he’s doing in the cannabis space and how he’s helping, particularly the hemp derived beverage space.

01:49 Isaac Bock:
Yeah, no, me as well. And, you know, haven’t had a chance to catch up with Bergie too, too much since. So, you know, they started Pink Berg, so definitely excited to hear more about, you know, what they’ve been doing on, on their end and how they’re servicing the canvas industry.

02:03 Eric Schneider:
Absolutely. Well, let’s bring ’em in,

02:06 Speaker 1:
Mr. Bergman. How

02:07 Eric Schneider:
We doing today? Great to have you on the roots to his podcast, man. How we doing?

02:11 Kyle Bergman:
Oh, every day is a dream, Eric. It’s great to be here with you and Isaac. Thanks for having me.

02:16 Eric Schneider:
It’s like old times.

02:18 Isaac Bock:
I know.

02:19 Kyle Bergman:
It’s just like old times. We’re back in the locker room, <laugh>. Oh,

02:22 Eric Schneider:
Well, we’re fired up to have you here and excited to learn about, you know, your new venture and Pink burg and, and what you guys are doing, you know, on the marketing front, but also working with cannabis operators. So we’d love to just get a quick background on you and, you know, obviously Isaac and I know you fairly well, but our viewers do not. And so we’d love to introduce you and, and also get a little bit of background on Pink Burg.

02:48 Kyle Bergman:
Yeah. So ha, happy to do a little Wikipedia intro. To start. Let’s do it. My name’s Kyle Bergman and I am one of two founding members of Pittsburgh, which is a firm that specializes in helping digitally native cannabis brands tell their story. We also work with some other lifestyle brands like our in-House brand SW Overalls, which is the glorious combination of sweatpants and overalls into one incredibly comfy masterpiece.

03:23 Kyle Bergman:
I’m wearing a pair of SW overalls right now, and that was, I could talk more about how SW overalls led to Pink Berg, but I guess the brief blurb, you know, we’re providing customized creative solutions for these D two C brands that specialize in the cannabis space across strategy, content, and paid media. So yeah, really excited to chat with both of you about what we’re doing, what we’re seeing, what, what I’m learning in this space. And we can take it any which way,

03:54 Isaac Bock:
Which way. Yeah, I mean, I think kind of do wanna hear how you went from the SW overall’s, like main focus into getting with cannabis companies and what led to that decision on your end to move away from, you know, more traditional CPG products to, you know, our, our great products on the cannabis side?

04:12 Kyle Bergman:
Yeah. Well it started a, a little over a year ago, my partner in Pittsburgh Jackson, who is also the CMO of SW overalls, we’ve been working together on the SW overalls brand for about six years. We’ve worked with agencies here and there, and we’re frustrated at the lack of knowhow that agency owners typically have when it comes to the nuances of running a D two C brand. They’re not as well versed in the operational complexities, the product development these days with iOS updates and all of the challenges that come in acquiring a new customer.

04:55 Kyle Bergman:
It’s not just about focusing on the pretty ROAS numbers that you’ll see in the Meta or Google or TikTok dashboards. You, you have to have a better picture of, of the whole landscape. So Jackson and I kind of waxing poetic one day and I said, what if we just build a kick-ass marketing team for SW overalls, but then create a shared services model where we can apply that team to other brands that are, have the same aspirations and are suffering from the same pain points right now.

05:27 Kyle Bergman:
And so that’s, that’s what we did. And, and through my network we were able to work with a couple brands pretty quickly and then started to find some brands within the cannabis THC derived beverage space specifically. And so that’s where we’ve been playing what we bring to it. So our, our co-founding team is, is one part D two C brand owner, that’s me and one part media buying strategist that’s Jackson.

05:57 Kyle Bergman:
And so together we’re, we’re not only understanding our, our clients’ needs, but we’re also living them every day through managing our in-house brand. So I, I guess as a result of that, the, for better or worse, the hands-on approach that we bring is really, you know, profit first. ’cause we understand that to keep the lights on, you have to be thinking about not just how, how an ad is performing, but you know, what, what’s the contribution margin across the entire, you know, funnel so that, you know, like, like a lot of things, I think we, we started because I was kind of pissed off and, and wanted better, had higher standards than what we were getting out there and, and created this solution that we’ve been able to provide for a lot of kick-ass brands.

06:43 Eric Schneider:
That’s awesome. No, and I think, I think, you know, obviously being a, a business owner and and operator yourself, right? Like I I kind of equate that to being like an adjunct professor, right? You know, when someone’s just a professor and they’re kind of like reading out of a textbook, you’re like, okay. But when the adjunct professor comes in and says, Hey, I’ve done this in real life and here are the examples where I’ve had success, it, you know, it resonates a lot more, which I know you are actually an adjunct professor, ironically at, at, at Johns Hopkins in the entrepreneurship department, <laugh>, which is great.

07:19 Eric Schneider:
One other thing that I wanted to, to ask you, Bergie, is for all of you, just quick background, but Kyle, Isaac and I all played together on Israel lacrosse. So Bergey was his nickname. So just to give some background there, but what, what challenges have you seen in the cannabis space compared to more, you know, traditional CPG companies that, that they need to navigate? I know, you know, marketing has historically been one of the bigger issues, you know, companies getting their Instagram account shut down and, and Google ads taken down and there’s a lot more restrictions around what they can and cannot state.

08:03 Eric Schneider:
So was curious to see, you know, what your thoughts were on that and, and some maybe examples that you’ve seen and challenges that cannabis brands can have over more traditional companies.

08:18 Kyle Bergman:
Yeah, I think that there’s two main pillars that I want to talk about as far as headwinds that cannabis brands are facing, specifically. One is one that you just talked about and it’s regulation around keyword relevancy and what you can and cannot say. And then the other I think is about proper brand positioning, which is a challenge that I think a lot of brands have. But because the cannabis space is, is so nascent that a lot of brands are jockeying for position, having some success shooting from the hip.

08:51 Kyle Bergman:
But then I kind of wanna talk about athletic brewing specifically and how I think that that could be a great, like North Star for a lot of brands in the space. But going back, I know that recently you had a, a contemporary of mind to a degree in the space. I think his name is Sam Fisher, Samuel Fisher, who focuses on, I believe he talked a lot about SEO specifically for dispensaries within a local area.

09:17 Kyle Bergman:
And that, that’s really interesting. I I, I look at him as a contemporary, not a competitor, because that’s not what we do. We specialize more in implementing and strategizing around paid media campaigns. So coming up with the beautiful UGC or produced content, both video and static imagery, that is gonna get people excited when they see it, either scrolling on meta or Instagram or TikTok and bring them to the website where they’re going to buy all, all of that.

09:49 Kyle Bergman:
And so what, what are things that you can and, and cannot say, we’ve been very delicate and had a lot of success with the words that we’re using and not using one word that has been doing really well for us. And it might seem obvious, but it was a little counterintuitive when you start to go through everything was the word buzz. You know, buzz is kind of in this unique gray area.

10:18 Kyle Bergman:
You can say it. People understand the context that you’re using it within and it’s resonating and it, and it’s getting past the robots that don’t like you to use it, you know, every other day. I think any paid media firm will tell you that they almost feel like a shaman in like a Amazonian tribe where we’re like doing these dances to the rain gods, the rain gods being the meta and TikTok algorithms. Like, what, what’s gonna work this week?

10:48 Kyle Bergman:
We had a bunch of ads recently that were shut down and they’re, what we believe our hypothesis was that those ads specifically were shut down because there wasn’t a lot of revenue attached to them. We had similar ads, almost similar in every way, continued to run because there was a really strong ROAS and, and revenue data tied to them. And so it’s almost like if you’re making money for the platform, there might be a a, a blind eye turn to a degree.

11:20 Kyle Bergman:
Maybe they’re, they’re coding that into the algorithm. We’re not sure, but we’re, we’re not gonna stop doing our rain God dances over here when it comes to like, what does and does not work.

11:30 Kyle Bergman:
And the way that we approach working with these brands is, is taking a, a scientific approach to it. We, we love to operate within the Google Sprint methodology where we organize what we do in two week sprints. We come up with big picture ideas, distill that down into a thoughtful hypothesis, test it, and then arguably the most important part is the after action report or the postmortem when you’re saying like, what was our hypothesis?

12:01 Kyle Bergman:
What did this lead to? And now how can we iterate and develop a new test? And that helps us stay focused and also helps us learn rapidly about what’s working and what’s not working. So I guess I’ll, that that’s on like the, the, the keyword, like what you can and cannot say aspect. And I’ll take a breath there before I talk about like brand. Yeah. ’cause that’s, that’s also something I think in this space that’s, that’s a big opportunity as well.

12:28 Isaac Bock:
No, for sure. I mean, we’ve talked to a number of, you know, brands within the cannabis space as well as other people on the ancillary side who there is kind of a vacuum right now in cannabis where there’s not a national brand like a Coca-Cola or a Pepsi. So I agree, you know, from your perspective, what do you think it’s going to take from like a marketing messaging standpoint to get, you know, a national brand? Obviously they’re the issues of not shipping across state lines and all the regulations, but from a brand loyalty standpoint, you know, there are small regional brands, but how does someone who has the ability to get their products in multiple markets grow a national following?

13:11 Kyle Bergman:
The, the way that I’ve seen it happen in

13:18 Kyle Bergman:
Other adjacent industries is counterintuitively by focusing on one specific market first and using that momentum to have a almost exponential leap to, to a broader audience ale, you know, I mentioned athletic brewing earlier, and I think the focus at the beginning and, and still to this day that they have on the endurance community, specifically the triathlon community, was a really smart bet that they’ve made.

13:54 Kyle Bergman:
One of the interesting things about athletic brewing, there’s a, a website, a brand called the feed.com, which sells supplements for people in the triathlon and running space. And athletic brewing is, is sold on there. Now we’re talking about like carbohydrate drills, we’re talking about electrolyte drink mixes. Like this is like a healthy fit sort of website. But then you see athletic brewing another brand, I think a great case study is rxbar RXBAR initially was, you know, focusing specifically on the CrossFit industry.

14:31 Kyle Bergman:
And then since then, has now you, you can now find those really in every convenience store countertop. So for cannabis brands, I would challenge them to ask what community they want to focus with first. You know, the, the age old adage, if you want to be everything to everyone, you’re gonna be nothing to no one. And that, that holds true. It’s, I think that’s brand and industry agnostic. And so like some of the, you know, four brands that are listening right now or people that are working with brands, like some of the stress test questions that we ask when qualifying a client to see if we might be a good fit for them is we wanna know what’s the primary problem that their product is solving.

15:15 Kyle Bergman:
You know, we understand to a degree what they’re gonna say being in the cannabis space, but how they answer that can be very telling.

15:23 Kyle Bergman:
Then we wanna know how they’re currently communicating that through their content strategy. And a lot of our clients right now are, are seeing success from both a wholesale side and a a D two C side, and we specialize on the, on the D two C aspect. And so, you know, how you’re communicating that through content. And then is that strategy the same from an omnichannel standpoint? If you are, if you, if you do have a, a wide distribution strategy, and then after that, like how do you think about the roadmap?

15:54 Kyle Bergman:
Like I is, is, are you, are you thinking about marketing towards different channels and d and different customers? And then lastly, like, you know, is the issue that they’re currently facing. ’cause you know, we always come in when people aren’t, you know, thrilled with who they’re working with. Is the issue from a, from a paid media buying standpoint, or could it be product positioning?

16:17 Kyle Bergman:
And at that point, after the answers that, that we’ve received, that question almost becomes rhetorical depending on how they’ve answered them. And almost without fail, it’s not necessarily about paid media buying, but it’s more around product positioning, brand positioning. I, I’m not, you know, I think, I don’t want to stand here and say that we’re some sort of paid media oracle. Yeah. I think that Jackson is exceptionally good at pressing the buttons on the meta and take that dashboards, and you have to understand how those tools operate.

16:50 Kyle Bergman:
But we help brands reposition to tell the story that’s gonna have the most profound impact from a conversion standpoint.

17:03 Eric Schneider:
Yeah, no, I mean that and, and Kyle, are you working with, is it mostly like cannabis beverages like that can sell within their own market? Or is it like the Delta nine hemp derived beverages that can sell across state lines? You can buy like via e-commerce platforms? Is it mostly the latter or the former?

17:25 Kyle Bergman:
Yeah, it’s mostly the latter. It’s hemp derived THC beverages that, you know, we’re able to capitalize on the, on the 2018 Farm Bill. Yeah. And, and what’s funny is that when, you know early on we, we, like, there’s sayings around like if you have one client from an industry, you’re, you’re a generalist as it relates to that industry. If you have two, maybe people consider it kind of a conflict of interest, but I believe really two or more you become an expert.

17:57 Kyle Bergman:
And our clients recognize that because when we’re helping brands with different stories within the same industry solve the same problems, we’re able to help all of them kind of see around corners and learn and, and share that. So yeah, hemp derived THC beverages is, is where we’re playing right now.

18:13 Eric Schneider:
Yeah. And I think, I mean, that’s been a huge boom over the past, you know, year, which has been super exciting seeing these beverages, you know, on total wine shelves. Right. And I think, you know, one of the interesting dynamics within the, you know, cannabis industry at large is a lot of cannabis operators are frustrated with the lack of regulatory requirements that the hemp derived beverages and hemp derived products have because of the farm bill compared to what they have. But, you know, I don’t know, I don’t see them as like a competitor as much to cannabis, but more like competitors to non-alcoholic alternatives.

18:50 Eric Schneider:
Right. Or a competitive to to alcohol, which is, you know, very cool. And I saw something recently that, you know, cannabis consumption on a daily basis has superseded alcohol use. And to see companies like Total Wine investing in allowing space on their shelves, which is, you know, coveted, right?

19:13 Eric Schneider:
You’re talking about some of the, some of the, probably the most difficult retail space to, to garner. And we’re seeing the, the hemp derived space really boom in that area. And it’s also gonna be interesting to see not only direct to consumer, but you know, at other retail locations, not only being sold, you know, I literally was at a, I went, I went and played pickleball the the other day in Williamsburg, got a few waters Gatorade, and then staring right at me was a can CANN Delta nine Hemp derived Beverage.

19:55 Eric Schneider:
And I was like, the, the one thing is, I don’t think that’s the, the, the best way to position it on a shelf because like when it says, you know, like, they’re also next to the kombucha and CBD and those don’t provide an intoxicating effect. So, but it’s crazy to see like that that is available currently. And you know, I definitely think there needs to be a little bit more of a education and, and balance around those beverages, but it’s exciting to see the availability.

20:30 Kyle Bergman:
Yeah, I, I agree completely. And I think when repositioning Pink Berg as a firm to focus on this industry, what got me excited putting on my, my adjunct professor Kyle, professor Bergey had for a second was like that the excellent product market fit that exists. Yeah. There’s like this giant elephant in the room around like, you know, amendment three in Florida and Schedule three, like with the DEA and like all this regulatory nonsense that’s happening.

21:03 Kyle Bergman:
But it’s really hard to not think that the future with THC beverages is gonna continue to grow. And it looks really exciting. I mean, and, and from a health and wellness standpoint, most people don’t want to move towards a smoking lifestyle. You know, it’s not in inhalation is not a great way to stay healthy. It’s super hard to control the dosage. And so I know that for like a value prop that beverages have in this space is for people that are a little bit more THC sensitive, like me, for example.

21:38 Kyle Bergman:
It’s an, it’s an amazing way to control. So that coupled with the, with the preexisting infrastructure across the country with total wine and like how, like, it, it’s a, it’s a plug and play I think, and everyone sees that the money is there. So you know, who’s, who’s going to become the athletic brewing in the cannabis market, and then who also is gonna be become the Corona and, and, and the, and the THC beverage market. Like who, and, and so there’s, it’s a really, it’s a really exciting arms race right now to, to be a part of.

22:12 Kyle Bergman:
Se selfishly I’ve been learning so much, you know, like yeah, we, we, you know, our, our locker room buddies and for the majority of my life I wasn’t smoking anything. And then when I would, you know, use cannabis, I would like get super paranoid and be like, ah, what’s my mom thinking right now? Ah, but like then I, you know, realized that there’s other ways to, to use the product. And now I, I’m, I’m such a huge fan of not only the, the product as an individual, but also where it’s going.

22:47 Isaac Bock:
Yeah. And I mean, I think to your point too, one of the things with beverages in general is American society and society in general is so used to socializing with a drink in your hand. So it definitely breaks down the barrier to cannabis usage to begin with. ’cause it’s kind of hardwired into humans at this point that that’s what you do when you’re out with your friends.

23:06 Kyle Bergman:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like for, for brands that are in this space, I, I also like wanna like applaud them. If you’re listening to this and, and you’re fighting the good fight, like keep going. I, you know, going back to, you know, us being, being athletes, like, I like to think of competing in the cannabis space as like high altitude training. And if you can make it here, you, you can make it anywhere within selling goods to customers, especially within the regulatory environment right now.

23:41 Kyle Bergman:
So yeah, happy to, to have a conversation with any brands that are, that are curious about if, if what they’re doing is correct, the way that they’re thinking about things. And, and yeah, it’s been, it’s been a blast.

23:56 Eric Schneider:
Yeah. And, and just even from our perspective, like we’ve just been seeing such an uptick, but also, you know, when we do insurance for clients, like we get a good look under the hood of what their projections are for the following year and things like that. And, you know, for some of the beverages that we do have, you know, in our portfolio we’ve seen revenue projections jump astronomically because of this space. And, and it’s allowed a lot of companies that, you know, you take a company like can for instance, you know, that’s been in the more regulated, you know, THC market partnering with, you know, third party licensed manufacturers in every state.

24:37 Eric Schneider:
Just the, the infrastructure and the supply chain that they have to set up in every market, it’s a lot more challenging. And, you know, the, the Delta nine hemp derived space has been, I think, a, a really tremendous value add, you know, not that I think I know to, to their business.

24:54 Eric Schneider:
And I think a, a lot of other beverages would probably say the same. So it’s definitely something that we’re keeping a close watch on. I know also they are reworking the, the hemp bill a little bit. So we’ll kind of see how that shakes out. I know like Delta eight specifically is gonna be banned across all markets, which I think is, is definitely something, or at least like much more regulated, which I think should, should definitely be the case.

25:26 Eric Schneider:
Interested to see how they treat Delta nine and, and what that will look like. But excited to hear about what you’re doing in the space, Kyle, and you’re just such a, a sharp mind and always seeing like different opportunities in different areas where other people aren’t. And you just like go two feet in full force into everything you do. And I love it, man. I remember even when you were early on with SW overalls, I dunno if it was like super early on, just the passion behind it, right?

26:02 Eric Schneider:
And I remember us being in Israel and it’s like a hundred degrees and all you’re wearing is sw overalls when we’re not in our equipment being the only true brand ambassador that you are. But it’s just your passion. And I think any client is super lucky to work with you, man.

26:20 Kyle Bergman:
Thanks Eric. I I appreciate that. Yeah, it’s, I, no, no comments. I, I agree <laugh>.

26:31 Eric Schneider:
No, I appreciate you joining us on the Roots to Race today, man, and have a great rest of your day.

26:36 Kyle Bergman:
Thanks, man. You too. See you guys. Thanks Bergey,

26:40 Eric Schneider:
Another great one. I I love doing these things generally, obviously, but you know, when you get to do it with, with a friend and you know, also a colleague, it, it makes it that much sweeter. And it was just awesome to one, catch up with Kyle, learn about what he’s doing more on the Pink Berg front and how he’s servicing the cannabis industry. And I think it’s just a, a really unique story and angle that he has. And like I said, you know, at the, at the end of the interview, just, I, I, I wholeheartedly trust in anything that he’s gonna do.

27:14 Eric Schneider:
He is gonna put his heart and soul into it and, you know, he’s gonna start to see definitely the benefits here. So excited to see, you know, what he has in the future. And, and it was great to learn about what he has going on currently.

27:30 Isaac Bock:
No, absolutely. I mean, I think to your point, I’ve never, I don’t know if I’ve met many people who are more committed to what they’re working on at any given time than, than Bergey is, and goes into it with the amount of like energy and passion he does. So I have no doubt Pink Berg’s gonna be very successful, and I think they’ll do well by their clients continuously moving forward.

27:50 Eric Schneider:
Couldn’t have said it better myself. And excited for the next one, Isaac,

27:55 Isaac Bock:
As always, E.