“When these drugs became legally, it was a huge revenue opportunity,” he says Chethana acharKellogg Associate Professor of Marketing. But there have been questions about who should have access to this opportunity, since “the drug space has a very complex socio -political history”.
People from underpinning communities in the US, for example, were disproportionately criminalized for the use and sale of cannabis and psychedelic before they are legalized. Policy executives in many states have developed share capital initiatives “to give these affected communities the opportunity to be part of the commercialization process early with the hierarchy of licenses for under -employed business owners,” says Achar.
Although policies have created more opportunities for entrepreneurs than these affected communities, especially black business owners, remained questions about the effectiveness of these initiatives in the legalized drug market. In particular, will consumers attract the medicinal products produced or sold by entrepreneurs from these communities?
To address this query, Achar, Keyaira Locke, a Kellogg MBA graduate and a consultant in legalized drugs and Niidian From the University of Washington he conducted a series of studies to determine whether consumers were more or less likely to buy legalized drugs expressly characterized by a black business.
“Most of the research on how to highlight ownership affects consumer responses has been done on socially safe products such as shoes and makeup,” says Achar. This research generally shows that businesses belonging to black and other historical under -supplemented groups receive more support from members of the same groups than from other groups. However, medicines have a more natural risk and stigma associated with many other products and consumer responses to medicinal products may diverge from their answers to social “safe” products.
Overall, the researchers found that black ownership of cannabis and psychedelic businesses would be favorably obtained by consumers-to a large extent due to the stereotype connecting the black community with expertise on drug-related products.
“This is one of the few cases where social stereotypes appear to have positive market results,” says Achar.
Mapping of the perception of property
For the most part, the way consumers perceive ownership labels was largely predictable. People support general products or services that manage a group that matches their own. “If it is a woman -owned café, women are more likely to support her,” says Achar. “If it’s a black restaurant, blacks are more likely than others to support it.”
But support from the team can collapse when there are negative correlations between a particular product and the group of people, as can happen between black communities and some recently legalized drugs. “People don’t want to perpetuate a negative stereotype,” says Achar.
At the same time, he says: “If a community has historically been linked to the production or use of a product, this could be a motto of quality -based quality.” In other words, the historical correlation between the black community and the cannabis and psychedelic could create a stronger sense of legality and security for black businesses.
Based on these mechanisms, researchers expect that black consumers will less support black drug businesses and non -black consumers to support them more.
Support shades
The researchers conducted a series of studies to test their predictions.
For the first study, they watched black professionals in the drug industry and found that businessmen favored, indicating their breed on product labels to lead the support of the black community. Most believed that “black” labeling would increase markets from black consumers more than white consumers, regardless of whether the product was a medicine.
The next study explored potential stereotypes between common products – such as caramel, footwear, cosmetics and cannabis and black or women. Both black and white study participants prove, perceived black entrepreneurs as cannabis experts. But only white participants perceive black entrepreneurs as experts in psychedelics. None of these stereotypes appeared for women’s entrepreneurs.
In a separate study, hundreds of participants evaluated the likelihood of buying a product (either Gummies CBD or for normal candies) from a black or woman business. Researchers found that black participants were more likely to buy a candy if it had a label showing that it was from a black business, compared to the existence of a woman owned by a woman or does not have an indication of Ownershipp. But this preference disappeared for cannabis gummies available in commerce as black. On the contrary, white participants favored the Gummies CBD that had a label showing that it was from a black business, but did not feel the same way for the normal candy.
In a final study in real world, the researchers ran advertising campaigns on Facebook to compare people’s interest in psychedelic. Adults on the platform saw one of the three versions of a psychedelic advertisement: one who said that “black belongs” to the label, who said “a woman who belongs” to the label or one who did not show the owners’ race or sex.
Among nearly 43,000 advertising appearances, the “Black” advertisement received 21 % more clicks than the non -ownership advertising, while the advertising “owned by the woman” received 15 % less clicks than “no property” ad. In addition, the “black” ad was more cost -effective ($ 0.22 per click) than “No Property” ad ($ 0.25 per click).
When stereotypes can help
Studies show collectively that black entrepreneurs would receive well in the market for legalized drugs, especially among white consumers.
“Older surveys would propose a black cannabis-business owner that begins in a mainly white community not to recognize their race because they are an external community,” says Achar. “But our job shows that stereotypes could really help under -sought -on business owners due to the union of expertise.”
In general, the findings depict the extent to which people’s stereotypes about hemp, psychedelic or other new products can shape market reception.
“People seem to have these stereotypes about who is good to do this, regardless of whether it’s right,” says Achar. “And they are waiting for a owner’s know -how to align with this stereotype. If he does not, the brand is punished, as” you should not do that “.
