In April 2019, reports about cannabis users sustaining severe lung injuries after using vape pens started to make headlines. By February 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), over 2,000 people had been hospitalized for e-cigarette or vaping-associated lung injury (EVALI); 68 people died because of it. The outbreak, dubbed VapeGate, was caused by untested products containing additives like vitamin E acetate sold through the illicit market. Even so, it shook things up in the legal cannabis space.
“People were scared to touch weed pens,” Rosie Mattio, founder and CEO of Mattio Communications, remembers. They thought you’d go into a legal dispensary, [vape], and your lungs would explode.”
VapeGate was disquieting… but not destabilizing. Mattio mobilized. Her firm teamed up with one of California’s biggest testing labs, CannaSafe, for an informational harm reduction campaign. The premise was simple, but effective: they bought legal Stiiizy vape pens from a licensed dispensary, sourced knock-offs from the illicit market, and tested the products, showing that the counterfeit vapes contained harmful chemicals while the others did not.
Mattio Communications was able to place this campaign in national publications and on TV programs like The Today Show. And then they started working with other companies in the cannabis space to develop more.
“One of my favorite things about this industry is the collaboration,” Mattio says. “I remember being on a call with, like, every publicist in the industry to figure out how we were going to solve this problem together. In no other industry have I seen companies collaborate like this. I made lifelong friends with people who are supposed to be my competitors.”
Mattio has been a practitioner of PR since graduating from Boston University in 2003, starting at an agency before going solo, and developing an expertise in the specialty food and technology beats. While she had enjoyed consuming cannabis in her twenties, she put it on the back burner when she and her husband had their kids. But then when her family moved from New York to Seattle in 2013 for her husband’s job, she and Mary Jane were reacquainted.
“We all moved out there right around the time that cannabis became legal for adult use in Washington State,” she says. “I started seeing other moms in the carpool lane who would have vape pens in their bags, and see lines outside of the dispensaries.”
In 2014, one of Mattio’s clients booked her to do a crowdfunding campaign for a cannabis cookbook. To say that Mattio nailed it would be an understatement. Mainstream media reporters from The New York Times, Fast Company, and Mashable were all dying to write about it.
“Nobody was really pitching them cannabis news,” she says. “A little light bulb went off in my head: I could bring my mainstream background to the cannabis industry, doing mainstream PR.”
Thus, Mattio Communications was born. Now, 10 years later, it’s the largest cannabis marketing firm in the country, with offices in New York, Los Angeles, and Toronto, 45 employees, and nearly 50 clients. Additionally, Mattio Communications’ services have expanded to include social media, SEO content, and investor relationships across the supply chain.
“When I got started, I had no idea what I was getting myself into,” Mattio says. “I was so used to pitching popcorn to Shape magazine, I figured it would be somewhat similar. If you could tell a great story, you'd be able to pitch a story.”
She remembers that despite her initial success, it was “an uphill battle” to get cannabis into the mainstream media, mostly because at the time, only a handful of states had an adult-use market, meaning only a fraction of a publication’s readership would be able to legally obtain the products being written about. Mattio remembers that although the reporters she had relationships with were always supportive, it was hard to convince them to write stories about cannabis.
“But fast forward 10 years later, there's somebody at Vogue writing about cannabis, there’s probably five reporters at Forbes, two or three at Bloomberg… Cannabis touches so many different parts of industry, whether that be lifestyle, business, or regulatory. The opening up of mainstream media has been a big shift. And because more markets have become legal, there’s a bigger market to be able to sell our wares and be able to tell our story.”
But even so, cannabis PR has its share of difficulties, many of which stem from regulations and guidelines varying from state to state. When cannabis companies operate in multiple states, campaigns become even more challenging.
“You can put up a billboard in Pennsylvania, but you can't in New York, for example,” Mattio says. “Sometimes we have to run some of our verbiage by the state regulator before even putting out a press release.”
There’s also the issue of not being able to send products to writers.
“When I worked with a healthy popcorn company and we would launch new product, we would make a really pretty box, take it to FedEx, and ship it to the reporter. They would taste it and write a story. But if I have a product in California, it’s illegal to ship it to New York. So how am I getting somebody in New York to write about a product they can't try? These are things most people don't think about. When I was doing PR in in Washington State, we had an edible client, one of our first clients, and we spent months putting together a campaign around this new mint they were launching with a very special type of tin that they were selling them in, and then the regulator changed the rules on packaging and the way that you can market to prevent marketing to minors. Even though this product wasn’t, we had to scrap it entirely, and the client needed to redo their packaging. We had spent nine months putting together this campaign. Imagine the expense and resources. This is a very different industry, and just being in it for 10 years, you understand the nuances, and that you have to be quick and agile because things change all the time. And for me, while it's challenging, it's part of the fun of it, too. You get to use your mental muscle.”
Mattio is diligent about adhering to regulations, and understands the need to prevent marketing cannabis to minors—she has four daughters ranging in ages 10 to 15. Mattio doesn’t hide her cannabis usage, treating it instead like any other legal substance an adult might partake in, such as a glass of wine.
“My husband and I explain that it’s a choice for adults; some people like alcohol, some people like cannabis, and some people like both,” she says. “The most important thing is that you do it in a tested, regulated way. You do it when you’re of age, you don’t get into a car [after consuming]. There’s a wellness and medicine part of it. But my children are underage, and we are a very strict household.” She adds, “We will not be the house where kids are drinking beer in the basement.”
Because cannabis is a Schedule I controlled substance, meaning it is federally illegal, Mattio shares that she also has serious conversations with her daughters about making sure their friends don’t go looking for cannabis in their house (“I lock my stuff up in a box because this has to be personal responsibility. We're pretty careful about it.”). Although, she notes, her kids don’t have much of an interest in cannabis, at least not yet.
“I don't want them to do either, but I’d much prefer my children to smoke weed than drink alcohol and get crazy. You know, some terrible things can happen when kids get drunk. But I feel happy that we're in a time where adolescents are drinking less and that cannabis is a choice to them as they become adults, and it's not something they have to buy from a dealer when they go to college or whenever it is. I feel lucky to be raising my children in an era where cannabis is a choice for them.”
But even though her daughters aren’t interested in consuming cannabis, her two oldest girls have already invested in a few cannabis stocks. Luckily, they have a mother who encourages entrepreneurship, especially among women.
“I feel very grateful and lucky to be surrounded by so many female entrepreneurs in the space. There’s always so much more that we can do, and I wish there was more female leadership, but I have an amazing network of female entrepreneurs who are clients and friends. It’s the greatest reward of being in this industry. We’re building this together. We have a sense of pride because we can collaborate and give each other referrals and give each other advice,” she says. “I also think there's something really special about women in cannabis. The plant is female. There's just something poetic about that. Women come to me and ask me about joining this industry, and I always think women have to work harder than their male counterparts, but I do think that there is something to be said about the fact that this is an industry of startups. We’re very hybrid. It’s a really great opportunity for women, especially mothers.”
If Mattio imparts any message, she wants it to be that women lift each other up and find allyship with other women, as well as with men.
“There's nothing more gratifying to me than connecting a woman with a job,” she says. “Because this industry was born in the 2000s, the playing field is a little more even than it was back in my mother's day. We have the opportunity to define what this industry looks like.”
In addition to her passion for cannabis in a business context, Mattio is an enthusiastic consumer. She uses it to support her fitness goals, including training for bodybuilding competitions, noting that smoking or vaping, as well as using infused massage oils, is a game changer for recovering from intense workouts. Mattio isn’t a daily consumer, but imbibes during the weekend. She says she likes a good joint or a bong rip—preferably with one of her two favorite strains, Jack Herer and Cereal Milk. She also loves cannabis beverages, preferring them over alcoholic drinks. She’s turned her friends onto them, too: “I can bring a cannabis beverage to a friend’s house, we all have one or two, and feel great and not hungover!”
As much as the industry has changed and evolved over the past 10 years, Mattio knows that the landscape is far from finalized. She’s looking forward to seeing how the cannabis industry, especially in her sector, will continue to grow.
“It’s been such an incredible time in our nation's history,” she says. “So I just feel really grateful to play a small part in that and be witness to this cultural shift. I’m really excited about what the future can be.”
For more, visit mattiocommunications.com @mattiocommunications @rosiemattio
