After numerous awards and hundreds of thousands of dollars donated to charities, PufCreative CEO John Shute seemingly surprised himself when discussing his personal career milestones.
“Winning the awards is really cool and very fulfilling, but for me, certain milestones of just offering health insurance to my staff and covering their cell phone and Wi-Fi bills are almost even more fulfilling sometimes,” Shute says. “And it’s funny because I’m always navigating a lot of interesting situations as a leader of a growing cannabis marketing agency. It’s hard to even celebrate the wins most of the time.”
Some of those wins for PufCreativ include winning two CLIO awards in 2023 and taking home repeat EMJAY awards for Branding and Marketing Agency of the Year to name a few. Those accolades are in addition to Shute being named Colorado’s CEO of the Year by CEO Monthly and receiving ADCANN’s Marketer of the Year award, both in 2020.
Shute started his marketing career for a nightclub in the Northeast but was led to cannabis after losing friends to the ongoing opioid crisis. In 2014, he left the nightclub to take a marketing position for a California-based cannabis manufacturer where he learned the ins and outs of the industry and realized there was a much larger opportunity within reach.
“I thought cannabis could play a bigger role in making the world better in terms of health and wellness,” he says.
Shute founded PufCreativ to help change the public-facing image of cannabis in 2017, but he also co-founded Cannabis Doing Good, the Cannabis Creative Movement and the Cannabis Impact Fund to showcase the positive impact of the industry. In addition to that, his company regularly raises money for charities combating serious social issues like homelessness and sexual assault.