The movie itself may not have made much of a splash with critics or audiences, but hidden in 2019’s “The Turkey Bowl” is a little bit of history: product placement for a cannabis brand.
During a key scene in a bar, the bartender can clearly be seen wearing a T-shirt displaying Washington State’s Artizen brand.
“The logo is huge and the website is right below it,” says Jonas Roeser, who not only helped develop the branding for Artizen, but negotiated on its behalf to get into the Lionsgate film. “Typically web addresses aren’t allowed in product placement, but it was perfect for Artizen.”
The movie, released into theaters for Thanksgiving, gave the company national exposure, and landed Roeser an Executive Producer credit. He has since worked on two other feature films and his new company, CBD Move Free, which he co-founded and is CEO, has a product featured in a scene in an upcoming movie called “Daft State.” In the scene, a chiropractor — a key target in the company’s marketing plan — uses the product while adjusting the lead actor, Christopher Backus (“Big Little Lies” and “Mind Hunter”).
But the placements in Hollywood films is just one of the unique strategies that has earned Roeser, a former professional snowboarder, the recognition as a marketing guru, particularly in the CBD and cannabis industry where he has launched several successful brands into the marketplace.
From cheap stickers for his own skateboard team back in the ’80’s to founding the nonprofit 3in4 Association with a billboard in Times Square to placements on the silver screen, Roeser’s success comes in part from finding new ways to get his product seen, something he’s been doing all his life.
“I’ve always been developing a brand,” he says, laughing now about the stickers he made and passed out himself as a young skateboarder in Bellevue, Washington. “That was my first one. I was 12 years old, you know, and I’ve done it across a bunch of industries.”
BUCKING TRENDS
To launch CBD Move Free, a topical that was originally aimed at athletes that Roeser co-founded with four others, he knew to make an impact he would have to zag where others zigged in the increasingly competitive CBD space.
Roeser bucked trends, launching CBD Move Free with a more “action-oriented” look and campaign than other CBD brands. To help the products stand out, he chose a deodorant-style roll-on packaging with bold, dark colors, something that does not look at all out of place in a locker room or gym bag.
“Four out of the five co-founders have a heavy sports background,” Roeser says of the company’s founding team, which includes former ATP tennis player Sashi Menon. “That’s why the aesthetic of the product packaging is more athletic-focused versus a product for a spa.”
CBD Move Free launched with an athlete-focused campaign due in part to Roeser’s time as a professional snowboarder, bottom right at the 1995 Super Bowl in Miami.
And when it came time to launch the first product, CBD Swing Free, aimed at proving relief to tennis players and golfers, Roeser took another completely innovative approach, trading equity in the company for a TV commercial with co-founder and television producer David Camp, who ran a CBD Move Free commercial for the product for two years on his syndicated show Golf Resorts International. The show would also include a tip, sponsored by CBD Move Free.
Though the commercial did not move the needle for the brand, CBD Move Free did secure national distribution and landed its first regional account with Bartell Drugs, a Northwest drug store chain that was acquired by Rite Aid in 2022.
CBD Move Free now has 11 different products available, designed to help reduce muscle discomfort and inflammation in all age groups, from athletes to working people, parents and seniors.
Aimed squarely at the recovery market, as well as those who cater to them, like chiropractors or massage therapists, the darker product design also helps CBD Move Free products to stand out in groups of other CBD products in magazine photos or covers.
“I think if you look at our ads, they definitely have a different flavor than the other CBD ads that you see out there,” he says of the company’s growing success. “They look much more like an ad that you’d see in a snowboard or skateboard magazine.
“It just comes from my background,” he says.
DROPPING IN
For Roeser, his unique perspective on marketing goes all the way back to his days as a young skateboarder in the late 1980’s and snowboarding nationwide in the 1990’s.
“My whole life, you know, I’ve kind of been standing sideways,” he says. “I got into marketing via action sports.”
Roeser got his first sponsorship, from a local skate shop, but even before that, Roeser created his own skate team stickers and began passing them out to other skaters.
“Now all the local kids were on my skateboard team,” he says.
It wasn’t long until Andrew Maurtizen, a friend who remains close even today, showed him a snowboard. Roeser was on the hill the next season. By their second year, both were sponsored by Gnu Snowboards.
By the time he turned pro in 1992, Roeser was riding for Burton Snowboards and beginning to develop his eye for design and marketing while creating “amazing memories” like being featured in snowboarding magazines and videos, as well as a feature in People magazine and performing at an event outside the Super Bowl in 1995 in Miami where a special ramp was created to allow for snowboarding in 80-degree heat.
For the sponsored athlete, a signature item is the Holy Grail and Roeser had three that bore his name, the Roeser Pant, Jonas Pant and Jonas Jacket, all from Westbeach Clothing. It was with Westbeach, working with owner Chip Wilson (who went on to start Lululemon) where he got his first taste of the design process of products and working with a creative team, before leaving that company to join clothing manufacturer Ecko Unlimited.
Roeser went on to grace the cover of the consumer catalog for Nitro Snowboards and became one of three riders in the world at the time snowboarding for Reebok’s alternative brand, Boks. He retired from the pro circuit in 1997, but not before learning some of the secrets of marketing, like how to ensure a logo from one sponsor was showing in an ad for another, how to market an individual and how a rising tide lifts all boats, something he took into his next endeavors.
WEAVING
CBD Move Free’s CBD Kinesiology Tape or K-Tape.
After snowboarding, Roeser had success with his own marketing and branding company, Roeser Resources, before becoming chief marketing officer for a long-term care insurance agency. With that company in the early 2000s, Roeser helped pioneer the idea of creating individual websites and brands for the company’s affiliated agents, helping drive recruiting and sales and landing the company on the Inc. 5000 list four years in a row.
“It was the same types of things that I learned from snowboarding — how to put a spotlight on a single person, how to build them a campaign,” he says. “I took my snowboard background, and I literally adapted it to insurance.”
His work earned him a Xerox PIXI Award in 2008, as well as the first John Hancock Bright Idea Award in 2013.
As part of his work with the long-term care industry, Roeser also founded the 3in4 Association, a nonprofit that promotes long-term care planning, based on a statistic he found that said three out of every four Americans will need long-term care at some point. The nonprofit’s education campaign launched with a Times Square flash mob, as well as Julliard Dancers and musicians that was covered live on a national morning show. The campaign consisted of a national bus tour and appeared on 33 morning shows over the next 12 weeks featuring award-winning and nationally recognized Geriatric Care Manager Dr. Marion Somers as their spokesperson (who also has a signature product to support seniors with CBD Move Free). The Association’s “3 in 4 Need More” campaign continued for years and eventually drew sponsorship from multiple insurance carriers and raised millions of dollars, all based on Roeser’s unique marketing plan.
“I took a Health and Human Services statistic and turned it into headlines and a nonprofit,” he says.
Today, Roeser brings similar moves to the CBD/cannabis industry, using an education campaign like his nonprofit’s to bring chiropractors and physical therapists on board as “Trusted Advisors” for CBD Move Free, and providing individual marketing in a similar way as his insurance agent idea, creating brand ambassadors that are incentivized to help market and sell his product.
It’s just like Roeser has been doing his whole life, since he created the first Death Squad stickers at a local Kinko’s in the late 1980s or getting his products placed in major motion pictures: finding new and unique ways to get his products seen and always working to leverage multiple opportunities to find potential new customers.
“I seem to weave relationships from one industry into the next,” he says. “You never know where the overlap is.”