Since legalization last fall recreational cannabis brands have tried everything from celebrity backers to ecomm platforms to partnering with Pita Pit as they all jockey for position in the new category.

And now Figr (a subsidiary of North Carolina’s Pyxus International which currently sells its products in P.E.I., Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in Canada) is launching an augmented reality (AR) app that showcases its products while staying within the strict marketing regulations that came into effect on Oct. 17, 2018, as part of the Cannabis Act. The company, with head offices in Toronto, has been working with AOR Wunderman Thompson on creative and National Public Relations on PR.

The app will allow a “budtender” at a retail location to “educate” a customer through an AR experience that provides granular detail about the brand’s different strains, as well as the origin of its plants. Customers at home will also be able to access the app after purchase simply by holding their phone over a Figr bottle to get information on the product in that particular bottle. Zack Grossman, marketing director at Figr since February, says that the app is within current Canadian marketing laws and that both in-store and at home the app will be age-gated to ensure only those of legal age can access it.

The intention is to provide the level of detail one may get about a bottle of fine French wine by placing the emphasis on terroir and craftsmanship, targeting both the canna-curious who may be new to cannabis as well as the “aficionado who wants to know more about a product,” explains the marketing director.

“It gets to the trust and transparency of what’s actually in it and then getting the story behind it,” says Grossman.”Our product does tend to lean more towards an older demographic that cares about quality and craftsmanship as opposed to a mass-produced product.”

The imagery and information provided in the app is in line with the brand’s overall positioning as a premium option in a competitive and crowded market, according to Grossman.

Creating an AR app “allows us to build our engagement and it allows us to bring consumers into our house and tell our story,” he says. “But with the element of storytelling, which I don’t think many of the other [legal] mediums allow for, because even if it’s out-of-home and it’s age-gated you have a very limited time-frame where you have one thing you can show, this allows an experience to happen and I think that’s what our consumers are looking for.”