Mitesh Patel - Leading Creative Direction For 12 In-house Brands

On this episode, we’re joined by Mitesh Patel, the Senior Director of Creative & Design at High Tide Inc., one of Canada’s largest and most diversified cannabis companies. Mitesh oversees all creative across High Tide’s portfolio, which includes over 200 retail locations under banners like Canna Cabana plus global ecommerce and accessories brands like Grasscity, Smoke Cartel, and Daily High Club.

Before joining High Tide, Mitesh led the creative vision at Famous Brandz, where he developed licensed cannabis accessories for Snoop Dogg, Jay & Silent Bob, and Hellboy.

Mitesh breaks down how High Tide builds a cohesive creative system across dozens of banners and channels. He explains how his team balances compliance with brand storytelling, how in‑house creative drives speed and consistency, and why retail design plays a bigger role in cannabis than most people think.

Episode Highlights:

🏪 Building a design system for 200+ cannabis stores
🎨 Why High Tide keeps creative in-house
📦 Balancing compliance and creativity in packaging
🔥 Launching IP collaborations with major pop culture brands
🌍 Adapting cannabis retail for international markets
💼 The day-to-day of running a lean, high-output design team
🧰 Tools and workflows that keep creative moving
📈 What retail designers get wrong about ROI
🛠️ Mitesh’s transition from editorial design to global cannabis
🚀 How creative can drive strategy in CPG retail

Table of Contents:

00:00 – Intro & High Tide overview
02:00 – How Mitesh manages his time to oversee creative of multiple brands
04:15 – Designing retail stores for speed & consistency
08:40 – High Tide’s core consumer and how to resonate with them
10:20 – Tips for designing dispensaries
16:15 – Tips for designing packaging for cannabis accessories
20:40 – Learning lessons from leading creative teams

Links:

High Tide – https://www.hightideinc.com
Follow Mitesh on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/pt902/
Follow Adam on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-martin-steinberg/
Check out https://www.kitprint.co/ for CPG production design support.

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to Shelf Help today we're speaking with Mitesh Patel who's joining us from Toronto Mitesh runs all things creative design at High Tide which is a diversified Canadian cannabis operator that owns I believe 200+ retail locations across Canada a variety of in house brands as well as a number of accessory and ecomm businesses as well it's a pretty diverse and and broad spanning business excited to get into it first off just for the listeners that aren't that familiar with with High Tide cause that's it's maybe just give a kind of quick lay of the land in terms of maybe just the origin story and all the different add ons along the way and kind of the current High Tide business portfolio and the before well thanks for having me just before I jump into that I just need to clarify that you know anything that I'm gonna talk about is my own personal opinion of course um and not reflective of High Tdei as a whole but yeah so High Tide started um from Raj Raj had a Smokers Corner I ran Smokers Corner for 15 years I actually came from Famous Brands which is a company Raj owned and and then bought out when the acquisition of High Tide and that's how I became part of High Tide high tide right now um as you said 200 retail store locations uh across Canada as well as we have four e commerce companies in the US Agrest City Dankstop Smoke Cartel and Daily High Club The Daily High Club does um monthly subscription boxes High Tide also has two CBD companies in the US uh New Leaf and Fab CBD that sell hemp based products as well, High Tide has a also a CBD company in the UK Bless CBD that's a broad business with a lot of different things going on I'm curious, diversified business a lot of different brands products services you're kind of overseeing creative design across a lot of different stuff I'm just curious like how do you I can organize your time and like prioritize things to ensure you can get all the everything all the different businesses and divisions all get kind of the attention they need from a creative standpoint start early um I like to get up a couple hours earlier than everyone really kind of map out your whole day go through all of your different notes you know at High Tide we use a very good project management system I have daily meetings with my team we well I I look at I look at the notes that that came the day before um I look at design like your you're kind of a a chef and you have to look at all all of your different team members you know I have staff that does production staff that's more junior staff that's more senior you gotta go through all of the tasks and and and and see um what critical tasks have to be done on the day how do you allocate uh your different staff members with different uh skill sets and sometimes you gotta rejig things depending on um what part of the business is more busy what does your team look like both full time in house employees, contractors agencies all the different things and yet a broader team not just internally but all the kind of pieces that you work with regularly to kind of support all the initiatives you got going on? the design team is completely in house um it gives me better control um it's an agile business so if you're working with agencies the great thing about agencies is they they're specialized and and they're very good at doing very specific things but um you gotta work with their timeline sometimes I found that having the diverse skills in house quickly pivot to uh different things faster as well as adapt to different changes in the business I can certainly resonate with that for sure you got about 200 retail locations as of now but I believe you open those over the span of like five years or so which I just on average it seems like if I was doing the math right that was about opening three new stores a month I'm not sure how much those were opening new ones or maybe there's acquisitions we have to re you know do some redesign or what not but that's that's a free rapid pace of opening new stores and I'm curious from the parts that you own store design rollouts in terms of the aspects that you own? so my team works on the exterior and interior graphics and we make things modular and and template things we keep really good records so if for instance if we did a wall that's 5 feet why do we have another wall that's 5 feet wide we'd look at the different parameters and variables from store to store um spoke about like an acquisition I think with an acquisition we like carefully go with the team and and and look through if it's photos or actually visit the site see what things can be modular isolate the things that have to be customized really understand the different kind of materials and limitations I think with while working on 200 stores you really understand um you know what you're working with what the timelines are for things and it get it gets easier as you get more experience with it what are the key few steps that are involved from kind of beginning to end that's in your world? well we implemented very uh detailed intake sheets so the construction department would send over measurements and we'd see what we can get work from Google Photos to actual photos have a in house um video designer you know you can estimate things based on the size of a door that are consistent what's allowed our team to be pretty agile is is do everything in real time so we have graphics we render it right on the photo we know exactly what it's gonna look like before it's implemented and we can get like up to let's say 95% accurate in most cases do you find when you're opening stores that rapidly in terms of like prioritization maybe you can't do everything you want by the time these stores are open just cause you're opening them so rapidly did you guys feel like you had a system that was great that you basically could do everything that you wanted to do by the time it was open and get right onto the next one so to answer that question generally like I think I had pretty good luck stores have opened on time with very few hiccups I can't really remember a lot sure just having a really clear idea of timing and then you because as you open stores you're you're following a methodical system of of of what what you what you're doing and you you understand from a customer standpoint you think about what are the things that the customers gonna notice part of the design process is you know I'm I'm concerned about what is our long term design strategy and and and how does that affect the customer experience but if you're going to cut corners you have to look at what's a short term strategy and if somebody's gonna walk in the door what are they most likely to see that we can kind of quickly pivot to afterwards give you example like we might have a store with two facings a customer might not know that the other facing even exist and then you pivot to that after when you have more time yeah that's yeah that makes a lot of sense you talked about the the customer a little bit have you found across the Canadian market on this retail side have you found the I don't know the target audience may be the right way to say or just the average you know the the average person that's walking in the store from a foot traffic standpoint have you found that those differ from region to region like maybe a store that's in you know the heart of Toronto or yeah there's another one that's you know downtown Vancouver there's another one that's like the outskirts of Calgary we found like the target audience is very different and like if so are there differences that that your team reflects at all at all from a store design perspective is there a bit of uniqueness to each one or is it pretty formulaic basically do the same look and feel across every store so what what's common I think amongst the cannabis consumer is it's not it's not um it's very blue collar um and you know when I walk into a store I I I I wanna feel as if I'm going to get my cannabis and I'm not gonna be judged I think a mistake that some other companies made was that they went too fancy they they thought they would reinvent the customer and legacy come customer is very very important you have to have the right vibe that when you the cannabis customer hasn't changed from from legalization and I think from the products they consume you know you can you see some evolution but a lot more towards what everybody's always been smoking tech does change from region to region some regions are more receptive to tech than others I think you have to have a good print strategy you have to think from your consumer standpoint to um like you have to make sure that you're accommodating the consumer that doesn't want to use tech prints really important your advertisements have to be clear in terms of ad copy I'm not a fan of frills I like ad copy to get to the point I have respect for the fact that the consumers know what they want I feel like the cannabis consumer is very knowledgeable and if you're not authentic you're going to be called out on it and you're going to turn away that consumer let's just say someone that's stepping into a role that's similar to yours um an organization that's about to be opening up a number of retail locations over the next you know say year or two what are let's just say three key things that you'd tell someone to to keep top of mind? have a modular plan you're gonna have to set systems putting work at the beginning and really thinking through how you're gonna execute on a larger scale is is important because the time you put in at the beginning is gonna save you hours and hours and hours as you scale up I would try to skip putting in things that don't improve the customer experience less is more and that that kind of falls into you know be smart with your budget sure you want to really understand how you can keep that consistent quality and I think it's about you know understanding the different types of uh of materials and finishes in a way where you know and and then actually focus uh and and do very thoughtful design because I feel like the the cat you know I I Learned from from designing a lot of smoking accessories the one thing about the cannabis consumers they they appreciate quality authenticity and you you can put an expensive material on the wall but if you can put some really intricate graphics that that speak to the smoking experience I always say if you're designing something for like we back in the day of smoking accessories I wanna design something that looks great but as a consumer smoking it looks better as you get high like I I I really feel like that understanding and that level of authenticity as people are walking to the store they feel it and and they experience it In terms of working with brands at retail how can these brands best work with your team to integrate with your team and integrate their brand into the Canna Cabana ecosystem let's say? so I'm not involved with like in store execution of of promos that's another team but what I would say is really understand your product understand your uh USPS understand how your product is different and have that be the key message in your marketing put together a package of the different type of deliverables that are available in store and which can be used for advertising and depending I guess on the partnership from our marketing department those assets can be utilized I also think that like there's a lot of different regulations so what what I'd like to see I I guess in the future for for other partnerships is really think through the space think through the regulations and rather than trying to think around the regulations think how you can work with the regulations if it's something that has to be locked build something that needs to be locked before before I started working in cannabis my background was actually producing things and being on the other end other end of the coin and trying to get into retailers and one of the things that I put a lot of time into is really thinking about their space and it's really really hard to get marketing material especially when you're dealing with the the larger brands I remember working with with um Costco and and and and looking at kind of pitching to them the idea of doing displays and stuff like that and them talking about them not having power in a certain location and thinking of how to put through a battery pack like you go the design is only as good as how it's gonna be executed in the store so you really need to think about the store environment you create things to work with the retailer not the other way around and I think that mentality is gonna be the key to succeeding in a retail environment yeah I could totally see that yeah what's that kind of rotating retail promo strategy look like for Canna Cabana and in relation like what does your team's process look like to be able to effectively support those promos at at your level of scale if that is something that your team is is part of so my team designs a lot of the bigger activations for our own brand it's very modular like we we know all the different signage areas if there's a cabinet we know the type of sign that goes on a cabinet we know people walk generally directly to the POS so a lot of our stores have chandeliers we do signs there cause it disrupts the the consumer cause they're gonna see that messaging from things like tea stands in the front thinking the direction in which the customers walking in the different specific stores um because we've had ties and acquisitions breaking those different types of stores in um into different modular setups really actually like an important part of it too is once once you've executed you go to the store and you see how it's actually been executed on a store level assuming that like I spoke previously about like rendering it in 3D and seeing it and looking it beautiful in 3D then you go in the store and then from logistical reason it's just not feasible you you you have to pivot on that true like I in past life designed stuff for some major retailers thought the packaging looked great the consumer wanted to see the product and then heard back from the retailer that all the the packaging was getting destroyed because the customers on shelf were ripping and tearing it apart to see what's inside so you know it it's a real world environment that you have to really understand and you're not gonna change your customer you're not gonna change a human nature so really thinking through your design strategy to keep that in mind yeah okay cool that's super helpful shifting away from retail a bit from what I know High Tide is a pretty substantial accessory business as you as you mentioned both on like the marketplace side as well as I think you have some in house accessory design manufacturing business which I believe is is famous brands if I came to you and told you I was getting ready to launch an accessory brand this is my first foray into the space I'm about to kick off packaging design what are like three or four frameworks or tips you'd give me or things to kind of watch out for that that could trip me up? I think the first thing it starts with the product if if your product isn't good then you you already have a challenge there so if you're coming with the product and you know what problem this is solving for the customer how it differentiates that that's really really important and then kind of understanding your key USP's is really critical it's really important to do a competitor audit and and really identify what your competition's doing right like it's never a good idea to try to reinvent the wheel if you're an emergency like I this is um the the second company I've I've worked at from the ground up it's really important to understand if if it's a newer industry don't be afraid to look out of channel don't put yourself in a box where you're like well that's the best that my competitors doing well if there's a key thing your customer needs look out of channel and and figure out a way to win against your competition that makes a lot of sense too that makes a lot of sense too I think those are all really good tips well established accessory brand and I told you I'm considering a packaging refresh what questions might you ask me to help me just confirm if this is even the right strategy at all to do a rebrand in the first place let's say so I I think you'd start with why what's what's what's triggered you to want to do a packaging refresh and then read I would follow the same process do a brand audit but be just add another layer to that do a brand audit of yourself and and really identify the things you're doing well and and the things your competition are doing well and the things nobody's doing well and how are you gonna put that as part of your strategy that then you get a proper scope of what you wanna do right because when you're doing a refresh like take a brand like raw you wouldn't want to change too much or you're gonna lose your customer the other thing is if you come to the conclusion that you have to change so much of your brand that you just you don't have the level of consistency that it you'll confuse a consumer you you might ask yourself is this a brand refresh or is it a brand redo and uh to justify a brand redo I think that's very risky and and and I would be very careful with that yeah how do you balance the need for a fresh look obviously there's a reason you're doing a refresh I assume with that importance of some of those legacy components of the brand that the existing consumers really know and trust and when they're walking into let's just say a smoke shop or something and making sure that they're still gonna recognize it you I I think what's really critical is you don't change too many different elements at once yeah what what about your brand are you gonna keep consistent it's kind of like when you're you're adding a new category or new product to your existing brand you have to have kind of a modular system that that a customer can first identify this as part of the brand so if you go back to like a category level maybe you're you're doing a hemp based CBD product and then you're doing a Delta 9 product how how do you make sure you're very clear that this is part of the same brand but at the same time you're making it very clear on a category level that this is something that's get too high and this is something that's for wellness right I I I guess the answer is a little bit of a it depends but um it really does right and you have to be careful like you've seen a lot of really big brands and CPG do a complete redo and then have to go back because their customer just doesn't want it yeah you've clearly been building high tide and supporting all these brands from a design perspective seem like a lot of things have been going really well see you know however I think some of the kind of the best learning experiences often come from times that didn't things didn't necessarily go as expected I'm curious anything that kind of jumps out either at high tide or some of your past roles even as well like what's a campaign or maybe design initiative or strategy that you worked on that that didn't necessarily work or or go as planned and like looking back what were some of those of learning lessons"maybe I should have done this differently"? so one of the things as a designer you can sometimes just start staring at your screen and look at what's on your screen and print it out on a page and it looks great and you feel really good we in my past role we were the supplier of battery operated candles for Costco so we're making millions and millions of candles here and we did all the packaging for them so we designed the box we thought it looked amazing we we we picked this really nice sleek gray color and we didn't think about the tray and that it's going on a pallet and everything was done approved by the buyer showed up decided to visit the store went to the store and when you looked at it as an entire palette and the the tray was gray and there was no contrast it literally looked like this gray dreary thing in the middle of the aisle and you know it it's something that I've I've taken away from experience to not like uh really really understand your channel and where your design lives um I Learned a lot in in my previous role because we were in so many different types of stores and had zero control where you had to think about the fact that you could be on the bottom aisle or on the top aisle or so I I bring that back with me working in this role so whenever a design is executed I really insist that the team uh looks at it in real world look uh goes and sees how the campaign lives and be ready to pivot for the next campaign yeah last question I got for you any brands or let's just say trends in general in the broader cannabis or hemp or related accessory space that you're particularly excited about or and or like any trends you wish you or might have jumped on earlier nothing that really comes to mind I there are some really really great companies that that have outstanding design puffco comes to mind totally you mentioned raw I work with raw on on a collab recently and really well established brand understands their audience huge uh social media following brands that really speak to authenticity in our space I really feel like as Canadian cannabis expands is it does it to really get that legacy market getting that connection with the consumer really striving to be authentic I I think the companies that have really done well and and still exist are the companies that didn't try to reinvent the wheel and really respect the the cannabis consumer so I think those are those are two companies that have uh have done really really well because they they truly understand their audience and and they haven't uh stayed away um shifted away from that and and and that's kind of my vision for as we continue uh design at High Tide yeah I think I think both those brands are great examples of people that are doing a lot of things right Mitesh this has been awesome really appreciate the time I think you for sharing a lot of thank you valuable insights that I think a lot of people in the space are gonna really get a lot of value out of and where's in terms of people want to follow along at any of your learnings insights where's the best place to follow along at LinkedIn or Twitter I think LinkedIn um I'm not out there that much um but yeah message me on LinkedIn if any questions love connecting with uh people in and out of the industry cool that sounds great we'll appreciate the time attached is been great really valuable thank you Adam take care alright bye the core product services you guys offer you know a company is so dynamic and moving so fast I know high tide open what's your process look like that just kind of enables you to support those rapid were there things that you feel like you had to be ruthless with let's just say I was a brand leader at a long time or things and then looking back