The first days are the hardest days so Curio Wellness has put together a fun excursion contest to Las Vegas to see Dead & Company at The Sphere. Signing up for rewards is fun and easy and Nestor asks Wendy Bronfein all about what’s happening at Far & Dotter in Timonium as we continue the trip through cannabis education.
Wendy Bronfein, Chief Brand Officer at Curio Wellness, discussed their rewards program and a current contest in collaboration with Dead & Company. The contest, running until March 31, allows customers to enter daily by redeeming 10 points. Prizes include tickets to a Dead & Company show in Las Vegas, airfare, hotel stay, and $500 spending money. Bronfein explained that points are awarded based on the MSRP of products, regardless of in-store discounts. She also clarified that Curio Wellness produces and distributes products from licensed brands like Dixie, Caviar, and Edie Parker. The conversation highlighted the ease of using the rewards program via QR codes and the benefits of tracking purchases and product details.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Curio Wellness, rewards program, QR codes, Dead and Company, Vegas trip, points redemption, product availability, licensed brands, dispensary products, curbside pickup, customer engagement, educational content, cannabis products, brand partnerships, experiential marketing
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Wendy Bronfein
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive. I swear I’m getting the Maryland crab cake tour back out on the road. We get so much fun with a cup of soup or bowl. We had some weather related issues and all that, all of it brought to you by friends at the Maryland lottery. Jiffy Lube is driving us back into the baseball season. Luke is waiting for the fall. We have football we’re waiting on but in the meantime, I hope everybody’s enjoying all of our conversation, 32 different conversations about community things and community people and great stories and new stories, and recap some old stories. And meanwhile, we got through the Valentine’s Day holiday, and we gave the big O last week. In this segment, our friends at curio wellness and foreign daughter join us. We try to do this weekly, these educational things we do where I come to Wendy brown fine, who is a Chief Brand Officer at curio wellness and foreign daughter, and have questions that I have about science and things and cannabinoids and all of these things. Some weeks I hit the markets. Other weeks I miss out, but i How are you? What’s going on? We made it through Valentine’s Day, right? All the little raspberry colored, oh, things that you sell over they’re still available after that. It’s not like the little hearts that say be mine and be true. They don’t go away this week, right? And the candy gets half price and all that. That doesn’t happen at foreign dollar, right? No,
Wendy Bronfein 01:26
no, those products are available. 365, 24/7, you know, like, just like anything that gets a little bit more attention certain times of year. That’s a category that people were talking about in the run up to Valentine’s Day. But the that O line of products is available all the time and all around the state of dispensaries,
Nestor Aparicio 01:46
alright, we did that last week. We’ve done a lot of science lately and different things. Today, I want to talk about your business a little bit, because I have been inspired. And anybody watching or listening will see that we have new numbers that did a whole forensic study for sponsors and different people out in the community about everything that I’m doing. And I have really been watching your rewards program, and I think we got in on this about six months ago and started talking about it. I will fully admit that I went to the curio website looking to download things, and I did a segment with you embarrassed, and I’m like, I don’t know how to work the lucid ID thing and all that you have great contesting, sort of this rewards point system that I now have through picking up some products, picked up some points by very, very smartly and easily using the things all the kids are using, which These QR codes, right? I mean, once we got into COVID and menus and restaurants and the the camera made things work. This powers your entire rewards program and gives people a chance to, dare I say, win a trip to Vegas and go see not the Grateful Dead, but just dead and company in the sphere. And you can speak to how trippy an experience that was, because I know you saw the dead there. Yes,
Wendy Bronfein 03:07
I did see them. And I’m I am going back again to see it, and I highly recommend that that’s a great sphere experience, even if you’re not a fan. That’s a great sphere show for people to see if you want to have the sphere experience. But yeah, we are from now until March 31 you can go into that once you accrue any number of points, you can use 10 points. Trade them in every day, until once a day, until the 31st of March to enter to win. And that’s tickets to the show. It’s airfare to Vegas, stay at the Venetian and $500 spending. So I mean, like that makes a perfect trip. In my book. I’m not getting that for when I go, but it’s going to be, it’s a really awesome prize. I think we’ve seen a huge response, lots people look Have you
Nestor Aparicio 03:59
really? I was wondering, like, as I put in last week, when we were on the show, I used 10, the only 10 points I’ve ever used. I got a lot of points here, right? And I’m going to show folks how I do this on my phone, because I’m going to redeem 10 more. But what you’re saying is, this is, like, at that charity event where there’s punch bowls and you put your tickets in, this is a lot of people are putting their tickets in his punch bowl, is what you’re telling
Wendy Bronfein 04:23
me. Oh yeah. So, I mean, normally, so when we had it this, you know, it’s a limited run because it’s for this contest, but otherwise, the the other days of the year, and even right now, you can either turn it in for different types of merch that is available in there. You can also trade it in for gift cards to our dispensary. So basically, you turn it back into dollars to spend at the dispensary, to buy, replace any of your products that you’re looking to shop.
Nestor Aparicio 04:48
I can get socks. I can get black dress socks for 400 points. So like I bamboo cutting board, there’s a gift card and wellness for 700 So like, I’m looking through all of this, it’s only 10, like, I just clicked 10 points, and I’m in the that’s why everybody’s doing this, I guess, right?
Wendy Bronfein 05:08
Well, I Yeah, and I think they want to go to Vegas and see the dead on an all expense paid but
Nestor Aparicio 05:13
you can only do it once a day, every day, and it’s once a day every day, uh huh,
Wendy Bronfein 05:17
till the 31st of March.
Nestor Aparicio 05:20
Yep. Well, this brings up a lot of
Wendy Bronfein 05:22
entries, though, that you can make.
Nestor Aparicio 05:25
Yeah, yeah, especially if you know, if it’s 10 points, and you feel like I want to win something big, you know to Well, I and this, go ahead
Wendy Bronfein 05:33
the other that was gonna say. The other thing that’s really great about it is the worst thing is that a lot of people, when you go to the dispensary, you might purchase something that we produce, and they could, the store could be running a special, right? So, like, say, the item is $30 but you got it for 25 today. But the way that the rewards points are is that we can’t, we can’t, like, do that. We can’t track it off of every store special that they’re doing, right? Like,
Nestor Aparicio 05:56
when you buy airline ticket and you buy the $100 ticket, you get 10 points. You buy this $300 ticket, you get right? You’re
Wendy Bronfein 06:03
not so no matter no so no matter what you spend, when you buy something that we produce anywhere, the amount of points you get is equal to the MSRP. So if that the quote, MSRP for that product is $30 but you spent 25 you’re getting 30 points. Doesn’t matter. And then we have different things that we turn on. So like, the same way at like, your grocery store or something, it might be like, double points this month for, you know, toilet paper or something like that. There’s different stunts that we do where, like, certain categories of products may get be getting extra points when you scan them in a given window. So there’s a happy
Nestor Aparicio 06:39
hour thing, like, if I came in later in the day, it was double points late in the day, one day.
Wendy Bronfein 06:43
Yeah? So that might, that might have been store. So there was, there was an email thing, though, yeah, yeah. So,
Nestor Aparicio 06:49
yeah, giving me so many rewards programs. I’m I’m trying, I’m not confused. I’m trying not to confuse other people with this, yeah.
Wendy Bronfein 06:58
Well, the whole point is that a lot of people shop at dispensaries all across the state, and they have a rewards program at that store that they’re buying from, but this rewards program is for the products you buy. So any product that we produce, whether it’s curio, fuse, flower, baby parking, or happy Yeti
Nestor Aparicio 07:18
say fixie, that’s where I’m going with this.
Wendy Bronfein 07:20
Yeah, all these things you can they all have QR codes you can scan and collect.
Nestor Aparicio 07:27
Okay, Wendy Brown, fine. Is here, if you’re listening on the radio, I’m gonna hold something up and it’s, it’s, it’s chocolates, but it’s Dixie. Is the name of the and my wife and I had this conversation because I literally, because, you know that I’m building an app. I’m doing these things at Baltimore positive that I’m working on, and I’ve been looking at how your reward system works and how QR codes work. If it’s not a curio product, if you scan it won’t work. If it is, it pops up and it gives you instantly points in every single thing you want to know about the product, all the science of the product, all the all the stuff behind the product, right? But more than that, you get the points. And here’s where the points come in, honestly, for this dead thing. And this is why you’re getting overrun on the dead thing. I’m convinced this I have, because of our relationship with you, I have fused Dixie, happy, Eddie, even caviar, like, I have like 30 points, right like that. I think this is the only Dixie product I’ve ever really seen, and it that it’s on here. I only have like 90 points total, which isn’t like enough to get an ashtray or this or that, or the other things. But the thing when I pop it up 10 points right now, boom, and I’m in the contest right away. So to me, that that is a that’s a great leader, because I don’t have enough points to do things with other things, but I can get into this competition. I mean, I’m not doing it, just letting you know I I would feel dirty if you pull my I wonder when I put the 10 points in. I’m like, if I really won, that wouldn’t, it wouldn’t look like it’s only open up. So I’m trying not to win the dead thing, because I want to talk to your winner after it’s over with, have them on the show and find out how the experience, yeah. Oh, but that’s like, red hot, though, right?
Wendy Bronfein 09:12
Oh, totally Yeah. And you can and whether it’s it’s people who are in Missouri or Maryland, both places, people can win in both states, since we now have products available in both states. So all right,
Nestor Aparicio 09:24
well, if it says curio wanted I know, what about the happy, happy Eddie, the other products, Dixie, where do these emanate from? And I tried to explain it to my wife, so explain it to me, so I could explain it to her to say it’s a licensee kind of thing, and Edie Parker and but even my, my daughter in law, was asking about Edie Parker, because she knows of that brand. She’s young and cool. She knows about all the cool brands so,
Wendy Bronfein 09:53
so in the cannabis space, every business is licensed in who, who produces a. Product that gets grown and produced and tested and then goes to a dispensary for purchase is those. All those companies are licensed by the state, and they have a license, and they can participate in those as activities. So to have a brand and to make a product, you need one of those licenses. So what many brands have done that have started in other places is they don’t always apply in a state for a license or purchase a license. They sometimes find a licensee there, and then they partner with them to license their intellectual property, their brand and their products to that operator so that they can be produced in that state. Because, of course, you can’t make things and sell them across state lines. So all those brands we were talking about, Dixie, fuse, Edie, Parker, caviar, they all are licensees of ours, and so we have the exclusivity to know how to make their products and then just and the ability to distribute them to the dispensaries in the states where we operate. So dick, so we make everything Dixie, we that was our first licensed partner. We signed up with them, like as a part of our application process, we had identified them and partnered with them before we were even awarded a license. It was just identified as someone we’d be working with, and
Nestor Aparicio 11:16
it was an edible or no flower, the whole the whole brand, then
Wendy Bronfein 11:21
the whole brand. So, you know, they’re so when we first started, it was a lot the things we made from them were their topicals, their elixirs, their tablets. They later brought on a gummy product, which we make for a period of time, we made a bath soak that they produced. And so we do their whole suite. We had wanna for a while before they went with their in house partner, Tara send here in the state. We’ve have, we currently have caviar, Edie Parker, fused Roach happy Eddie, who is a local licensed brand that we helped him build that line. I feel like I’m forgetting someone. But anyone, you all by law, you’ll always see the person who produces that line, even if it’s not the licensee. Their name on the package like so you just referenced that on the Dixie right
Nestor Aparicio 12:12
here. Dixie brands.com produced locally by curio wellness. It says right on the back. So
Wendy Bronfein 12:17
you have to say that when, when that brand is not the licensee. Here, you need to identify who made the product. Even if a dispensary has like, like an in house pre roll that maybe one of the growers makes for them, it’ll be identified. It would say, like, produced locally by cura wellness, if we made somebody else’s pre rolls for them. So you have to identify the original cultivator or the original processor who made the product? Wendy
Nestor Aparicio 12:43
bronfen is here. She is the Chief Brand Officer, and our chief cannabis officer, to answer a lot all of our questions is, I try to learn, and I do sense a little confusion from some folks when they see a curio name product at a dispensary somewhere else, somewhere else in the state, different counties around the area, and saying, Well, foreign daughter is the storefront curio Wellness provides all sorts of things in two different websites and a way to do this, but the point system, I don’t want to conflate one with the other, because I do shop at foreign daughter just on York Road, south of Timonium road, and get Things like this move product that that I put on before and after yoga and showers, that is a balm that has helped me keep some swelling and infiltration that I I’m sitting right now against doctor’s orders I should be standing. Standing is better for me, but sometimes I sit. It makes me feel better. But when I’m in your store, I go into foreign daughter. I buy a product like this. I get in house points of foreign daughter, which we had to use up by the end of the year last year. So I did that, but also the scanning part of what I was talking about, which is how you enter this dead, competent, yeah. I keep wanting to say grateful. I am grateful, but they are just dead and company. I want to make sure I get that straight and John Mayer, it’s nothing wrong with John Mayer,
Wendy Bronfein 14:01
yeah. Now it great show. I’ve seen him a few times already at the sphere, going back. Definitely should do it.
Nestor Aparicio 14:08
Did it? Get it right on the points and all that stuff, right? You totally got it right, yeah, make sure I’m getting right. Yeah. Okay, so I have last thing for you. I still, I’m reading the date on this. I have to February 28 God, but listen to me, I haven’t been in the store. You and your sister came on at Christmas, and then you gave me this crazy number, like two minutes and some two seconds door, like they’re coming off Aylesbury, right? So I’ve been doing it that way, and I’m gonna go in the store and do it. But you do have all of these amazing sort of stories of functionality, of people using what you and I get together and tell them to do, which is going online, order, see a special after nine o’clock at night, you can order the next day. You pick it up, and you only have to walk in the store. And I, I started doing it. I listened to you, Wendy, you know,
Wendy Bronfein 14:58
yeah. Well, look. There was bad weather recently, that’s a great time to do curbside. But I think also with curbside being available, one it like it creates a better balance between inside and outside. So I think you don’t necessarily have the same sort of weight factor if there’s people also using the curbside. But also, like I’ve always referred to the dispensaries. They have a cheers factor. I think, I think people like to come in. They like to see the people they know. They like to work with similar people over and over again. So, you know it, you can get that. You still can get that action like, I guess, right by the car when they bring it to you. But I think you miss out on a little bit of that kind of warm and fuzzy that happens when you come in and some of like, the you have more, you can have more time to, like, parlay with the staff and hear about new products and learn a little bit more about something that you’re buying, because you’re not just like, Okay, I’m here to grab something and go, which sometimes you are, but it’s, it’s nice to sort of catch up and hear what’s new and hear what you’re not using that might be good for you, that you want to try.
Nestor Aparicio 16:04
It’s terrible. I feel dirty entering your dead competition, even though I’m like a real customer. But I’m taking this thing and I’m like looking it up against the light. I’m trying to figure out what my discount is, but I it says right here, Don’t scratch it till you. He did tell me that when he gave me the cookie, Don’t scratch it till you bring it in. So I got to get in and shop. I have to the 28th to do so Valentine’s day is over, but it’s never too late for the O product as well. That line is there. I have all sorts of stuff here. Some of it I’ll hold until next week, because I know our time is short here today, but I hope everybody enters this. I was worried that we weren’t getting enough people using the app. What you’re telling me is this points thing in the ZAP and the QR codes, people are down with this. Now. People will do this to win a trip to Vegas and or to cash in and get points. And you guys have made it really, really easy. Of all the businesses I do business with. And, you know, I do royal farms, I have their rewards. I have South I have south you know, every rewards program that I use, yours is sort of a new line when it’s been like a lot of fun for me to use because it’s so easy and QRE,
Wendy Bronfein 17:11
well, thank you. That’s I appreciate that. Yeah. I mean, I think, I think people look it’s a great it’s a great contest to have. But like you mentioned, there are other benefits than just getting rewards. The fact that you can see a catalog of what you’ve purchased and go back and like, Oh, I love that. I want to get that again. You can actually forward those things to other people. So if you wanted to suggest or you think you know somebody who might like something, you can pass it along to them, as you mentioned, you can see all the details about the products. You can see the certificates of analysis or the lab results if you want to see that. And you can even do like, your own tracking and logging. So if you want to put in notes about the product, your use, your experience, any any sort of feedback you want to leave for yourself, you can do that in there too. So there’s, there’s a lot of features it has, plus, you know, you can turn it in and get free stuff.
Nestor Aparicio 18:03
We’re going to discuss, discuss peach oz with two Z’s next week. Wendy brown fine is here. You can find her out of the front of Baltimore, positive we discuss, as adults in an educational and informative way, the plant and cannabis and all these things that you see when you drive past foreign daughter, or you drive past dispensaries anywhere in the state, you will find curio products, and it is never been easier to download them and do everything she just told you to do in regard to knowing what you’re getting and why you’re getting it and when you got it. And that’s kind of a cool thing to do. I do that on my credit card every month to try to figure out where my money goes as well. Wendy, I tell you what we got a couple more weeks, right? You’re This competition’s another into March. Way into March, right
Wendy Bronfein 18:49
in March is when it ends. So lots of chances for people to make submissions. From now until then, I was
Nestor Aparicio 18:56
worried people are getting I don’t know whether it bums me out because, like, I’m trying to win the contest, or it makes me really happy, because, you know, I’m here to sort of promote the goodness and all the things that are going on. But people are really using these QR codes and and downloading it through lucid ID. Who knew don’t go to curio wellness to do it, just download it off the QR. It’s the easiest thing in the world to do. Always appreciate time well spent with you. Hey, a concert’s doing anything? I know you’re getting around town here, right? Like, yeah, stalling a little bit. The band thing’s coming back a little bit. I think, yeah,
Wendy Bronfein 19:28
well, we, we had last week, and we didn’t make it out, but last week and we were going to go try see Kelly bell that was going to be bringing the kids, because our five year old and and the band have a bit of a relationship from back when he was on TMD during
Nestor Aparicio 19:41
your kids dance. Yeah, your kids are dancers like that, yes and
Wendy Bronfein 19:45
but psycho killers at Union for a for a talking head slash Love Song Fest this weekend,
Nestor Aparicio 19:56
I love the talking heads and. Um, I interviewed burn one time back in the day, and and Jerry Harrison from the talking heads. But did I tell you about my crazy experience with the talking heads when the movie came out, like, two years ago? Stopped making sense. Did I tell you about the special chair that I got in? Okay, so you gotta this is true. You’re gonna have to everybody at home, Google this. Look it up. It’s real. It’s called D box, D as in defense, D, B, O, X, D box. So when the movie came out, and it was the 40th anniversary, so it was last summer. It was actually last September the movie came out, it was stopped making sense, which he wears the big suit, and they do the talking heads thing and all of that. But, you know, the band never played again after that tour in 84 they went their separate ways 40 years ago, and they got back together for Colbert, and they did they it’s very awkward relationship between all of them, but they remade the movie and made it for big screen, sort of I Maxi, but also this chair, this D box, they did redid the sound they they re shot it and did everything. And it was made by filmmaker, very famous filmmaker, back in the early 80s on named Jonathan Van de me. Jonathan Demi did this the show in LA at the Pantages Theater. It’s shot over two or three nights during that period, and this seat, this D box seat, was sold to me as like a $5 add on when I bought my ticket and I went into the theater, and I was the only one in the theater. Was at 11am showing on a Friday down at Arundel Mills. They were the only ones that had the chair, the special chair. And I sat in that chair, and from the minute that movie started, the chair has 10s of 1000s of haptics and movements that moved with the music it was made for it. Now a lot of action movies. Top Gun was made for this where, you know, you move around, like in Star Wars when you’re shooting and things like that. I highly recommend the D box thing. If you’re going to a movie, your kid will grow up in a life of that, I guess. But seeing a music movie remade, I thought to myself, there’s a whole world here for them to take mute now that was shot a little funky if you remember about the cinematic nature of your chair going forward and backward with David Byrne. But I love the talking heads, and I love talking about that experience, because it was so wildly experiential that it only reminded me of like being at Epcot and doing soaring, where you move into the movie. And I know we’re getting all like we can put, you know, virtual things on this was the closest that came for an old fart like me, and it was a talking heads. And this is how great it was. It was so great that within five minutes, I was texting every person I knew and loved who loved movies, Max Weis, Allen McCallum, all of my movie friends and all of my music friends, and already farty friends from that chair. And I was giggling like, like a school child, giggling, texting him, like, you gotta do this. And I went back 48 hours later, and I took again two friends. I took two friends for SIG and John Allen, rock star. John Allen from stone horses, my bum, my light, my ride or die. John Allen, everybody knows John. I dragged them down to a Rundle on a Sunday morning on a Ravens game day, and made them sit in a chair, and I watched them giggle at you for two hours, at the talking head. So nothing will top that. But this is a great band. Psycho killers are great. The beer at Union is great. I have sampled it. I hope they have a stout on. It’s February. They’ll have a stout on for me, won’t they, at least a porter. Hope for me too. So yes, all right. All right. Did I do a good job promoting your Union Party? Now, everybody’s going to want to
Wendy Bronfein 23:55
come. It’s not my party, but sure, I’m sure that the band and the bar love
Nestor Aparicio 23:59
that I want to have the guy some decipher killers on. I think
Wendy Bronfein 24:03
that that that movie experience sounds so cool, particularly if you have any sort of hearing deficiency. It’s just such an interesting way to you’d be seeing it, but then feeling maybe what you can’t totally hear, which would be very cool. Do you know the movie? Yeah, you
Nestor Aparicio 24:19
I’d never seen the movie. Stop making sense for anybody wants to know. It’s the greatest rock movie ever, film, better than any other who quadrophinians, stupid stuff the monkeys or the Rolling Stones or even the Beatles did, right? It was, it was a period filmed piece that everybody has seen burning down the house with the big suit, and people may have seen little pieces of it, um, but seeing the movie in its entirety, I had never done I just didn’t like them enough in the 80s, when it was on MTV late at night, like I liked them, but I didn’t love them. It was, it didn’t have hairspray, and it wasn’t, you know, heavy metal. It wasn’t Van Halen. It wasn’t what I was it wasn’t jury. Me wasn’t what I was into. Um, so, but I love I love them now, and they’re one of those bands that’s grown with me through life, but seeing that movie for the first time completely alone in a theater, the movie itself begins with a boom box and a beat, and you literally feel the beat in the chair, and it’s just him tapping his foot, and then when the movement starts and the chair starts flying along with the camera, I can’t begin to tell you that
Wendy Bronfein 25:32
nauseous Never, not, no. And you could try Great question,
Nestor Aparicio 25:36
great question, because my wife and her sister refused these seats for Top Gun. They went two years ago, and they’re like, I don’t want to throw up. No, you could turn it off, or you could turn it down. You could go, you know, small, medium large, on the on the movement. Or if you get weird, you get to stop it and just sit. And you’re just at the movies again, if you want. Um, so,
Wendy Bronfein 25:57
I mean, they had those D box. It’s available
Nestor Aparicio 26:00
to Ronda mills. I’m going to see the zeppelin movie this weekend, which is not shot in D box. But this is a great example that if they took the song remains the same and did it in D bucks, if they took the Rolling Stones at the max that we went downtown at midnight to see at the Science Center, they could probably get us spending a lot of money, and probably get a great sponsorship from curio wellness to do such a thing, get into the dead all that being said, foreign daughter and carry wellness to get into the dead rewards program if you’re buying curio products. And should I give a disclaimer here and say this, be an adult about all of this adult use is now on. Please use this product responsibly and do your research. This is why we do this is to educate people. And there’s a whole world of education and mis education in some cases out there. And we want everybody to be educated. Did I do that? Well, Wendy, did I do that? Well, yeah, all right, good, good, good. Thank you. We used to have a disclaimer here when I did radio 30 years ago that was purposely humorful. It was taken from the wrestling disclaimer that was on Channel 45 every every Saturday afternoon at four o’clock. I’ll save that for another day. Second Andre the Giant reference I can come up with in one day. Wendy bronfen is the Chief Brand Officer for all things career wellness and foreign daughter. She’s our chief cannabis officer. She also has a sense of humor and likes rock and roll in the talking heads and all that good stuff. Support them. They support us. We’re appreciative. We are wnst am 1570 Towson, Baltimore, and we never stop talking intelligent things and Baltimore positive. Stay with us.
