High rise marketing agency — The cannabis industry has never lacked for ambition, but it has always struggled to find creative partners who actually understand the culture — operators who know the platforms, the restrictions, the audience, and the art of building a brand inside one of the most regulated and rapidly evolving markets in American history. That gap is exactly where High Rise Agency was built to live. Over a decade in, this Los Angeles-based creative powerhouse has supported more than 500 cannabis brands, generated over $50 million in client revenue, and constructed a media network running billions of views — and they did it without a venture round, without a traditional agency playbook, and without ever losing the streetwear-and-skateparks DNA that started it all.
From Sewing Machine to Industry Standard: The Origin Story
High Rise Agency did not begin with a pitch deck or a boardroom. It began in 2012 with founder Erin Coffey, a kitchen table, a sewing machine, and a heat press. At a moment when Instagram was just beginning to reveal its power as a brand-building platform, Erin read the room early and with remarkable clarity. He saw that the platform was about to fundamentally reshape how lifestyle brands grew their audiences, and he fused three things he genuinely loved — skateboarding, cannabis, and DIY merch — into a streetwear label that moved fast and hit hard. Within a single year, that label had spread to 50 states and 20 countries, built entirely through organic social storytelling and community momentum.
The cultural validation came quickly. By 2013, Miley Cyrus was photographed wearing High Rise on magazine covers, giving the brand a mainstream visibility that most streetwear labels spend years chasing. By 2016, a single $250 hat experiment — a limited drop designed and executed with the same DIY energy that had always driven the brand — pulled in $1 million in sales in just eight months. In 2017, Forever 21 came calling with an official partnership offer, a signal that the brand had graduated from underground credibility to retail-scale relevance. By 2018, High Rise had scaled into an 18-person production company processing ecommerce orders around the clock and operating at a pace that few independent streetwear labels ever reach.
Parallel to the fashion side, the team spotted a gap in cannabis media. In 2015, they launched High Rise TV, a YouTube channel built around a viral hotbox series and a cult-favorite show called Two Girls One Bong, hosted by MacDizzle420 and Joya. The channel hit 100,000 subscribers in six months — an early sign that cannabis content, done with personality and authenticity, had a hungry and underserved audience. That channel grew into a full media network boasting over 2 billion views and 500,000+ followers across platforms, laying the infrastructure for everything the agency would eventually become.
In 2019, Erin made a pivotal decision: he closed the consumer business and launched High Rise Agency, taking every lesson, relationship, and system he had built and redirecting them entirely toward serving the broader cannabis industry. The pivot was not a retreat — it was a doubling down on the most complex and opportunity-rich market he had ever operated in. Within twelve months of launching the agency model, they had already served over 100 clients.
What High Rise Agency Does Today
High Rise operates out of Los Angeles as both a creative agency and a media network, serving a billion-dollar portfolio of cannabis clients across every major market. The model is engineered specifically around the real constraints that cannabis operators face every single day: banned ads on mainstream platforms, persistent banking restrictions, algorithmic shadowbans, and an audience with a finely tuned radar for inauthenticity. Every service pillar within the agency exists because a cannabis brand needed a problem solved and nobody else in the market was solving it correctly.
In 2021, the team established the now-legendary High Rise Cannabis Mansion in Beverly Hills' 90210 zip code — a flagship venue, working content studio, and cultural gathering space that has become one of the most recognized addresses in the California cannabis scene. Over 250 events have been produced from that base, many of them free and open to the community, generating brand deals, product drops, podcast recordings, and cultural moments that actively shape where the cannabis culture moves next. According to California's Department of Cannabis Control, the state remains the largest legal cannabis market in the world — and High Rise has planted its flag squarely at the center of it.
The numbers behind the agency tell a clear story: 10+ years operating inside cannabis, 500+ brands and operators supported, $50M+ in revenue generated directly for clients, a billion-dollar portfolio of active clientele, 250+ events executed, and a creator network of 350+ influencer accounts with over 50 million combined followers. These are not aspirational statistics. They represent a decade of compounding work done inside one of the hardest industries to build in.
The Six Services Cannabis Brands Actually Need
High Rise is structured around six core service pillars. Each one was born from a real operator problem, not from a desire to fill out a capabilities deck. Together, they form a complete infrastructure for building, growing, and sustaining a cannabis brand in the modern market.
The first pillar is Creative Direction and Brand Development. The team handles brand positioning, visual identity, and creative strategy across every touchpoint — retail environments, digital channels, packaging systems, and media presence. The studio has produced work for some of the largest cultivation facilities and dispensary locations anywhere from Los Angeles to Bangkok, delivering photography, video, 3D animation, motion design, and packaging architecture built to scale consistently. The result is brands that look and sound like the same company everywhere a customer encounters them.
The second pillar is Content Services and High Rise Visuals. Beyond bespoke production work, the agency operates High Rise Visuals — widely regarded as the largest library of original cannabis content available for licensing anywhere on the planet. Thousands of pre-shot creative assets are available to license, plug in, and deploy overnight. For operators trying to build a meaningful content presence without burning through months on a custom production schedule, it is a genuine and practical shortcut. Browse the products catalog that powers much of High Rise's content infrastructure to understand the breadth of what's available.
The third pillar covers Advertising, Partnerships, and Awareness. This is where High Rise's decade of relationship-building becomes a genuine competitive moat. The agency deploys an extensive web of creators, media outlets, newsletters, and event platforms to put cannabis brands in front of audiences who actually matter — credibly, quickly, and without dependence on paid advertising channels that routinely reject cannabis content. Services include creator partnerships, earned media placements, newsletter distribution, event sponsorships, and full launch campaign execution designed from the ground up for the cannabis market's unique advertising environment.
The fourth pillar is Influencer Marketing and Product Seeding. High Rise runs what is broadly recognized as the largest cannabis influencer network built on genuine relationships rather than cold outreach or pay-to-play lists. From paid collaborations and co-branded drops to giveaways and organic product seeding, the agency manages strategy, negotiation, and execution end to end. The product seeding program places items directly into the hands of curated, thoroughly vetted creators with no mandatory post requirement — and it consistently delivers high repost rates because the creator relationships are authentic and the products are matched carefully to each voice.
The fifth pillar is Strategy Consulting. For executives who need a true strategic partner rather than an execution vendor, High Rise offers fractional and full CMO support, done-with-you brand and marketing strategy, weekly performance reviews, partnership alignment sessions, and practical guidance on AI tools and workflows. The consulting team has advised venture-backed startups, mid-market operators, and billion-dollar multi-state operators, and has helped launch some of the most significant brands in the history of legal cannabis.
The sixth pillar covers Digital Interfaces and AI Solutions. High Rise designs and builds modern digital experiences that go well beyond the standard cannabis website template — custom brand platforms, scalable site architectures, CRM and menu integrations, SEO infrastructure, analytics dashboards, and AI-assisted workflows applied to real client problems rather than deployed as marketing language. The agency treats technology as a tool, not a talking point.
The Client Roster: Who Actually Hires High Rise
The brands on the High Rise client list read like a hall of fame for the legal cannabis industry. STIIIZY, Wonderbrett, G-Pen, Glasshouse, Plug N Play, Cookies, Kingpen, Wizard Trees, Seed Junky, Catalyst, Fresh Baked, Hyperwolf, MAVEN, Hall of Flowers, Weedmaps, Hemper, Cheech Glass, Moose Labs, Flower Mill, and King Palm represent just a portion of the cannabis-native roster. The crossover work extends even further, encompassing brands and personalities including HUF, K-Swiss, Jon Jones, Gary Vee, Hulu, Cali Vibes, and Outside Lands, alongside hundreds of additional operators across every category and market tier.
It is not coincidence that High Rise consistently works with the number one or number two brand in nearly every cannabis category at any given moment. When operators in this industry ask one another who handled their creative, their content strategy, or their launch campaign, the same name surfaces repeatedly. The agency's reputation does not come from advertising — it comes from results that travel by word of mouth through a tight-knit industry where operators talk to each other constantly and where credibility is everything.
The Flywheel: Why the Model Compounds Over Time
High Rise's genuine competitive advantage is not any single service in isolation. It is the way every piece of the operation feeds and accelerates every other piece — what the team calls the flywheel. Agency work funnels clients into a broader ecosystem. The media network produces cultural awareness and earned credibility that no paid campaign can fully replicate. Events activate real-world culture, generate organic content, and create the kind of moments that shape purchasing decisions and brand loyalty at a community level. Each cycle of activity produces connections, content, and opportunities that compound in value over time, making the overall system stronger with every engagement.
A brand that hires High Rise does not simply receive a deliverable and move on. They get plugged into a media network with nearly 200,000 Instagram followers across the @highrisetv and @highrise.agency accounts, access to a roster of 350+ creators, an ongoing seat at the Beverly Hills mansion event series, and the full weight of a decade of earned relationships spanning every corner of the cannabis industry. That compounding effect is what separates High Rise from any agency that executes briefs competently but delivers nothing beyond the invoice. For any brand serious about winning in this market, understanding how the flywheel works is the first step toward understanding why the agency's client list looks the way it does.
Frequently Asked Questions
What kind of cannabis brands does High Rise Agency work with?
High Rise has worked with 500+ brands across every cannabis category — from multi-state operators and licensed cultivators to glass brands, hardware companies, lifestyle labels, and major celebrity crossovers. The client list spans emerging startups and billion-dollar enterprises alike. If you are building something serious in cannabis, there is a version of the High Rise model that fits your stage, your goals, and your budget. The agency offers scalable service tiers ranging from full-service partnerships and fractional CMO engagements to content licensing and focused campaign executions, so the entry point is determined by where a brand actually is rather than how large it has already become.
How does High Rise generate results without traditional paid advertising?
The agency operates on a network model built over ten years of genuine relationships rather than transactional media buying. With 350+ vetted creators, owned media properties, live event activations, newsletter distribution, and earned placements across cannabis media, High Rise has constructed an infrastructure that outperforms standard paid channels for cannabis brands specifically. Traditional ad platforms either block cannabis content outright or deliver weak returns relative to what culturally embedded placements can achieve. High Rise's approach is not a workaround for a broken system — it is a smarter and more durable infrastructure designed from the ground up for the realities of marketing inside a regulated cannabis market.
What is High Rise Visuals and how does it work for cannabis operators?
High Rise Visuals is the largest library of original cannabis content available for licensing anywhere in the industry. Brands can browse thousands of professionally produced photos and videos, license the assets they need, and deploy them immediately — without commissioning a custom production or waiting months for a shoot to be scheduled, executed, and delivered. It is built specifically for cannabis operators who need consistent, high-quality creative output at the speed that modern social media and digital marketing demands. For growing brands that need to look established before they have the internal resources to support a full production pipeline, High Rise Visuals represents a meaningful operational advantage.