The Wellness Spectrum (10 archetypes of cannabis consumers)

PROBLEM:

Cannabis consumers are stereotyped, misrepresented, and misunderstood.

SOLUTION:

The Wellness Spectrum - a system to understand and explain why people use cannabis.

GOAL:

To establish a universal concept that most (or all) of the cannabis industry accepts with objective agreement.

What is The Wellness Spectrum?

In short, it is a system to understand and explain why people use cannabis.

Here’s the technical definition:

The wellness spectrum is a psychographic system for sorting cannabis consumers into archetypes based upon their primary desire (or need) to use cannabis and at what frequency.

It is based on data from thousands of survey responses, dozens of interviews, and a life of mindful immersion in cannabis culture...

In sum, we can assign deep and meaningful archetypes using 2 simple questions.

Question #1 - "Why do you use cannabis?"

There are 5 categories of desire (or need) for cannabis:

1) Pure Recreation

• For fun or experimentation
• For chilling or hanging out casually
• Desires the feeling of being high

2) Social Wellness

• For events, parties, festivals, concerts, and experiences with others
• For religious, ceremonial, cultural, or social purposes
• Desires the feeling of belonging/connection to a community, individual, or experience

3) Mental Wellness

• For enhancing mood, creativity, emotions, mindfulness, mental clarity, and other meditative benefits
• For managing stress, anxiety, emotion, and other undiagnosed mental conditions
• Desires control/freedom in treating, relieving, or creating a specific mental state.

4) Physical Wellness

• For managing injuries, inflammation, and pain/discomfort (or enhancing physical pleasure)
• For managing appetite, digestion, metabolism, nausea, nutrition, and undiagnosed physical conditions
• Desires control/freedom in treating, relieving, or creating a specific physical state

5) Pure Medical

• For treating/curing a specific diagnosed condition or disease
• For managing the symptoms/effects of a diagnosed condition or disease
• Desires feeling better, normal, or healthy

Question #2 - "When do you use cannabis?"

There are 2 patterns of frequency using cannabis:

1) Conditional (sometimes)

A specific event, condition, or trigger initiates cannabis use occasionally

Response quotes:

• "When I go to a concert or show I'll smoke joints usually"
• "Only if I'm feeling nauseous or sick"
• "Depends. Whenever the kids are at their grandparents!"

2) Chronic (often)

Cannabis use is a frequent or daily habit with no specific trigger

Response quotes:

• "Pretty much all the time so I feel better."
• "One capsule each morning and once in the evening before dinner."
• "Everyday. like literally EVERY day... sorry, not sorry."

How it works:

Category + Frequency = Archetype

Based on these 5 categories and 2 frequencies, we have 10 archetypes representing the entire spectrum of cannabis consumers.

(And for the visual learners out there... I got you covered!)

The 10 Archetypes of “The Wellness Spectrum.”

#1 - Pure Rec (Conditional)

#2 - Pure Rec (Chronic)

#3 - Social Wellness (Conditional)

#4 - Social Wellness (Chronic)

#5 - Mental Wellness (Conditional)

#6 - Mental Wellness (Chronic)

#7 - Physical Wellness (Conditional)

#8 - Physical Wellness (Chronic)

#9 - Pure Medical (Conditional)

#10 - Pure Medical (Chronic)

Rules and details:

• Every cannabis consumer fits into one of these 10 archetypes.
• Some users may resonate with multiple categories - but will identify with one primary archetype.
• Individuals may change archetypes over time.
• All archetypes are of equal status; no category is any better or worse than another.

Context, uses, and benefits:

The Wellness Spectrum started as an email segmentation project in Evernote... But it could be used for so much more.

Proper and meaningful archetypes provide immense value to cannabis companies, professionals, and consumers. Here how it can be utilized:

• The Wellness Spectrum book, ebook, and/or audiobook
• TWS database (insights, hyper-segmentation, predictive targeting, and AI)
• TWS training and certification courses (budtending, marketing, and advertising)

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Peer Review Request (How to help)

Let's help refine The Wellness Spectrum to maturity.

Option A: Join the conversation!

• If you could add, change, optimize, or remove 1 thing from this concept... What would it be?
• Share whatever is on your mind.

Option B: Share the love!

Do you know anyone in cannabis?

• Tag people in the comments below.
• Share this article.