The legal cannabis market is expected to increase more than 200 percent by 2025. According to research by Euromonitor International, the market will rise from $30 billion in 2020 to over $90 billion in 2025 as consumers increase their usage in diverse parts of their lives.
In a recent white paper, Breaking Stereotypes: Getting to Know the Cannabis Consumer, Euromonitor explores six adult cannabis consumer archetypes making up the emerging legal cannabis consumer base in 2021.
The report lists the six archetypes as:
- The Seasoned Consumer: Long-time regular consumers who use cannabis to enhance their well-being. Twenty-four percent of these consumers suffer from high or extreme stress while 64 percent are strongly in favor of recreational legalization.
- The Casual Social: Younger, newer consumers leveraging cannabinoid products as part of their wider lifestyles. Seventy-five percent of them take vitamins or health supplements at least monthly while 61 percent are strongly in favor of recreational legalization.
- The Dabbler: Occasional cannabis users, familiar and comfortable with the substance but unlikely to see it as a key part of their lifestyle. Sixty-eight percent are in favor of its legalization for medical use while 45 percent believe legal cannabis should be at least as widely available as tobacco and alcohol.
- The Canna-curious: A broad consumer group with an interest in adult-use cannabis consumption if legalized in their countries but with limited knowledge about cannabinoid products. Fifty-six percent are in favor of legalization for medical use while only 43 percent support adult-use liberalization.
- The Unsparked: Consumers who are outwardly negative toward cannabis use but express enough uncertainty that many could be persuaded to engage further. Eighteen percent of these consumers believe that cannabis is unsafe while 8 percent see cannabis as something that enhances a user’s lifestyle.
- The Naysayer: Strongly against adult use—only 8 percent are in favor of legalization—they are not an immediate target for producers and brand owners. Fifty-one percent state that they either have no or low levels of daily stress—the least stressed of all profiles.
As legalization expands and the normalization of cannabinoid use continues, organizations need to understand the motivations of the modern cannabis consumer and look beyond typical stereotypes.
Seasoned cannabis consumers are established, long-standing and often traditionalist cannabis users “who will form the backbone of the legal industry” as it evolves, according to MacGuill. Companies need to understand and address the priorities of this group without alienating newer consumers whose product and brand priorities are often divergent, he notes.
“As legalization expands and the normalization of cannabinoid use continues, organizations need to understand the motivations of the modern cannabis consumer and look beyond typical stereotypes,” says MacGuill. “The legal cannabis industry must mirror the views and values of its consumers, given its history and the nature of its often countercultural evolution. Industry players can only achieve this with a nuanced segmentation and holistic understanding of participants in the sector.”