Faith Popcorn (born Faith Plotkin, May 11, 1943)[1] is a futurist, author, and founder and CEO of the marketing consulting firm BrainReserve. She has written three best selling books:[2][3]The Popcorn Report (1991), Clicking (1996), and EVEolution (2000).
Faith Popcorn | |
|---|---|
| Born | Faith Plotkin May 11, 1943 New York City |
| Alma mater | New York University (BA) |
| Occupation | Futurist |
| Employer | Faith Popcorn's BrainReserve |
| Known for | The Popcorn Report, Clicking, EVEolution,The Dictionary of the Future |
| Children | 2 |
| Website | faithpopcorn |
Biography
editBorn as Faith Plotkin,[4][5] she later legally changed her name to "Faith Popcorn."[4] She was born in New York City, where both of her parents were lawyers[6] and spent her early childhood in Shanghai before returning to the United States. She attended the High School of Performing Arts in New York City,[2] followed by New York University.[4] Accepted into NYU Law School, she decided instead to go into advertising in the early 1970s, which she said she considered to be more glamorous.[7]
After working in advertising for eight years,[2] she founded the marketing consulting firm BrainReserve in 1974.[8] It works with companies to identify future trends that will affect their business.[9] Popcorn is reported to have advised Coca-Cola, in 1981, to go into bottled water[10] and to have told Kodak in the late 1980s to go into digital instead of print.[11]
She coined terms like "cocooning" ("the impulse to stay inside when the outside gets too tough and scary", such as turning a home into a nest) and "Cashing Out" ("the impulse to change one's life to a slower and more rewarding pace", sometimes manifested by people who quit corporate jobs).[12] Her company created a "TalentBank"[12] of 10,000 experts who provide forecasts about trends across many topics.[13] It also analyzes newspapers, magazine and other sources, and conducts thousands of consumer interviews to spot future trends.[4][13]
Predictions
editIn a series of nine 2006 predictions of major trends, she forecast a cultural trend toward more physical contact, including "mechanized hugging booths."[14] She also said that "second hand nostalgia" would become a trend and that advances in genetics might allow people to custom design pets with bits of their own DNA so their dogs and cats resembled them.[14] Other examples from this series of predictions included "mood tuning" products, such as clothing infused with "neuro-chemicals" to enhance confidence or mental acuity, and demand for exercising "brain fitness", possibly manifesting itself in "brain trainers" to exercise recall or "retort coaches" to help people sharpen their wit.[14]
A 2008 Los Angeles Times entertainment section article, following Popcorn's predictions over a period of five years, credited her with identifying trends such as "food coaches" and "transcouture".[15] In 2014, she predicted to The Hollywood Reporter that films would become immersive events, taking place all around the viewer, who could choose their own avatar as characters.[16] She also predicted fan films, similar to fan fiction.[16] In 2015, she renewed her 1991 prediction that "humanoid robots" would become companions and workers.[8] At an IBM-sponsored conference, she predicted robots would replace one third of jobs in the developed world and that governments would initiate a "disemployment tax" as an incentive to keep people employed. She forecasted virtual reality vacations and said that the average adult would work for several companies simultaneously.[17]
Business book author William A. Sherden takes a skeptical view of her ideas about cocooning. He provides statistics showing double-digit percentage growth in activities outside the home in the five years following her prediction.[18] The U.S. Postal Service paid $566,000 to Popcorn to envision a viable future for the post office, an engagement that was criticized by Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma in a list of 100 examples of "wasteful" spending.[19]
Bibliography
edit- The Popcorn Report: Faith Popcorn on the Future of Your Company, Your World, Your Life. New York: Doubleday, 1991. ISBN 978-0-385-40000-8
- with Lys Marigold. Clicking: 16 Trends to Future Fit Your Life, Your Work, and Your Business. New York: HarperCollins, 1996. ISBN 978-0-88730-694-5
- EVEolution: The Eight Truths of Marketing to Women (co-authored with Lys Marigold),
- with Adam Hanft. The Dictionary of the Future: The Words, Terms and Trends That Define the Way We'll Live, Work and Talk, New York: Hyperion, 2001. ISBN 978-0-7868-7007-3
Personal life
editPopcorn lives in Manhattan and Wainscott, Long Island.[20] She is single and has two adopted children.[8][20]
References
edit- ^ Keyes, Ralph. The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Contemporary Life, Macmillan 2004, p. 87
- ^ a b c Finn, Robin (6 June 2001). "The Future's Paying Off Nicely for a Trend-Spotter". New York Times. Retrieved 8 May 2015.
- ^ "The Business Week Best Seller List". Business Week. 24 June 1996. Archived from the original on 29 June 2011. Retrieved 10 May 2015.
- ^ a b c d Cawley, Janet (June 1998). "Faith Popcorn: Trend-spotter". Biography Magazine.
- ^ Keyes, Ralph. The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Contemporary Life, Macmillan 2004, p. 87
- ^ "Who is Faith Popcorn?".
- ^ Popcorn, Faith (12 May 2015). "How The Booze-Fueled Mad Men Era Fostered Co-Worker Camaraderie". New York Observer. Retrieved 21 May 2015.
- ^ a b c Wallis, David (8 January 2015). "Parents Will One Day Rely On Robot-Nannies, Says Futurist Faith Popcorn". New York Observer. Retrieved 8 May 2015.
- ^ Mehren, Elizabeth (16 January 1987). "Life Style in the '90s According to Popcorn". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ Cummer, Corby (19 June 2014). "Food Networks: 'The Tastemakers' and 'The Third Plate'". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 May 2015.
- ^ Firth, Peter (23 September 2014). "I know what you'll like next summer: How trend forecasting keeps the biggest brands on top". City A.M. Retrieved 10 May 2015.
- ^ a b Slesin, Suzanne (3 October 1991). "Cocooning With the Chief Trend Bender". New York Times. Retrieved 8 May 2015.
- ^ a b Broughton, Phillip Delves (1 January 2013). "Soothsayers for corporate hire". Financial Times. Retrieved 8 May 2015.
- ^ a b c Roberto, Ned (8 September 2006). "From Faith Popcorn: 9 marketing predictions". Inquirer.net. Retrieved 10 May 2015.[permanent dead link]
- ^ "Faith Popcorn's Predictions Five Years Later". Los Angeles Times. 2008. Retrieved 2010-05-02.
- ^ a b Kilday, Gregg (2 September 2014). "Future of Film: 4 Experts Predict How Moviegoing Will Change in 10 Years". Inquirer.net. Retrieved 13 May 2015.
- ^ Feloni, Richard (12 March 2015). "A futurist lays out a wild vision for the future of work — here's what your career could look like in 2025". Business Insider. Retrieved 8 May 2015.
- ^ Sherden, William A. (1999). The Fortune Sellers: The Big Business of Buying and Selling Predictions. New York: John Wiley & Sons. p. 223. ISBN 0-471-35844-4.
- ^ "Gov't wasted $30 billion on 'pillownauts,' crystal goblets — buying human urine!". The Washington Times. 2013.
- ^ a b Clarke, Gerald (April 2003). "Cocooning on Long Island". Architectural Digest. Retrieved 8 May 2015.