Way back in the 1990s, Faith Popcorn had a sports car with a driver\u2019s seat that could be programmed to fit three different people, making each feel comfortable with a simple click.<\/p>\n\n
This perfectly symbolized what the hip market analyst calls \u201cEgonomics,\u201d which is what happens when Information Age consumers feel swamped and depersonalized and demand products that let them wallow in \u201cme, myself and I.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
\u201cWe Americans are the most self-analyzed and self-important people on the planet,\u201d argued Popcorn, in \u201cClicking,\u201d the bestseller that summarizes her work. \u201cWe know ourselves and we want to define ourselves \u2014 not to be told how to live and what to buy. We demand choices.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
But at the same time, her BrainReserve company is convinced consumers want spiritual roots \u2014 a trend she calls \u201cAnchoring.\u201d So what happens when \u201cEgonomics\u201d collides with \u201cAnchoring,\u201d pews that adjust to fit the individual worshiper? You got it.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cThe future will be so radically different from anything we\u2019ve known before, that having a spiritual connection will become more profoundly important,\u201d claims Popcorn, answering questions on her Web site. \u201cSpirituality and religion, however, will become much more self-defined. In essence, people will mix and pour their own religious cocktails.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cThere will be a morphing of traditional religious practices and denominations. \u2026 We\u2019ll see some people at the center of organized religions react to this by becoming more and more fundamentalist.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Popcorn has always used sweeping, almost messianic language \u2014 pushing TrendBank themes such as \u201cIcon Toppling,\u201d \u201cS.O.S. (Save Our Society),\u201d with its call for \u201cmoral transformation through marketing,\u201d and her modern believers are now seeking meaning by \u201cClanning\u201d in informal \u201cMystical Tribes\u201d that unite around shared joys or pains.<\/p>\n\n
This kind of talk comes easy for a Jewish girl who spent part of her childhood in Catholic schools in Shanghai, with a father who was a lawyer who worked for what became the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. As a young woman, the future futurist dreamed of a career New York\u2019s theaters, but ended up as an ad copywriter. One mentor couldn\u2019t pronounce her name \u2014 Faith Plotkin \u2014 and christened her Faith Popcorn. In 1974 she helped start BrainReserve and, in 1991, wrote \u201cThe Popcorn Report.\u201d The rest is the opposite of history.<\/p>\n\n
In the upcoming book \u201cEVEolution,\u201d Popcorn and co-writer Lys Marigold dissect the role women are playing in the marketplace and culture. The key is that Americans, led by female consumers, don\u2019t shop for particular brand of product just to buy it. Instead, they want to \u201cjoin a brand\u201d and make it a source of identity. This is even true in religion.<\/p>\n\n
In other words, Americans are not just shopping on the Internet, at the mall or in mass media. They are defining who they are and who they are not. This is political, this is spiritual and this process becomes especially important when consumers believe their lives are not \u201cclicking.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
For Popcorn, the essence of our age is contained in that word \u201cclick,\u201d which she describes with born-again fervor. People have to let go and take little leaps of faith \u2014 including at home and work. When enough people begin to leap in the same direction, the result is a cultural trend, one solid enough to last for a decade or longer.<\/p>\n\n
To the individual consumer, this feels highly personal.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cToo many of us spend our lives feeling slightly off-kilter, slightly out of step and out of synch with our expectations,\u201d notes Popcorn. \u201cSomething isn\u2019t clicking: a job, an idea, a product, a place, the sum total of what we\u2019re doing and where we\u2019re going. We fumble around trying to find the right combination to break into a new life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Then something clicks and people find \u201ccontrol, focus, clarity, success.\u201d This is not a merely secular process.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re all at the start of a great awakening, a time of spiritual and religious revival,\u201d insists Popcorn. \u201cWhat\u2019s different about this awaking is that there\u2019s very little agreement on who or what God is, what constitutes worship and what this outpouring means. \u2026 The need to Anchor has found expression in all of the world\u2019s religions, whether they celebrate the Old and New Testament God, Buddha, Allah, Brahma, unnamed higher powers or self-discovery.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Way back in the 1990s, Faith Popcorn had a sports car with a driver\u2019s seat that could be programmed to fit three different people, making each feel comfortable with a simple click. This perfectly symbolized what the hip market analyst calls \u201cEgonomics,\u201d which is what happens when Information Age consumers feel swamped and depersonalized and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n