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Faith Popcorn, (born May 11, 1943 as Faith Plotkin), is a futurist, author and founder and CEO of marketing consulting firm BrainReserve. Prior to founding her consultancy, Popcorn was an advertising agency creative director. She is a graduate of New York University and New York’s High School of Performing Arts. Her best selling book is the Popcorn Report.
Phrases
Popcorn has coined various terms and phrases in her publications. For example "Brailling the culture" is her term for analyzing a range of cultural developments. Popcorn has identified a number of trends that she argued determine consumer behavior. She also developed a marketing model she calls "InCulture Marketing" which she says turns the culture itself into a medium for brand communications.
Criticism
Popcorn claims her predictions have had 95% accuracy. However, a study by researchers at St. Norbert College research her forecast from the Popcorn Report and concluded:
- "Faith Popcorn forecasted 10 trends in the 90's on The Popcorn Report, but according to this research, implications of five trends of ten have significant problems. In the real business world, a 50 percent error rate is unacceptable"
William A. Sherden takes a skeptical view of her ideas about cocooning, among other things, and concludes she was simply wrong on several key issues.
- “If Popcorn is any kind of genius, it is only for marketing and self promotion, for she has packaged pure fantasy and sold it to some of the highest-level executives in U.S. industry.”
Predictions
A 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."
She is believed to have influenced Pepsi and Tylenol.
Less famously, she is also quoted offering a predictions that "mechanized hugging booths" will replace pay-phones in cities as part of a cultural trend toward more physical contact. She's also said that 1950s slang will make a big comeback and that advances in genetics will allow people to custom design pets with bits of their own DNA so their dogs and cats resemble them. Other examples from this series of 2006 predictions of marketing trends that Popcorn claimed "were just around the corner" include lingerie infused with "neuro-chemicals" to enhance confidence and demand for "retort coaches" to help people sharpen their wit. Popcorn also predicted "removable cochlear-implants, rentable by the hour, that instantly lend you fluency in French or an understanding of how to tune a car".
Bibliography
- The Popcorn Report,
- Clicking (co-authored with Lys Marigold),
- EVEolution: The Eight Truths of Marketing to Women (co-authored with Lys Marigold),
- Dictionary of the Future (co-authored with Adam Hanft)
References
- The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Contemporary Life, Ralph Keyes, Macmillan 2004, p87 "
- "Faith Popcorn". Cityfile.com. 2009. Retrieved 2009-10-20.
- "Harper Collins biography of Popcorn". Harper Collins Inc. 1996. Retrieved 2007-08-17.
- "Burned Popcorn and Broken Crystal Balls: Beware of False Prophets Bearing Food" (PDF). St Norbert College. 1999. Retrieved 2007-08-14.
- Sherdan, William A. (1999). The Fortune Sellers: The Big Business of Buying and Selling Predictions. New York: John Wiley & Sons. p. 223. ISBN 0471358444.
- "Faith Popcorn's Predictions Five Years Later". Los Angeles Times. 2008. Retrieved 2010-05-02.
- Ryan, Oliver (2007-09-17). "Pepsico's Broadway Bet". CNN. Retrieved 2010-05-02.
- Boorstin, Julia (2004-09-20). "The Pill Whose Name Goes Unspoken". CNN. Retrieved 2010-05-02.
- "Faith Popcorn's predictions - 9 products of the future". 2006.