Trend Forecaster

August 16, 2000

Faith Popcorn, best-selling author and trend forecaster answers your questions about trends and marketing and how to use both to run a successful business.

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Women.com: Hello and welcome to our chat with Faith Popcorn, best- selling author, and America's foremost trend watcher.

Faith Popcorn: Hi and welcome. I am glad you can join us today. I am looking forward to the chat.

AllieOop: You describe yourself as a trend forecaster. How do you figure out what the trends will be?

Faith Popcorn: At Brain Reserve, my marketing consulting company, we braille the culture. We read every imaginable magazine, newspapers from all over the world, we watch television, we go the movies and we read books. And from all of our brailling we start gathering information, and looking at things that keep reoccurring in different industries in the culture, and these things point us to trends.

Labtec101: I read that you and your staff do a thing called "brailling the culture". What does that mean, and how do you go about this?

Faith Popcorn: Per the previous answer, as we gather the information we're connecting dots and the dots lead us to a new picture of a trend in the culture.

Springy: What's the difference between a fad and a Trend?

Faith Popcorn: A fad is a short term phenomenon; it's a fast in and out. And a trend has a life of ten or more years.

Go2000: How did you get involved with trend setting and marketing?

Faith Popcorn: I started out in advertising, and I realized that advertising did not really take the clients as far as they needed to go. Advertising was very short term, and I felt that corporations needed to look much further out. I started my business in 1974. I had no clients because, being a futurist, I started too early.

DakotaRain: In your book, you say if a woman has to ask for something, it's too late. How can companies anticipate what a customer is going to ask for?

Faith Popcorn: They have to watch for signs in the culture; they should be doing their own brailling, They need to really listen to what's not being said as well as to what is being said, and letters of commendation, letters of complaint, questions from their 800 numbers - and they'll be able to put things together to put them ahead of the curve.

Imation321: Do you think that women will use the Internet extensively in on-line shopping? I know that Web-based shopping is being hyped now as future big business.

Faith Popcorn: I believe that the Internet is definitely here to stay. It will get better, and the positives - right now which are convenience, you can shop any time - will carry the internet a long way. But they do need to improve in allowing customers to try clothes on, three dimensional models. To be able to believe that they are experiencing tactile sensation and a home delivery from websites is still very important.

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