Eveolution: The Eight Truths of Marketing to Women

Popcorn's futurist pronouncements on consumer trends are always newsworthy; her previous books The Popcorn Report and Clicking have drawn audiences far beyond those for most business guides because of her knack for predicting social trends such as ""cocooning."" Spiced with canny, sound-bite delivery, proprietary terms like ""BrainTrust"" and marketing savvy, Popcorn's latest will surely capture the same buzz. Her BrainReserve, a consulting firm that works with major corporations, now urges clients to cater to female consumers, who have unprecedented earning power and often make household purchasing decisions. Arguing that women shop differently from men--that is, they respond to different stimuli and employ different standards in decision making--Popcorn anticipates the need for many small shifts in corporate advertising. Among other things, she advises marketers to imbue their brands with emotional content, to cater to women's multiple roles, to anticipate their needs and to enlist their opinions about product design. Popcorn and coauthor Marigold illustrate their ideas with examples of new marketing strategies for major clients like Nabisco Snack Well's and Kitchen Aid, as well as with examples from other entrepreneurial ventures. Readers may be bemused by the book's self-referential tone: the BrainReserve lingo and the firm's strategic dress code give the impression of a private women's club. Despite the autohrs' rambling presentation and imposing tone (they tend to weight their pronouncements with upper-case descriptions, i.e., Anticipate, Everything Matters), readers who want to be tuned in to trends will find this a valuable source. Agent, Amanda Urban, ICM. 4-city author tour; national TV satellite tour; national radio satellite tour. (June)