Category Archives: Economy

POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE

May 30, 2013 – 2:28 pm

by Hans Eisenbeis Spring is in the air, and so are millions of mortarboards. And while traditional markers of adulthood and the American dream may have morphed in recent decades, today’s graduates are as anxious as previous generations about one thing: finding a job. For high school graduates, that probably means finding a summer gig […]

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A “BIG” ALERT

January 9, 2013 – 2:15 pm

by Charlotte Beal The food trends that need to die. The home design trends we’re sick of. The top beauty picks of 2012. Media and future-casting companies are swirling with their picks for year-end content, but Iconoculture is different. Our Big Ideas 2013 series, rolling out now, dives deep into five influential market shifts that […]

By Iconoculture | Also posted in Consumer Trend, Consumers, Food/Beverage, Global, Health, Retail, Technology | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

IT’S A WONDERFUL, SOCIAL LIFE

December 18, 2012 – 1:10 pm

by Hans Eisenbeis The holidays underscore some conflicts in the American psyche around instant gratification, conspicuous consumption and the ties that bind us to those on our gifting lists. These themes get a close-up in the annual TV-driven recurrence of It’s a Wonderful Life. At its core, the movie speaks to one of the most […]

By Iconoculture | Also posted in Consumer Trend, Social Media, Television | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

Young free agents hustle up multicareers

August 7, 2012 – 1:38 pm

by Cree McCree WHAT’S HAPPENING “What do you do?” Good question. For young adults juggling multiple gigs, the answer is anything but straightforward. Dubbed “sidetrepreneurism” by MTV/Viacom, wearing many different hats in the marketplace has become business as usual for multicareerist Millennials (Forbes.com, 19 July 2012). Whether they work multiple jobs simultaneously or sequentially, freewheelin’ […]

By Iconoculture | Also posted in Consumer Trend, Consumers, Work | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

FUELING OUTRAGE

May 29, 2012 – 1:42 pm

by Sumaa Tekur There’s panic in the air, with changes in gas prices affecting middle-class consumer buying power everywhere. No matter where they are, consumers are tweaking family budgets to accommodate this additional expense. Crude oil prices have increased by an average 12% since January (BBC.co.uk, 23 March 2012). Although the US, Europe and Japan […]

By Iconoculture | Also posted in Consumers, Global, India | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

ACCELERATING INNOVATION AT FINOVATE 2012

May 8, 2012 – 2:15 pm

by Hans Eisenbeis Money. It’s a pretty mature market, right? It’s been around since, like, the invention of agriculture and accounting. But as with other mature industries, from food to automobiles, marketers’ approach to the financial services world is poised for change. Big change. This week, we’re at Finovate 2012 in San Francisco, and one […]

By Iconoculture | Also posted in Consumer Trend, Money/Spending | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

TIME TO EAT THE RICH?

February 7, 2012 – 12:33 pm

by Charlotte Beal The same day that I read former Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl’s sumptuous weeklong eating journal on Grubstreet, I read about Sundance documentary Finding North and its portraits of hunger in the US. We live at a time when there’s a great divide between the haves and have-nots, when more people are obsessed with […]

By Iconoculture | Also posted in Consumer Trend, Consumers, Food/Beverage | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

THE KIDLESS ARE ALRIGHT

January 24, 2012 – 2:14 pm

by Abby Carlen I’ve never missed a baby shower or a first birthday party. I don’t shy away from burping a newborn. Rather than cringing at the sound of my nephew’s screech, I appreciate his verve. I also appreciate being home alone. Today, being kidless has less of a stigma than it did years ago. […]

By Iconoculture | Also posted in Consumers, Money/Spending, Parents | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off

PEOPLE POWER, RIGHT NOW

December 20, 2011 – 1:42 pm

by Josh Kimball The Occupy Wall Street movement encamped in our collective consciousness in the fall of 2011, answering a call to arms in an article from Adbusters. The movement has since shed the limiting geographic portion of its appellation, leaving Occupiers free to set up anywhere, regardless of street or country. In August, “shopping […]

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ICONOCULTURE’S TOP TRENDS FOR 2012

December 6, 2011 – 11:41 am

by Josh Kimball Every December, Iconoculture analyzes information and crunches numbers to identify the top trends for the coming year. By the time you finish reading this, you’ll know two of the most important trends impacting marketers in the coming year, along with some key business implications of each consumer shift. So fire up those […]

By Iconoculture | Also posted in Consumer Trend, Consumers, Money/Spending, Retail | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off

THE BANK OF FRIENDS AND FAMILY

November 22, 2011 – 3:32 pm

by Gwyneth Holland, Sr. Editor, Europe If global news is anything to go by, Europe isn’t having its finest hour right now, with economies failing, nations backbiting and some consumers raging. But while the politicians bicker about fiscal responsibility and the eurozone dream, more European consumers are quietly finding ways to cope with straitened times. […]

By iconoculture | Also posted in Consumer Trend, Consumers, Money/Spending, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off

“TO HAVE OR NOT TO HAVE” IS NOT THE QUESTION

November 16, 2011 – 7:17 am

  by Hillary Plank Today in the United States of America, income inequality is the worst it has been since the 1920s. The CIA World Factbook ranks the US the 42nd most unequal country in the world, relative to income. Economic theorists blame the gap on income stagnation among most American households and soaring income […]

By Iconoculture | Also posted in Consumer Trend, Global, Money/Spending | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off

7 BILLION PEOPLE TODAY, 9.2 BILLION TOMORROW

November 1, 2011 – 11:10 am

by Becky Sun The United Nations estimates that yesterday was the day that planet Earth reached 7 billion people. (The US Census Bureau’s population clock, which runs a little slower, puts today’s number at 6,972,015,442.) It’s hard to know just what to make of 7 billion humans. Pro-natalists and optimists say that the world can […]

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MILLENNIAL MOMENT

October 11, 2011 – 1:53 pm

by Hans Eisenbeis It’s not often that professional journalists and media pundits throw up their hands and admit they have no idea what’s going on, but that’s essentially what has happened in the last three weeks during the emergence of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Respected brands from the New York Times to CNN to […]

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Latino and black Americans hit worst by hard times

August 30, 2011 – 7:47 pm

by Hans Eisenbeis WHAT’S HAPPENING The Great Recession did not hurt all Americans equally. It tended to punish the middle and lower classes worse than the well-off, and it hurt men more than women. But a July 2011 study shows that the biggest disparity may have been racial. According to the Pew Research Center, Latino […]

By Iconoculture | Also posted in Consumers, Latino, Money/Spending, Multicultural | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off
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