April 19, 2023 • 34 mins
In this week’s episode, Martha catches up with her friend, the “futurist”, Faith Popcorn. Faith is considered America’s foremost trend expert and is in demand by the Fortune 200 companies who want to know what’s next. From adapting to the work-from-home culture to adopting ChatGPT, Faith and Martha talk here about nothing but the future.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
We have a lot in common, Yes, too much? No, now, okay.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Fortune Magazine has named Faith Popcorn the Nostrodamis of marketing,
and she's considered America's foremost trend expert. Faith has worked
with some of the world's best known companies to help
them position their brands, Apple, American Express, and IBM, to
name just a few. I've known Faith for more than
(00:33):
forty years, and I continue to be impressed by her
ability to predict business trends. Faith calls herself a futurist.
Over the years, she has forecasted the SUV craze, the
success of organic foods, and coined the term cocooning. We'll
talk about that later. I'm sitting down with Faith today
(00:54):
in her beautiful townhouse on New York's Upper East Side,
and we want to talk business trends, business and most importantly,
the future. Welcome to my podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Thanks John. Just honored to be here, Well.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Honored to be in your own lovely living and it's
so comfortable with you, fresh air and big, beautiful windows.
And there is a Ukrainian flag hanging right on the
facade of her home. Thank you for doing that, of course,
Well do you remember how we first met in East Hampton.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Yeah, you were just starting the magazine. Yes, you're coming
over and we're going to just talk future the magazine
and everything, and you just had layouts and everything. So
I said, come on over, and I hear your car
pull up and know, Martha, I'm going like, what happened
to her? I wait like two minutes, three minutes, I
come out, No, Martha, And then you emerge from these
(01:50):
big bushes in front of my house and you say,
do you know what's going on in there? I go, No,
things are dying in the middle. You have to prone,
you have to do this, you have.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
To do that. Ago.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
No, Yes, it's such a good Martha's story.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
So we talked and talked and you I think you
liked the magazine.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
I think I loved the magazine.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
And I kind of fit in with what faith popcorn
is all about. It's all about thinking about what's coming next?
What is the future? How are we going to cope
with the future? And you don't miss anything. I always
am looking for what people want and need and will.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Want and need, and how they're behaving.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
And how they're behaving. What is a futurist and why
do you call yourself that.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
A futurist would be classically somebody who can see ahead
and describe ten years, twenty years out. We do something
alled applied futurism. We're seeing out and then we apply
it to our clients. So we might tell a Pepsi,
let's say, you know sugar is going to be outlawed,
here's you know, a direction that you have to go.
(02:59):
You know, I brought to Coca Cola bottled water before
bottled water and they said no. Doug Ivestar Champions goes no.
You know, it's a nice idea, but then people would
realize there's water in coke.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Crazy. Okay, what did you go to Pepsi? And yes
I did, And still now they said no to but
look they've brought a lot of they've brought a lot
of water.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Now eight years, six years, eight years. Everything takes eight
ten years and I don't know how long.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
What about that story is really that they hired us.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
What's the future of film? So like research and things, not.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
The film we're talking about, not movie film. We're talking
about film, film camera, film that you put in the camera,
a role of film and then you have to take
it to the developer and have it developed and get
the negatives. And you know, I was just talking to
Kevin Sharkey and told him I was coming here, and
he said, Martha, you told Gail Towie to tell everybody
(03:56):
to photographers that we were going digital.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Okay, you came back. Well, you should have been on
the team. You could have cut my work. We came
back and we said the future film is digital and
pretty much. They said, we asked you for the future
of film, not pretty much exactly, and we said it's digital.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
They said film. We said digital.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
They said, you're fired. That's not what we hired you for.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
So we how to extend the life of film they
wanted you to do? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Probably, yeah, yeah, But that's how our futurest can help
a business.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
What's been your really most exciting success and futurism and
predicting the future?
Speaker 1 (04:35):
You know, cocooning. We said cocooning in nineteen eighty two.
I don't know if you remember, but we named you
the Queen of cocooning. And we said, people love Martha
because they don't want to do it, but they want
to watch somebody do it. It's like homemaking voyeurism, right,
and people love that. But you are definitely the queen
of cocoony, and you made the cocoon meaningful, deep, cozy
(04:58):
and defended.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
That's why I love faith Popcorn because she got it.
She got it you and you know who else got it?
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Who got it?
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Steven Spielberg. He said, Martha, I just want to tell
you you have turned homemaking into an art form.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
That's true.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
You saw it in the pages of the magazine. We
had a team of people working on that magazine that
really understood that to make life more beautiful in and
around the home.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
But now that homes are going to be in the metaverse,
yes there, I'm sure you're working on that, approaching thetaverse,
or that they're going to need a lot of acoustic
Kim built his house in the metaverse, beautiful, beautiful house.
It was virtual, right, and then she built it in
what I call real life, even though young people don't
see the difference between them. And she sold it for
(05:47):
like six hundred thousand dollars, right, So I could see
the opportunity of people want to experience a home, or
get a message from you, or see that they could
be wandering around with you in the metaverse.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
What's the metaverse?
Speaker 1 (05:58):
What do you have to alternative reality? And it's equal
to in real life? And people will be drifting back
and forth, back and forth.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
And a lot of them.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
If this world continues to disintegrate and deteriorate, we're going
to be wanting to live more and more. There an
advertiser or Fortune two hundred are saying it's not going
to happen because they do not know really what to
do with it. What do we say when we don't
know what to do with something? It's not true.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
But what I envision, and it's crazy for business, is
that the dress you wear is the dress you wear,
and you don't have to change your dress.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
No, Well, in the metaverse, you just get another dress
comes on you.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Yeah that's nice.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, I mean, but I would love that idea.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Do you want one dresses?
Speaker 2 (06:51):
I just want one thing that looks really good on me,
and I want one thing to sleep in.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
A jumpsuit that changes colors right on you, changes weight,
changes you know, installation for how many pock is backpacks?
Filled in all your electronics. And that's the future of clothing.
You're going to be melded in a singularity okay.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Oh boy, we are on our way here with faith popcorn.
I think it's I think the adaptation of the metaverse
into our ordinary lives is the next big thing, definitely.
And I have I have a little grandson, Truman. He's eleven.
He's using Chat.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Oh, definitely thought he's using it. Oh, it's wonderful.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
I know.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
It's my friend.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
It is I know, and it it can be your
friend if we use it correctly.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Oh, I asked Chat we should do together. I'll read
that to you later. It just said, you know, you
and Martha could do a book about predictions. You and
I mean it just knew everything about you just.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
The well as I read what you've what you've done,
I was going through the list. It was very fun
because you kind of predicted the popularity and the and
the importance of the suv. But you predicted that in
what year?
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Eighty eight?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
And I was driving SUVs from nineteen seventy two suburbans.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
I remember, that's right.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
So who are your clients presently and what are you
doing for them?
Speaker 1 (08:22):
We've worked with Johnson, and Johnson helped them see forward,
talk to them about many many things like well, one
thing that we're doing is like saying the oculus is
going to be a lens, for instance, and that's you know,
coming We've worked with context.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Like it's going to be like a contact lens. Yeah,
well it should be. It has You can't wear those
heavy things on them awful. I went to Cees and
they put one of those big oculuses on my head.
I was dizzy in about three seconds. And yet I
love the idea of walking through a fantasy land, but
I couldn't stand that headdress.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
So we worked with Constellation brands. What we did there
seems so obvious once you say it, but what what
is alcohol? It's mood management and that's how we position
like Uber positioning. And then went down to each brand
like Corona, pacifica Medello.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Did you hire Snoop for the Corona?
Speaker 3 (09:16):
I did not. I would love to take credit for
those are but well he's your.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Buddy, yes, But I'm just saying those are the most charming,
and congratulations Constellation for those ads because they're funny. I
giggled every time, and even if I didn't know Snoop,
I would be giggling because there's on one of those
Well you should. Yeah, we haven't yet. Maybe maybe, but
but I loved it when he picked up the shell phone.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
It's so cheae. He's funny? Is he really funny?
Speaker 1 (09:44):
In life?
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Extraordinarily funny? So what part does your gut play in
making decisions and predicting the future? Do you think it's
your gut? I mean, gut is the same to me
as brain.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Well that's true.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Well, like we the women's division for Nike, so that
turned out to be I don't know, twenty four percent
of their business.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
I just I just saw air.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Didn't you love it?
Speaker 2 (10:08):
I loved it.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
We're considered the best kept secret of the fortune two hundred.
We did the whole women's division. When we presented to.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Them, you know what about women?
Speaker 1 (10:18):
And they go, yeah, well, you know, should we make
the shoes smaller obviously?
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Or of colors?
Speaker 1 (10:22):
You can know women, let's understand women. So we went
to like so many beautiful things like yoga, and you
know how women run is different, everything about it. But
the one thing I couldn't get them to do. And
they have beautiful fabrications, you know, is right, but fabric
like there's because it is the clothing. Yeah, the clothing.
It like dispels sweat. So we said, what about maternity,
(10:47):
and they said, we don't consider that action sport. Obviously
nobody in the room had ever had a baby, you know,
so they I just could not get them there.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
So, you know, pregnant failure, sweat failure.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
I have a lot of thoughts about you and GBT.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Okay, well, I want to talk to you about that.
That's a great to do this.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Suppose somebody could have your avatar, could be a little
Marcus is here, or it could be actually.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Don't do it that way, do it this way? Like that?
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Yeah, like, let me help you.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
You have this because I'm so bossy and I have
so many ideas people want I know they do they
need No, they need it.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
They need it.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Suppose they had you with them all the time.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
See here we are, I'm supposed to be interviewing faith
pop Grind and she's trying to hire me for the future.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
And suppose they have it with them all the time.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Fantastic, it's going to happen, and it should happen. And instead, well, okay,
I have a good idea. I'll talk to you afterwards,
but I do it. All of a sudden, the light
bulb went off, and you are right. I have it
in me to do it, and I will do it.
You and I will do it. Okay, okay, And this
is all about the future.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
That's how we come up with it.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Well, I want to talk about this because this is
such an exciting this Will has had one of the
most exciting careers and she has transformed so many business
brands for the future and it's really it's really just
an incredible Oh, this is another topic that you write about.
(12:23):
Age reversal, yes, okay, and life geneity jevity, life jevity,
not longevity, but lifejevity versus longevity. Since your two thousand
and one book Dictionary of the Future, you explored aging
on your podcast, Jolty. I agree the podcast with Adam Hamm.
(12:45):
He is with Adam Half who is a friend of mine.
I know, how does aging in twenty twenty three look
compared to what you imagined in two thousand and one?
Speaker 1 (12:54):
So I thought it was about longevity, you know, and
we had you know.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
We oh, by the way, prolonging life that longevity is
the problem extension life. Right, Yeah, So.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
That's what I thought it was.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
And then as I started to get smarter and talk
to more like you know in the medical fields and
the cyber fields and the field fields, I realize, and
some very interesting doctors. You're going to be able to
reverse age, not extend age. So you can say, I
want to be forty, whatever your best age was, I
(13:25):
want to be whatever, and you will be that and
still have the brain of your present age.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Weird, So the physical can be reversed, yes, mental can remain,
can remain, but also you'll be able to have certain
traumatic experiences that we've all had, you know.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
If you want ext out, so you could have it
all over again but better.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
This is crazy, it's crazy, but real possible. And you know,
I have the Center for Living at Mountside, which is
about taking care of the aging population of America. And
we're not going to stop aging. We're going to always
have a numerical age, but at one hundred, we can
really be fifty if we want to. And I've been
reading about that in the There was a big article
(14:12):
last week in the Times about this group of people
out on the West coast. Is that who you're talking about,
those guy's on the West coast.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Yeah, those guys, But there are others young you know young,
he swears he's going to live till two hundred.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
We had monchualty.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Yeah, and what do you think he could do it?
Speaker 1 (14:29):
I mean if the you know, the medical part has
to keep up and a lot some of it's psychological,
but some of it's truly technological.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Yeah. Well, I'm very interested in that because I took
one of those tests.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
I don't know what your real age.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
I don't yeah, no, no about how long you're going
to live, because it's a test, it's a psychological test.
I came out to one hundred and ten. Wow, without
even trying. And if I knew more, you know, I
would have maybe gotten to be able to how old
was your mother? My mother died at ninety three, Well
that's a good chance, that's yes, my grandfather died at
ninety nine, beautiful her father.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
But you want to be that age in great health.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Yes, you do, and my mother was and my grandfather was.
I hope I have that gene. You do have gene line.
I hope you can see it. Well, I hope so.
But but it was. But it's extraordinary to think about
age reversal. Nice, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Nice, But suppose you become younger than your children. Good
serves them right.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Oh yes, but I'll make sure that they can do
it too.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
But maybe they don't want to. That starts to get weird.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Oh I think I think everybody's going to want you. Yeah,
but then will that stop birth?
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Well birth is way down anyway, I know.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
I wonder, but will stop birth? I mean if yes,
if I can be twenty again and and my grandchildren
can go back in time, but.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
They're going to go back to the womb. I mean,
you could really write something.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Weird about it.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Yeah, this is science fiction. Yeah, or not? Or not
was writing about this in novels? Anybody?
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Not this?
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Movies? They're writing movies.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
The most fabulous thing I've read recently is Clara and
the Sun. The k my she grew up the guy
that wrote Remains of the Day.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Yes, okay, I actually downloaded that book. So now with
a K.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
So it's about which is what I want you to
be soon? So it's a young teen and her mother
goes this store and gets her robotic companion.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Oh that was a movie, No, that megan was the
movie with a robotic.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
Yeah no, it's not a horror movie.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
That was horrible.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
But this is a relationship she has, okay, and it's
a very tender and beautiful relationship, and the whole thing
can come alive. But almost everything like on TV now
it's like half science fiction. Did you see this series
called Power?
Speaker 2 (16:50):
No id?
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Okay, so I don't sleep, but you don't sleep? Okay? Good?
Oh you could call me in the middle of the nights.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
I'm I'm there up. So anyway, Power is about a
time where women get this thing in their hands where
they can set something on fire or kind.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Of electrocute oh, witches.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
And it starts to that's what.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Happened in the nineteenth century with witches.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Well they thought that, yes, but in this story they
really can. So they start to take over all over
the world. It's fascinating. I mean it's only on I
think episode four. But that's a prediction, you see, when
we look at something like that, I think it's tremendous
repressed anger in our society from females that most fortunes.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
I don't ever want to look at anything negative like that.
I mean, I will watch that, I will watch the program,
but I don't think negatively like that. I always try
to think optimistically and passionately. About what is hospitable.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Right, I'm not saying it's not possible.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
I'm saying, as of.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Now, you know, women are feeling not great.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
So you spoke it south By Southwest last year about
the future of the cannabis business. So we're jumping. It
sounds like we're jumping everywhere. But this is what Faith
Popcorn really does. She has her tentacles into so many
businesses and their future.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
And they somehow hang together.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
They do Oh no, no, they doing together. What's your
prediction for the cannabis in the United States?
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (18:19):
They and I know that you have a brand right
with Canopy. I do, Martha Stewart, Martha.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
I have gummies which are amazingly effective. I have sublingual
oils which are amazingly effective. They do well made, relax,
sort of simplify your day, let you sleep better, take
away anxiety a little bit, take the edge off anxiety.
They're very, very, very useful. And this is this is
(18:48):
not THHC. This is this is CBD. And the flavors.
I worked so hard on the flavors.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
It was we got that Valentine saying it that beautiful.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Yeah, very nice.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
So anyway, what do you think is happening to cannabi.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
They haven't, They haven't evolved. Cannabis has got to go
into microdosing of allucinogenics. This is where it's going. So
many people, like on Wall Street even now, it's not
like okay, it's like a little microdose to make you sharp.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
But you know how many grand laws. Okay with the
oils and the gummies, but the real stuff has to happen, right,
I agree, but it has to go through legislation, which
is not occurring fast enough.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Well, you can take microdosing of things. Why do you
think so many people that aren't really ADHD take incerta
or adderall or one of those. Because what it does
is focus you, and that's what they're looking for. You're
looking for brain lifts, and that's the next thing.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Brainlift.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Well, we're going to have like inserts.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Listen to this, everybody, or we're sitting we're sitting with
the future here.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
No, but absolutely little.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
So instead of a facelift, you're going to get a
brain lift.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
You might have to have both.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Sure, Yes, you're going to be smarter, you're going to
be healthier, you're going to be able to play back.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Yes, That's what I want to be able to play
back in my and my by just thinking of it.
All right, now, I'm going to have a brain lift.
I'm going to get cannabis to hallucinogen x ye. All right.
I have a lot of work to do, and I'm
because I work with canopy.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
But you know what they really could leverage is sex,
my god.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Ecstasy extasy. But that's not a drug. I'm talking about
fantasustical experience ecstasy, yes, and that can be done.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
What's going to happen when your robotic companion can satisfy?
Speaker 2 (20:39):
We talked about this, My husband and I talked about
this stuff in the I got married in nineteen sixty one,
and we talked about the ecstasy machine we you know,
we had, we had two thousand and one, We had
the most fabulous and Stanley Kubrick talking to us, you
know ya the movies. But my husband wanted an ecstasy
(21:00):
machine so badly. I hope he says, what was he
going to do? You sit in it, You sit.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
In it sort of experience ecstasy.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
And experience whatever ecstasy you feel like feeling, without anybody
or anybody else, just yourself, meditation and no that's very hard.
I can't. I can't imitate. No, I cannot.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
Okay, you say you can't be I cannot.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
But I could do. I could use the ecstasy chair.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Well, if you had a little micro dose, you could
reach ecstasy.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
I'm so afraid of all that stuff.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Do you remember ecstasy?
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Ever?
Speaker 3 (21:31):
If you have not that ecstasy? But haven't you had
moments of extasy?
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Of course? Of course, you just.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Want to have it when you want it.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Yes, I just want to have it when I want it.
I would like an ecstasy machine, which would be just
leave me just happy as can be.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Yeah, it would be fun. And then you wouldn't need anybody,
that's right. Well, no, I want somebody in the machine
with you.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
No, not in this machine. No, you don't want that,
you don't want I was.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Reading about this new fire commissioner. This is a new thing,
right whatever, And she's fantastic, right she's getting in.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
New York City.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Yeah, she's a fire commissioner. Okay, this is what she
identifies as. So they say she's not married, she's single
and unavailable. I think that's divine. Yeah, I've never seen
that she is unavailable. She is very independent available. Yeah,
personally unavailable. No, she's totally one hundred percent available for
(22:26):
the fire devices. They go, are you married?
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Are you single? Are you divorced? But they don't have
are you unavailable?
Speaker 2 (22:41):
So let's take a step back here. You were born
with a different name, Faith Plodkin. I remember that, And
then when did you change your name to Popcorn?
Speaker 1 (22:50):
When I was twenty one, it was my nickname. I
worked for this guy named Gino Constantino Garlande and he
couldn't say Plotkin. First job in the advertising, little advertising agency,
and he goes to faith Faith Popcin.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
I go, that's good, perfect, you know, and it stuck
to you and it's it's like pop.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Yeah, but no research or anything.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
But you do pop all the time. I'm here. We
are speaking of everything in the world, popping like crazy.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
But I was raised in Shanghai. My father was in
the CIA.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
And do you speak do you speak Mandarin?
Speaker 1 (23:24):
I used to till I got back when I was
but now you have two children.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
I went back and got two kids.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Yes, but I used to.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
And then when I got back, my orthodox juice grandmother
said to my mother, what is she talking?
Speaker 2 (23:36):
What is this?
Speaker 3 (23:37):
So I lost it.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
So you began your career in advertising. What attracted you
to that field?
Speaker 1 (23:43):
I thought it was Holly Go lightly. I totally thought
it was Holly Go lightly. So I took this course
I was on my way.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
To lawsul Faith actually looks a little bit like you know,
you always did. She had you had. Your hair was
brighter red when I first met Yeah, I have pin yeah, pink.
Then it went from brighter red to pinkish. And then
she and she always wore dark red lipstick and big,
big eyes and a big smile. And you look the same.
(24:13):
You look the same.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
It's so sweet and you too, but better. Well.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
You predicted a lot over the years, and and what
surprises you that really came true? That you ever think
I'm going to predict this, but I don't know if
it's really going to happen.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
You know, people go the best question, they say, they
love to say this. You didn't say this, thank you?
What'd you predict?
Speaker 3 (24:37):
That was wrong?
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Oh? No?
Speaker 1 (24:38):
And I say, not wrong, just not yet, not yet.
So that's what like women actually rising to the top,
not yet, Like companies becoming more you know, good, not yet,
like you.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
Know, eating well when you're not wealthy, many many.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
But all that's happening slowly. It's happening slowly. We just
have to we have to help in some of those
areas like eating, Well, what's the earliest trend that attracted
you to the prediction of trends.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Why I got into this is I was working an
advertising agency and they never told anybody really. I mean,
I'm predicting the end of advertising, but I've been doing
that for twenty years. That's another not yet.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Not yet, but they happening.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Yeah, they didn't. Well, now it's happening because they're being
replaced by social media and soon telepathy. Yes, so there's
but there's a book that's called Battle for Your Brain,
you know, people being able to see inside your brain.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
She's brilliant PhD.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
That is absolutely on its way where you won't have
to sweep. But anyway, I was in advertising and they
never told anybody the truth. Like clients, you know, so
they just sell them things are good, but they didn't project.
They didn't say, Okay, I'm going to sell them this thing,
but the whole business is going to go out of
business in about two minutes because they're you know, selling
the wrong thing or it has too much sugar. It
(26:03):
has too much this or that. So that's why I
opened this company. I was twenty six, so I opened
the company and I just started to say, this is
what I think is going to happen. New York Times
picked up a big long thing and everything I said
would happen. Now, you asked about instinct and intuition. I
believe in instinct and intuition, but I also believe that
(26:24):
you have to like I interviewed, and.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
You do too.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
In the street everywhere, hundreds of people, and we read
everything and we talked to you know, our tell him
being scientists and and origami people and anything everything. And
I talked to a guy the other day that throws eaching.
So somebody recommended him to me. It's like a Chinese thing,
you know. Yeah, he was very weird. He was on
(26:49):
the West Coast. So first I had Kathleen talk to
him just to say, like.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
Is he crazy or what?
Speaker 2 (26:56):
You know?
Speaker 1 (26:56):
I just want to know more about his science. It's
a science. So he says her, Oh, you work for
faith for twenty five years. That is written nowhere.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
You know.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
He was so accurate, so weird. I wanted to say
that we do a lot of research and mainly it
is to build a circumstantial case around the future, because
you can't really.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
Prove the future.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
So her research helps us it's in the future, right,
helps us enclose it, show a projection, build a case.
That's that's really its great value. We were repositioning, we
were working with comcasts, so we said to them, you know,
everything is going to be home every you know, this
is a couple of years ago. Medicine, security, food, education, everything,
(27:41):
And you know, they were like, oh, there's a lot
you know, is that sad?
Speaker 2 (27:45):
That's just going to take care of us, right, yes,
all these things.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
And guess what COVID hit three months later and they
went like, whoa, yeah, I mean I didn't make COVID hit.
I would never do that, but you know it, really
the prediction sometimes is speed it up by an event.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
So what do you think about what's happened during the pandemic.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
I mean, do you think about people not wanting to
go to work? I know you love that, right, I
am horrified they're not going to come back.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
I'm horrified because I really think that in a creative
business like ours, that kind of camaraderie and co operation
is so important. You can't do it from your zoom.
You can't zooms are I'm almost ready to ban zoom
I really, I mean I'm here with you today personally
(28:34):
because I don't want to do it on this zoom.
And it does help when you're east coast west.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
Coast in Europe and you have to talk to me.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
And I had telecommunication when they first came out.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
I remember that. I remember your conference room.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Oh yes. It always appeals me more to me more
to sit down and really talk across the table.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
And there's some chemistry that's emitted between people.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
I want to where do you.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Go to work? Well, right now, I do a lot
of work still at the farm.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Here's the solution. Yes, okay, chat no musk, and it's
not no idea eon musk is building a community around
the factory. This is from feudal days. If you think
about this, right you.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
One in Texas? Yeah? Yeah, so for my mother was
down there last week. Did you know that? Yeah, May
May much, I've met her, gorgeous. Yeah, she was down
there and she's extolling the whole virtues of the whole place,
and she has on her hard hat and she's going around.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
Really, where do you see this one.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Just look at her, just looking very well.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
But you know Ford did this in the thirties. It
was called Fordlandia and Brazil. Heiser's done this. That is
how to get people to go to work, sell them
houses under the market.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Well, you know who did it and is still doing it,
Coler Colon. Look at the Cohler village in Wisconsin.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
Beautiful.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
They make plumbing, they make resorts, they make the most
beautiful things for our homes now and it's all done
in a village. It used to be much more hierarchical
than it is now because that didn't you know that
it fritured out a little bit. You had to work
three months to get the promotion to the next levels.
That's scary. I don't like. That's really you know, nineteen
(30:26):
eighty four kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
And celebration Disney's thing they kind of tried to do.
It wasn't successful.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
But smart people like Alon can do it.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
He can do it.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
And that's you want people to come to work, Yes,
build something around them.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
But Coler is still doing it very well.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
It's interesting.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
So you're going to start a village.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
I had a village at starret Lee High. We had
a fabulous village and we created a tremendous library of stuff.
Why do you say advertising will soon be dead?
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Okay, what do people hate the most? They hate being sold?
Dale Carnegie said that in nineteen twenty one. And you
know that, I know everybody's smart knows that what does
advertising do? It sells somebody. It doesn't have sincerity behind it.
You notice, very rarely just the person in charge. You
ever get on the commercial and go, I guarantee I'll
(31:23):
be there. I'll be at the other end of the
phone if you need me. You know, some smaller companies
people are like onto this. You try to call an
eight hundred number, have a bad product, try to give
a call. No, there's no soul now, so they thought, okay,
influencers to get people that a lot of people like,
and people will hold up the brand. It's just another form. Really,
(31:45):
I think it will wear out.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
You know, I think it's wearing out now.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
I think so, you.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Know, we want to know that there's a soul, that
there's since Yeah, sincerity. I'm always afraid to say authentic
because everybody says that. But if you come yes, because
you're authentic, because you're the real thing before your avatar.
So which is going to be the real Martha Stewart?
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yeah, oh my gosh, I'll become an avatar definitely. I
actually had my avatar made out in cees. They were
making them. Yeah, there's a woman there that's designing avatars.
She does it with like one hundred cameras and she
gets you all in motion. So fantastic. What are your
eight truths about marketing to women?
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Well, I can tell you some of them. You have
to market to her whole self.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
Let me see.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
You have to be completely truthful. You have to realize
that she is going to spread, you know, if she's
convinced she's going to spread the brand, never leave her.
I mean it's more like love advice. Like I gave
this to some guys, you know, and the fortunes and
as I call them, and I go, my god, this
(32:58):
would be really good for my wife.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
If I said, yes, you.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Know, join brands.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
You said you join brands.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
You don't buy a brand, you join a brand, And
that's true of the Martha Stewart brand.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
This is this gives me so much to think about.
And I hope listeners that you have a lot to
think about after hearing Faith Popcorn on this podcast. You
can also hear more of from Faith Popcorn on her
own podcast with Adam Hanf.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Called Chelsey Jolty Things That.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Yes. You can follow her on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter,
and her handle, of course is at Faith Popcorn all
one word with a capital P plus look out for
her new book, which will be available soon. Thank you Faith,
Thank you so much, my pleasure. And here's to the future.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Yes, we sign everything best Future. It's optimistic.
We have a lot in common, Yes, too much? No, now, okay.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Fortune Magazine has named Faith Popcorn the Nostrodamis of marketing,
and she's considered America's foremost trend expert. Faith has worked
with some of the world's best known companies to help
them position their brands, Apple, American Express, and IBM, to
name just a few. I've known Faith for more than
(00:33):
forty years, and I continue to be impressed by her
ability to predict business trends. Faith calls herself a futurist.
Over the years, she has forecasted the SUV craze, the
success of organic foods, and coined the term cocooning. We'll
talk about that later. I'm sitting down with Faith today
(00:54):
in her beautiful townhouse on New York's Upper East Side,
and we want to talk business trends, business and most importantly,
the future. Welcome to my podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Thanks John. Just honored to be here, Well.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Honored to be in your own lovely living and it's
so comfortable with you, fresh air and big, beautiful windows.
And there is a Ukrainian flag hanging right on the
facade of her home. Thank you for doing that, of course,
Well do you remember how we first met in East Hampton.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Yeah, you were just starting the magazine. Yes, you're coming
over and we're going to just talk future the magazine
and everything, and you just had layouts and everything. So
I said, come on over, and I hear your car
pull up and know, Martha, I'm going like, what happened
to her? I wait like two minutes, three minutes, I
come out, No, Martha, And then you emerge from these
(01:50):
big bushes in front of my house and you say,
do you know what's going on in there? I go, No,
things are dying in the middle. You have to prone,
you have to do this, you have.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
To do that. Ago.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
No, Yes, it's such a good Martha's story.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
So we talked and talked and you I think you
liked the magazine.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
I think I loved the magazine.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
And I kind of fit in with what faith popcorn
is all about. It's all about thinking about what's coming next?
What is the future? How are we going to cope
with the future? And you don't miss anything. I always
am looking for what people want and need and will.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Want and need, and how they're behaving.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
And how they're behaving. What is a futurist and why
do you call yourself that.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
A futurist would be classically somebody who can see ahead
and describe ten years, twenty years out. We do something
alled applied futurism. We're seeing out and then we apply
it to our clients. So we might tell a Pepsi,
let's say, you know sugar is going to be outlawed,
here's you know, a direction that you have to go.
(02:59):
You know, I brought to Coca Cola bottled water before
bottled water and they said no. Doug Ivestar Champions goes no.
You know, it's a nice idea, but then people would
realize there's water in coke.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Crazy. Okay, what did you go to Pepsi? And yes
I did, And still now they said no to but
look they've brought a lot of they've brought a lot
of water.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Now eight years, six years, eight years. Everything takes eight
ten years and I don't know how long.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
What about that story is really that they hired us.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
What's the future of film? So like research and things, not.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
The film we're talking about, not movie film. We're talking
about film, film camera, film that you put in the camera,
a role of film and then you have to take
it to the developer and have it developed and get
the negatives. And you know, I was just talking to
Kevin Sharkey and told him I was coming here, and
he said, Martha, you told Gail Towie to tell everybody
(03:56):
to photographers that we were going digital.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Okay, you came back. Well, you should have been on
the team. You could have cut my work. We came
back and we said the future film is digital and
pretty much. They said, we asked you for the future
of film, not pretty much exactly, and we said it's digital.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
They said film. We said digital.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
They said, you're fired. That's not what we hired you for.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
So we how to extend the life of film they
wanted you to do? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (04:23):
Probably, yeah, yeah, But that's how our futurest can help
a business.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
What's been your really most exciting success and futurism and
predicting the future?
Speaker 1 (04:35):
You know, cocooning. We said cocooning in nineteen eighty two.
I don't know if you remember, but we named you
the Queen of cocooning. And we said, people love Martha
because they don't want to do it, but they want
to watch somebody do it. It's like homemaking voyeurism, right,
and people love that. But you are definitely the queen
of cocoony, and you made the cocoon meaningful, deep, cozy
(04:58):
and defended.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
That's why I love faith Popcorn because she got it.
She got it you and you know who else got it?
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Who got it?
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Steven Spielberg. He said, Martha, I just want to tell
you you have turned homemaking into an art form.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
That's true.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
You saw it in the pages of the magazine. We
had a team of people working on that magazine that
really understood that to make life more beautiful in and
around the home.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
But now that homes are going to be in the metaverse,
yes there, I'm sure you're working on that, approaching thetaverse,
or that they're going to need a lot of acoustic
Kim built his house in the metaverse, beautiful, beautiful house.
It was virtual, right, and then she built it in
what I call real life, even though young people don't
see the difference between them. And she sold it for
(05:47):
like six hundred thousand dollars, right, So I could see
the opportunity of people want to experience a home, or
get a message from you, or see that they could
be wandering around with you in the metaverse.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
What's the metaverse?
Speaker 1 (05:58):
What do you have to alternative reality? And it's equal
to in real life? And people will be drifting back
and forth, back and forth.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
And a lot of them.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
If this world continues to disintegrate and deteriorate, we're going
to be wanting to live more and more. There an
advertiser or Fortune two hundred are saying it's not going
to happen because they do not know really what to
do with it. What do we say when we don't
know what to do with something? It's not true.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
But what I envision, and it's crazy for business, is
that the dress you wear is the dress you wear,
and you don't have to change your dress.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
No, Well, in the metaverse, you just get another dress
comes on you.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Yeah that's nice.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, I mean, but I would love that idea.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Do you want one dresses?
Speaker 2 (06:51):
I just want one thing that looks really good on me,
and I want one thing to sleep in.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
A jumpsuit that changes colors right on you, changes weight,
changes you know, installation for how many pock is backpacks?
Filled in all your electronics. And that's the future of clothing.
You're going to be melded in a singularity okay.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Oh boy, we are on our way here with faith popcorn.
I think it's I think the adaptation of the metaverse
into our ordinary lives is the next big thing, definitely.
And I have I have a little grandson, Truman. He's eleven.
He's using Chat.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Oh, definitely thought he's using it. Oh, it's wonderful.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
I know.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
It's my friend.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
It is I know, and it it can be your
friend if we use it correctly.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Oh, I asked Chat we should do together. I'll read
that to you later. It just said, you know, you
and Martha could do a book about predictions. You and
I mean it just knew everything about you just.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
The well as I read what you've what you've done,
I was going through the list. It was very fun
because you kind of predicted the popularity and the and
the importance of the suv. But you predicted that in
what year?
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Eighty eight?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
And I was driving SUVs from nineteen seventy two suburbans.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
I remember, that's right.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
So who are your clients presently and what are you
doing for them?
Speaker 1 (08:22):
We've worked with Johnson, and Johnson helped them see forward,
talk to them about many many things like well, one
thing that we're doing is like saying the oculus is
going to be a lens, for instance, and that's you know,
coming We've worked with context.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Like it's going to be like a contact lens. Yeah,
well it should be. It has You can't wear those
heavy things on them awful. I went to Cees and
they put one of those big oculuses on my head.
I was dizzy in about three seconds. And yet I
love the idea of walking through a fantasy land, but
I couldn't stand that headdress.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
So we worked with Constellation brands. What we did there
seems so obvious once you say it, but what what
is alcohol? It's mood management and that's how we position
like Uber positioning. And then went down to each brand
like Corona, pacifica Medello.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Did you hire Snoop for the Corona?
Speaker 3 (09:16):
I did not. I would love to take credit for
those are but well he's your.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Buddy, yes, But I'm just saying those are the most charming,
and congratulations Constellation for those ads because they're funny. I
giggled every time, and even if I didn't know Snoop,
I would be giggling because there's on one of those
Well you should. Yeah, we haven't yet. Maybe maybe, but
but I loved it when he picked up the shell phone.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
It's so cheae. He's funny? Is he really funny?
Speaker 1 (09:44):
In life?
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Extraordinarily funny? So what part does your gut play in
making decisions and predicting the future? Do you think it's
your gut? I mean, gut is the same to me
as brain.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Well that's true.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Well, like we the women's division for Nike, so that
turned out to be I don't know, twenty four percent
of their business.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
I just I just saw air.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Didn't you love it?
Speaker 2 (10:08):
I loved it.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
We're considered the best kept secret of the fortune two hundred.
We did the whole women's division. When we presented to.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Them, you know what about women?
Speaker 1 (10:18):
And they go, yeah, well, you know, should we make
the shoes smaller obviously?
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Or of colors?
Speaker 1 (10:22):
You can know women, let's understand women. So we went
to like so many beautiful things like yoga, and you
know how women run is different, everything about it. But
the one thing I couldn't get them to do. And
they have beautiful fabrications, you know, is right, but fabric
like there's because it is the clothing. Yeah, the clothing.
It like dispels sweat. So we said, what about maternity,
(10:47):
and they said, we don't consider that action sport. Obviously
nobody in the room had ever had a baby, you know,
so they I just could not get them there.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
So, you know, pregnant failure, sweat failure.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
I have a lot of thoughts about you and GBT.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Okay, well, I want to talk to you about that.
That's a great to do this.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Suppose somebody could have your avatar, could be a little
Marcus is here, or it could be actually.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Don't do it that way, do it this way? Like that?
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Yeah, like, let me help you.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
You have this because I'm so bossy and I have
so many ideas people want I know they do they
need No, they need it.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
They need it.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Suppose they had you with them all the time.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
See here we are, I'm supposed to be interviewing faith
pop Grind and she's trying to hire me for the future.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
And suppose they have it with them all the time.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Fantastic, it's going to happen, and it should happen. And instead, well, okay,
I have a good idea. I'll talk to you afterwards,
but I do it. All of a sudden, the light
bulb went off, and you are right. I have it
in me to do it, and I will do it.
You and I will do it. Okay, okay, And this
is all about the future.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
That's how we come up with it.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Well, I want to talk about this because this is
such an exciting this Will has had one of the
most exciting careers and she has transformed so many business
brands for the future and it's really it's really just
an incredible Oh, this is another topic that you write about.
(12:23):
Age reversal, yes, okay, and life geneity jevity, life jevity,
not longevity, but lifejevity versus longevity. Since your two thousand
and one book Dictionary of the Future, you explored aging
on your podcast, Jolty. I agree the podcast with Adam Hamm.
(12:45):
He is with Adam Half who is a friend of mine.
I know, how does aging in twenty twenty three look
compared to what you imagined in two thousand and one?
Speaker 1 (12:54):
So I thought it was about longevity, you know, and
we had you know.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
We oh, by the way, prolonging life that longevity is
the problem extension life. Right, Yeah, So.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
That's what I thought it was.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
And then as I started to get smarter and talk
to more like you know in the medical fields and
the cyber fields and the field fields, I realize, and
some very interesting doctors. You're going to be able to
reverse age, not extend age. So you can say, I
want to be forty, whatever your best age was, I
(13:25):
want to be whatever, and you will be that and
still have the brain of your present age.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Weird, So the physical can be reversed, yes, mental can remain,
can remain, but also you'll be able to have certain
traumatic experiences that we've all had, you know.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
If you want ext out, so you could have it
all over again but better.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
This is crazy, it's crazy, but real possible. And you know,
I have the Center for Living at Mountside, which is
about taking care of the aging population of America. And
we're not going to stop aging. We're going to always
have a numerical age, but at one hundred, we can
really be fifty if we want to. And I've been
reading about that in the There was a big article
(14:12):
last week in the Times about this group of people
out on the West coast. Is that who you're talking about,
those guy's on the West coast.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Yeah, those guys, But there are others young you know young,
he swears he's going to live till two hundred.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
We had monchualty.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Yeah, and what do you think he could do it?
Speaker 1 (14:29):
I mean if the you know, the medical part has
to keep up and a lot some of it's psychological,
but some of it's truly technological.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Yeah. Well, I'm very interested in that because I took
one of those tests.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
I don't know what your real age.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
I don't yeah, no, no about how long you're going
to live, because it's a test, it's a psychological test.
I came out to one hundred and ten. Wow, without
even trying. And if I knew more, you know, I
would have maybe gotten to be able to how old
was your mother? My mother died at ninety three, Well
that's a good chance, that's yes, my grandfather died at
ninety nine, beautiful her father.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
But you want to be that age in great health.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Yes, you do, and my mother was and my grandfather was.
I hope I have that gene. You do have gene line.
I hope you can see it. Well, I hope so.
But but it was. But it's extraordinary to think about
age reversal. Nice, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Nice, But suppose you become younger than your children. Good
serves them right.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Oh yes, but I'll make sure that they can do
it too.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
But maybe they don't want to. That starts to get weird.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Oh I think I think everybody's going to want you. Yeah,
but then will that stop birth?
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Well birth is way down anyway, I know.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
I wonder, but will stop birth? I mean if yes,
if I can be twenty again and and my grandchildren
can go back in time, but.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
They're going to go back to the womb. I mean,
you could really write something.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Weird about it.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Yeah, this is science fiction. Yeah, or not? Or not
was writing about this in novels? Anybody?
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Not this?
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Movies? They're writing movies.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
The most fabulous thing I've read recently is Clara and
the Sun. The k my she grew up the guy
that wrote Remains of the Day.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Yes, okay, I actually downloaded that book. So now with
a K.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
So it's about which is what I want you to
be soon? So it's a young teen and her mother
goes this store and gets her robotic companion.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Oh that was a movie, No, that megan was the
movie with a robotic.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
Yeah no, it's not a horror movie.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
That was horrible.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
But this is a relationship she has, okay, and it's
a very tender and beautiful relationship, and the whole thing
can come alive. But almost everything like on TV now
it's like half science fiction. Did you see this series
called Power?
Speaker 2 (16:50):
No id?
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Okay, so I don't sleep, but you don't sleep? Okay? Good?
Oh you could call me in the middle of the nights.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
I'm I'm there up. So anyway, Power is about a
time where women get this thing in their hands where
they can set something on fire or kind.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Of electrocute oh, witches.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
And it starts to that's what.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Happened in the nineteenth century with witches.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Well they thought that, yes, but in this story they
really can. So they start to take over all over
the world. It's fascinating. I mean it's only on I
think episode four. But that's a prediction, you see, when
we look at something like that, I think it's tremendous
repressed anger in our society from females that most fortunes.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
I don't ever want to look at anything negative like that.
I mean, I will watch that, I will watch the program,
but I don't think negatively like that. I always try
to think optimistically and passionately. About what is hospitable.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Right, I'm not saying it's not possible.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
I'm saying, as of.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Now, you know, women are feeling not great.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
So you spoke it south By Southwest last year about
the future of the cannabis business. So we're jumping. It
sounds like we're jumping everywhere. But this is what Faith
Popcorn really does. She has her tentacles into so many
businesses and their future.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
And they somehow hang together.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
They do Oh no, no, they doing together. What's your
prediction for the cannabis in the United States?
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (18:19):
They and I know that you have a brand right
with Canopy. I do, Martha Stewart, Martha.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
I have gummies which are amazingly effective. I have sublingual
oils which are amazingly effective. They do well made, relax,
sort of simplify your day, let you sleep better, take
away anxiety a little bit, take the edge off anxiety.
They're very, very, very useful. And this is this is
(18:48):
not THHC. This is this is CBD. And the flavors.
I worked so hard on the flavors.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
It was we got that Valentine saying it that beautiful.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Yeah, very nice.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
So anyway, what do you think is happening to cannabi.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
They haven't, They haven't evolved. Cannabis has got to go
into microdosing of allucinogenics. This is where it's going. So
many people, like on Wall Street even now, it's not
like okay, it's like a little microdose to make you sharp.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
But you know how many grand laws. Okay with the
oils and the gummies, but the real stuff has to happen, right,
I agree, but it has to go through legislation, which
is not occurring fast enough.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Well, you can take microdosing of things. Why do you
think so many people that aren't really ADHD take incerta
or adderall or one of those. Because what it does
is focus you, and that's what they're looking for. You're
looking for brain lifts, and that's the next thing.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Brainlift.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Well, we're going to have like inserts.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Listen to this, everybody, or we're sitting we're sitting with
the future here.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
No, but absolutely little.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
So instead of a facelift, you're going to get a
brain lift.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
You might have to have both.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Sure, Yes, you're going to be smarter, you're going to
be healthier, you're going to be able to play back.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Yes, That's what I want to be able to play
back in my and my by just thinking of it.
All right, now, I'm going to have a brain lift.
I'm going to get cannabis to hallucinogen x ye. All right.
I have a lot of work to do, and I'm
because I work with canopy.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
But you know what they really could leverage is sex,
my god.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Ecstasy extasy. But that's not a drug. I'm talking about
fantasustical experience ecstasy, yes, and that can be done.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
What's going to happen when your robotic companion can satisfy?
Speaker 2 (20:39):
We talked about this, My husband and I talked about
this stuff in the I got married in nineteen sixty one,
and we talked about the ecstasy machine we you know,
we had, we had two thousand and one, We had
the most fabulous and Stanley Kubrick talking to us, you
know ya the movies. But my husband wanted an ecstasy
(21:00):
machine so badly. I hope he says, what was he
going to do? You sit in it, You sit.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
In it sort of experience ecstasy.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
And experience whatever ecstasy you feel like feeling, without anybody
or anybody else, just yourself, meditation and no that's very hard.
I can't. I can't imitate. No, I cannot.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
Okay, you say you can't be I cannot.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
But I could do. I could use the ecstasy chair.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Well, if you had a little micro dose, you could
reach ecstasy.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
I'm so afraid of all that stuff.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Do you remember ecstasy?
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Ever?
Speaker 3 (21:31):
If you have not that ecstasy? But haven't you had
moments of extasy?
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Of course? Of course, you just.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Want to have it when you want it.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Yes, I just want to have it when I want it.
I would like an ecstasy machine, which would be just
leave me just happy as can be.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Yeah, it would be fun. And then you wouldn't need anybody,
that's right. Well, no, I want somebody in the machine
with you.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
No, not in this machine. No, you don't want that,
you don't want I was.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Reading about this new fire commissioner. This is a new thing,
right whatever, And she's fantastic, right she's getting in.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
New York City.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Yeah, she's a fire commissioner. Okay, this is what she
identifies as. So they say she's not married, she's single
and unavailable. I think that's divine. Yeah, I've never seen
that she is unavailable. She is very independent available. Yeah,
personally unavailable. No, she's totally one hundred percent available for
(22:26):
the fire devices. They go, are you married?
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Are you single? Are you divorced? But they don't have
are you unavailable?
Speaker 2 (22:41):
So let's take a step back here. You were born
with a different name, Faith Plodkin. I remember that, And
then when did you change your name to Popcorn?
Speaker 1 (22:50):
When I was twenty one, it was my nickname. I
worked for this guy named Gino Constantino Garlande and he
couldn't say Plotkin. First job in the advertising, little advertising agency,
and he goes to faith Faith Popcin.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
I go, that's good, perfect, you know, and it stuck
to you and it's it's like pop.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Yeah, but no research or anything.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
But you do pop all the time. I'm here. We
are speaking of everything in the world, popping like crazy.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
But I was raised in Shanghai. My father was in
the CIA.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
And do you speak do you speak Mandarin?
Speaker 1 (23:24):
I used to till I got back when I was
but now you have two children.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
I went back and got two kids.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Yes, but I used to.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
And then when I got back, my orthodox juice grandmother
said to my mother, what is she talking?
Speaker 2 (23:36):
What is this?
Speaker 3 (23:37):
So I lost it.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
So you began your career in advertising. What attracted you
to that field?
Speaker 1 (23:43):
I thought it was Holly Go lightly. I totally thought
it was Holly Go lightly. So I took this course
I was on my way.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
To lawsul Faith actually looks a little bit like you know,
you always did. She had you had. Your hair was
brighter red when I first met Yeah, I have pin yeah, pink.
Then it went from brighter red to pinkish. And then
she and she always wore dark red lipstick and big,
big eyes and a big smile. And you look the same.
(24:13):
You look the same.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
It's so sweet and you too, but better. Well.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
You predicted a lot over the years, and and what
surprises you that really came true? That you ever think
I'm going to predict this, but I don't know if
it's really going to happen.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
You know, people go the best question, they say, they
love to say this. You didn't say this, thank you?
What'd you predict?
Speaker 3 (24:37):
That was wrong?
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Oh? No?
Speaker 1 (24:38):
And I say, not wrong, just not yet, not yet.
So that's what like women actually rising to the top,
not yet, Like companies becoming more you know, good, not yet,
like you.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
Know, eating well when you're not wealthy, many many.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
But all that's happening slowly. It's happening slowly. We just
have to we have to help in some of those
areas like eating, Well, what's the earliest trend that attracted
you to the prediction of trends.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Why I got into this is I was working an
advertising agency and they never told anybody really. I mean,
I'm predicting the end of advertising, but I've been doing
that for twenty years. That's another not yet.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Not yet, but they happening.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Yeah, they didn't. Well, now it's happening because they're being
replaced by social media and soon telepathy. Yes, so there's
but there's a book that's called Battle for Your Brain,
you know, people being able to see inside your brain.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
She's brilliant PhD.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
That is absolutely on its way where you won't have
to sweep. But anyway, I was in advertising and they
never told anybody the truth. Like clients, you know, so
they just sell them things are good, but they didn't project.
They didn't say, Okay, I'm going to sell them this thing,
but the whole business is going to go out of
business in about two minutes because they're you know, selling
the wrong thing or it has too much sugar. It
(26:03):
has too much this or that. So that's why I
opened this company. I was twenty six, so I opened
the company and I just started to say, this is
what I think is going to happen. New York Times
picked up a big long thing and everything I said
would happen. Now, you asked about instinct and intuition. I
believe in instinct and intuition, but I also believe that
(26:24):
you have to like I interviewed, and.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
You do too.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
In the street everywhere, hundreds of people, and we read
everything and we talked to you know, our tell him
being scientists and and origami people and anything everything. And
I talked to a guy the other day that throws eaching.
So somebody recommended him to me. It's like a Chinese thing,
you know. Yeah, he was very weird. He was on
(26:49):
the West Coast. So first I had Kathleen talk to
him just to say, like.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
Is he crazy or what?
Speaker 2 (26:56):
You know?
Speaker 1 (26:56):
I just want to know more about his science. It's
a science. So he says her, Oh, you work for
faith for twenty five years. That is written nowhere.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
You know.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
He was so accurate, so weird. I wanted to say
that we do a lot of research and mainly it
is to build a circumstantial case around the future, because
you can't really.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
Prove the future.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
So her research helps us it's in the future, right,
helps us enclose it, show a projection, build a case.
That's that's really its great value. We were repositioning, we
were working with comcasts, so we said to them, you know,
everything is going to be home every you know, this
is a couple of years ago. Medicine, security, food, education, everything,
(27:41):
And you know, they were like, oh, there's a lot
you know, is that sad?
Speaker 2 (27:45):
That's just going to take care of us, right, yes,
all these things.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
And guess what COVID hit three months later and they
went like, whoa, yeah, I mean I didn't make COVID hit.
I would never do that, but you know it, really
the prediction sometimes is speed it up by an event.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
So what do you think about what's happened during the pandemic.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
I mean, do you think about people not wanting to
go to work? I know you love that, right, I
am horrified they're not going to come back.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
I'm horrified because I really think that in a creative
business like ours, that kind of camaraderie and co operation
is so important. You can't do it from your zoom.
You can't zooms are I'm almost ready to ban zoom
I really, I mean I'm here with you today personally
(28:34):
because I don't want to do it on this zoom.
And it does help when you're east coast west.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
Coast in Europe and you have to talk to me.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
And I had telecommunication when they first came out.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
I remember that. I remember your conference room.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Oh yes. It always appeals me more to me more
to sit down and really talk across the table.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
And there's some chemistry that's emitted between people.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
I want to where do you.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Go to work? Well, right now, I do a lot
of work still at the farm.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Here's the solution. Yes, okay, chat no musk, and it's
not no idea eon musk is building a community around
the factory. This is from feudal days. If you think
about this, right you.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
One in Texas? Yeah? Yeah, so for my mother was
down there last week. Did you know that? Yeah, May
May much, I've met her, gorgeous. Yeah, she was down
there and she's extolling the whole virtues of the whole place,
and she has on her hard hat and she's going around.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
Really, where do you see this one.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Just look at her, just looking very well.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
But you know Ford did this in the thirties. It
was called Fordlandia and Brazil. Heiser's done this. That is
how to get people to go to work, sell them
houses under the market.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Well, you know who did it and is still doing it,
Coler Colon. Look at the Cohler village in Wisconsin.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
Beautiful.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
They make plumbing, they make resorts, they make the most
beautiful things for our homes now and it's all done
in a village. It used to be much more hierarchical
than it is now because that didn't you know that
it fritured out a little bit. You had to work
three months to get the promotion to the next levels.
That's scary. I don't like. That's really you know, nineteen
(30:26):
eighty four kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
And celebration Disney's thing they kind of tried to do.
It wasn't successful.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
But smart people like Alon can do it.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
He can do it.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
And that's you want people to come to work, Yes,
build something around them.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
But Coler is still doing it very well.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
It's interesting.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
So you're going to start a village.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
I had a village at starret Lee High. We had
a fabulous village and we created a tremendous library of stuff.
Why do you say advertising will soon be dead?
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Okay, what do people hate the most? They hate being sold?
Dale Carnegie said that in nineteen twenty one. And you
know that, I know everybody's smart knows that what does
advertising do? It sells somebody. It doesn't have sincerity behind it.
You notice, very rarely just the person in charge. You
ever get on the commercial and go, I guarantee I'll
(31:23):
be there. I'll be at the other end of the
phone if you need me. You know, some smaller companies
people are like onto this. You try to call an
eight hundred number, have a bad product, try to give
a call. No, there's no soul now, so they thought, okay,
influencers to get people that a lot of people like,
and people will hold up the brand. It's just another form. Really,
(31:45):
I think it will wear out.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
You know, I think it's wearing out now.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
I think so, you.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Know, we want to know that there's a soul, that
there's since Yeah, sincerity. I'm always afraid to say authentic
because everybody says that. But if you come yes, because
you're authentic, because you're the real thing before your avatar.
So which is going to be the real Martha Stewart?
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yeah, oh my gosh, I'll become an avatar definitely. I
actually had my avatar made out in cees. They were
making them. Yeah, there's a woman there that's designing avatars.
She does it with like one hundred cameras and she
gets you all in motion. So fantastic. What are your
eight truths about marketing to women?
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Well, I can tell you some of them. You have
to market to her whole self.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
Let me see.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
You have to be completely truthful. You have to realize
that she is going to spread, you know, if she's
convinced she's going to spread the brand, never leave her.
I mean it's more like love advice. Like I gave
this to some guys, you know, and the fortunes and
as I call them, and I go, my god, this
(32:58):
would be really good for my wife.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
If I said, yes, you.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Know, join brands.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
You said you join brands.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
You don't buy a brand, you join a brand, And
that's true of the Martha Stewart brand.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
This is this gives me so much to think about.
And I hope listeners that you have a lot to
think about after hearing Faith Popcorn on this podcast. You
can also hear more of from Faith Popcorn on her
own podcast with Adam Hanf.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Called Chelsey Jolty Things That.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Yes. You can follow her on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter,
and her handle, of course is at Faith Popcorn all
one word with a capital P plus look out for
her new book, which will be available soon. Thank you Faith,
Thank you so much, my pleasure. And here's to the future.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Yes, we sign everything best Future. It's optimistic.
Host
Martha Stewart
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