Cocooning Trend is Over, Marketing Consultant Pam Danziger Says; Dominant Lifestyle Trend Called Cocooning Recedes as Consumers Reconnect With the External World.

Business Editors

STEVENS, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 15, 2002

Cocooning: Faith Popcorn identified the trend and coined the term back in the `80s.

Since then cocooning has been the dominant lifestyle trend that marketers, retailers, advertisers and brand builders have used as a guide to understanding the consumer market's psyche.

But Pam Danziger, president of Unity Marketing and author of Why People Buy Things They Don't Need (Ithaca, NY: Paramount Market Publishing, 2002) today at the Luxury Home Conference, Newark Airport Marriott, declares cocooning as a lifestyle trend is on its way out as consumers seek to reconnect with the external world.

"Today's consumers are emerging from their cocoon and reconnecting with the outside world. As they turn their backs on the cocoon, they are assuming their position in the social, political, cultural landscapes that define their identity in relation to the outside world," Danziger says. "Consumers now are looking for a new equilibrium between the roles they play in their inner and external worlds."

In a landmark research study among luxury consumers conducted in association with House & Garden magazine, Danziger uncovered this new trend away from cocooning and toward connecting. "By studying the luxury market, that is home-owning consumers with household incomes of $100,000 or more that purchased one of 14 different luxury products or 7 luxury services in the past year, we gain future vision. The affluent market is the bellwether or early adopter of cultural and consumer trends that will ultimately rock the mass consumer markets. In terms of consumer trends, first the rich do it, then everybody else."

Integrating the findings from qualitative and quantitative research, Danziger discovered a psychographic segment that she calls butterflies.

"While the distinctions between the luxury segments were subtle, the butterflies stood out as the most evolved luxury consumers. They have the most mature perspective on their position as luxury consumers. For them having wealth carries with it social responsibilities. They don't necessarily feel guilty about having so much, but they are not solely focused on their own inner life and personal identity, rather they are equally concerned with their position in society. As they seek to find a new equilibrium between their interior and exterior worlds, they embody the expression, `with great wealth comes great responsibility.' Just look at Bill Gates. His great wealth is being directed toward charities and endowments that he believes will better the state of all humanity. He is a perfect example of the evolved, emerged butterflies uncovered in our survey. On the other hand, `90s icons like Donald Trump, Jack Welch, or Martha Stewart embody the unevolved, unemerged, self-involved luxury cocooner," Danziger explains.

As cocooning subsides, consumers will connect more and more with the external world. "Connectedness is all about linking up with the rest of the world through the media, travel, and electronic networks. It's about becoming part of something bigger than your own little narrowly defined inner landscape. In other words, luxury cocooners are disconnected, while butterflies are connected," Danziger says. "The implications of the shift from cocooning to connectedness for consumer marketers are profound. For all marketers the single biggest challenge is that we must truly connect with our consumers. We must develop ongoing, meaningful, two-way dialogues with our customers, our potential customers, and our future customers. In the past, advertising and public relations, which are both one-way communications originating from the company and directed toward the consumers, have dominated. But with the advent of the Internet, the company website will become the central hub for two-way communication with the customer. Every point of contact between the brand and the consumer must be reconfigured for two-way interconnectedness. That means new methods of communications must be established between and among the brand's customers, retailers, distribution partners and the company."

She concludes, "As the desire to cocoon retreats and the need to interconnect becomes the new dominant lifestyle trend, connecting why people buy your product or your brand with how you reach them and where you reach them takes on new meaning. And even more important will be linking the consumer with the brand and the company through effective, meaningful two-way communications."

Danziger will be signing copies of her book, Why People Buy Things They Don't Need, December 5 at Citigroup Center Barnes & Noble, 160 E. 54th St. New York, 10022 at 6:30-7:30 p.m.. While she works on her next book about the luxury market, findings from the latest luxury market consumer study will be released in upcoming Unity Marketing's research reports.

For more information contact Pam Danziger at 717-336-1600; visit her websites www.unitymarketingonline.com or www.whypeoplebuy.com; email [e-mail]