Karma Queens, Geek Gods, and Innerpreneurs: Meet the 9 Consumer Types Shaping Today's Marketplace - Hardcover

Rentel, Ron; Zellnik, Joe

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0071477918 ISBN 13: 9780071477918

Publisher: McGraw Hill, 2007

Synopsis

What really makes consumers tick?

It's a question every marketer, innovator, entrepreneur, or trend-watcher strives to answer-especially in an age when certain types of consumers are increasingly instrumental in shaping national and even global buying habits.

Karma Queens, Geek Gods and Innerpreneurs is your hands-on guide to getting inside the minds of the people who are setting the trends in art, music, technology, fashion, health, and every kind of consumer product and service. Based on thousands of hours of consumer research conducted by Consumer Eyes, a prominent New York-based marketing firm, this book uncovers nine influential consumer types and reveals how to connect with them, market to them, and create the products that will not only win them over, but their entire social networks as well!

Consumer Eyes founder Ron Rentel takes an entertaining yet serious look at today's most emblematic consumers, analyzing everything from the products they buy, to the activities they enjoy, to the behaviors and attitudes they exhibit. You'll meet such real-life characters as:

• Karma Queens-women of a certain age who combine a desire to be in harmony with the universe with an appreciation of material pleasures
• Parentocrats-who act out of love to assure their kids security and happiness, yet often deny them the classical joys of childhood
• Denim Dads-for whom family involvement means more than climbing the corporate ladder
• Innerpreneurs-chief managers of their own “brand,” they find their inspiration within themselves

By using C-Types-rich, three-dimensional consumer portraits combining quantifiable data with expressions of personality-Rentel identifies and illuminates the consumers who set the trends. He not only helps you understand Karma Queens, Geek Gods and other consumer types on a deeper level in order to reach them more effectively in your marketing and advertising, he also offers fresh insight into managing your brand and your business.

About this title

About the Author

Ron Rentel is the founder of Consumer Eyes, a leading brand and innovation consultancy, which creates customized methodologies that can encompass both long-term strategy and pipeline work and/or highly specific near-in product execution and tactics. He is also cofounder of BuzzBack Market Research, an online market research company. Visit Ron Rentel at consumereyes.com.

From the Back Cover

Get to know the consumers who count.

"This isn't a book about marketing. It isn't a book about business, as such. It's much more. It's a book about people-the real, fascinating, complex, multifaceted people called consumers. Funny and insightful, Karma Queens, Geek Gods and Innerpreneurs takes a fresh look at how specific, colorful and influential consumer types are shaping tomorrow's marketplace now.”-David Granger, Editor-in-Chief, Esquire

“Consumer Types are an entirely new way to classify consumers, brought to life with fascinating real world stories, backed up with supporting data, and going far beyond demographics.”-Bennett L. Brenton, Ph.D., Director of Innovation, PepsiCo

“An insightful, impactful book that speaks to a sensibility, passion, and drive for understanding the 'consumer heartbeat.'”-Todd Cunningham, Senior Vice President Brand Strategy and Planning, MTV Music Television

“Don't let all the talk about marketing fool you-identifying C-types helps you communicate better on an everyday basis with absolutely anyone. The possibilities (read: profits) are endless.”-Stephanie Young, Health Director, MORE Magazine

“Ron Rentel has synthesized findings from a powerful, highly sensitive new market research approach into a brilliant chronicle of nine new subcultures that will inform and excite any reader. It is an anthropological thrill ride through the 21st Century's first decade. Highly engaging and readable, it is a MUST for anyone who recognizes the bankruptcy of mass marketing and who understands that our modern “world” is in fact a confederation of niches.”-Gary Hirshberg, President and CE-Yo, Stonyfield Farm

“An interesting exploration of new slices of our fragmented psyche. Filled with useful insights and amusing anecdotes.”-Edwin Schlossberg, Founder, ESI Design

“Ron Rentel captures the essence of consumer habits in this engaging insider's view of interesting personality types...a must-read for consumers and marketers everywhere.”-Madelyn H. Fernstrom, Ph.D., CNS, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center

Reviews

In this guide to reaching a rapidly diversifying consumer population, marketing veteran Rentel divides the purchasing public into nine "C-types," then sets about pinning them to a set of characteristics, interests and exploitation-ready buying habits. Profiles include the "Karma Queen," an alternative-remedy, health-obsessed Birkenstock enthusiast; the "Innerpreneur," a neo-hippie business owner who prioritizes inner peace over Porches; the "Middleman," an immature post-collegiate; and "E-Litists," interested in going green so long as it doesn't cost them style, comfort or quality. In accessible, well-laid out text, Rentel outlines their market-relevant stats, detailing the behavior and fixations of each consumer clique; for instance, when it comes to Middlemen, "Sex sells; 'relationships' don't." Using this information, Rentel delineates slick marketing moves for each type, like selling upscale chocolate to Karma Queens, energy bars to the Innerpreneur and big-ticket designer brands to "Ms. Independents" (single women committed to themselves, rather than family, feminism or corporate conquest). Though Rentel confesses that his primer is "not meant to be a comprehensive study of all ... consumers in existence," that doesn't forgive his tendency toward easy stereotyping; though it's an interesting, informative read, its utility is limited by a penchant for oversimplification.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: McGraw Hill
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0071477918
• ISBN 13: 9780071477918
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256