Lifestyles of
the Cultural Creatives (CCs)
Readers
and radio listeners, much more than TV watchers: Cultural
Creatives buy more books and magazines, listen to more radio, including
classical music and NPR, and watch less television, than any other groups.
About half of them are regular book buyers, which is far more than the
general public. They are literate and discriminating, and dislike most
of what is on TV. They demand good information, and have exceptionally
good deception-detectors for ads and for misleading corporate or political
claims in the media. They are particularly unhappy with the quality
of TV news.
Arts
and culture: Most CCs are aggressive consumers of
the arts and culture. They actively go out and get involved in it. They
are much more likely than most Americans to be involved in the arts as
amateurs or pros, and are more likely to write books and articles, and
to go to meetings and workshops about creative endeavors.
Stories, whole process and systems:
CCs appreciate good stories, and want views of the "whole
process" of whatever they are reading, from cereal boxes
to product descriptions to magazine articles. They like a systems overview:
they want to know where a product came from, how it was made, who made
it, and what will happen to it when they are done with it. They hate
to read mail or articles that come in bullet points and race to the
bottom line (unless they are very time pressed and donŐt care much about
the topic). They also want symbols that go deep, and, more than most
Americans, they actively dislike advertising and children's TV.
Desire
for authenticity: CCs are the ones who brought the
criterion of "authenticity" to the marketplace. They lead the consumer
rebellion against things that are "plastic", fake, imitation, poorly made,
throwaway, cliche style or high fashion. If they buy something in a traditional
style they want it to be authentically traditional; Smith and Hawken garden
tools speak to this desire for authenticity, as does much of the natural
foods industry.
Careful
Consumers: CCs are the kind of people who buy
and use Consumer Reports on most consumer durables goods, like appliances,
cars, consumer electronics. For the most part, they are the careful, well-informed
shoppers who do not buy on impulse. They are likely to research a purchase
first, and are practically the only consumers who regularly read labels.
Soft
innovation: They are not the technology innovators
who buy the latest and greatest in computers, and many are just getting
onto the Internet. But they are at the leading edge of many cultural
innovations: CCs tend to be innovators and opinion leaders for some
knowledge-intensive products, however, including magazines, fine foods,
wines and boutique beers.
The Foodies: They're the "foodies" - people
who like to talk about food (before and after), experiment with new
kinds of food, cook food with friends, eat out a lot, do gourmet and
ethnic cooking, and try natural foods and health foods.
Home is important, but they buy fewer
new houses than most people of their income level, finding that new
houses are not usually designed with them in mind. So they buy resale
houses and fix them up the way they want. They don't like status-display
homes with impressive entrances, columns, gables: theirs are more inward-looking
and hidden from the street by fences, trees and shrubbery. They tend
to prefer established neighborhoods with a lot of trees and privacy,
and want to stay far away from tract houses in treeless suburbs.
Authentic
Styling in Homes: Their notion of what's included
in this category is all-embracing, including authentic New England salt
box, authentic Georgian, authentic Frank Lloyd Wright, authentic desert
adobe and authentic contemporary Californian. "What's good," as far
as CCs are concerned, is the building that fits into its proper place
on the land. They want access to nature, walking and biking paths, ecological
preservation, historic preservation, and to live in master planned communities
that show a way to re-create community.
The
Nest: When Cultural Creatives buy homes, they like
homes that are "nests": not only a lot of privacy externally, but private
spaces within, including the buffering of childrens' space from adult
space, and with lots of interesting nooks and niches. They are more
likely to live out of the living room and not bother with a family room.
They are far more likely to have an office in the home, and to have
converted a bedroom, den, or family room into that office.
Interior
decoration for CCs is typically eclectic, with a
lot of original art on the walls and crafts pieces around the house.
Many of them seem to think a house is not properly decorated without
a lot of books. The same house that vanishes from the street should
be personalized so that it shows on the inside who they are. Status
display happens inside the house not outside, though it is not blatant:
it is display of personal good taste and creative sense of style. CCs
would not buy a single decorator style that goes through the whole house.
A
different kind of car, please: CCs are far more
likely to want safety and fuel economy in a mid-price car. If they could
also get an ecologically sound, high mileage, recyclable car, they'd
snap it up. If ever the auto industry were to provide the car they want,
it would be more like a gas-electric hybrid car, or one with fuel cells.
The Volvo appeals to many CCs, but so do well-made Japanese cars. They
loathe the process they go through at car dealerships even more than
most people do. A car like the Saturn with its fixed, no haggle price,
and top dealer service is designed for CCs.
The leading edge of vacation travel: CCs
define the leading edge of vacation travel that is exotic, adventuresome-without-(too
much)-danger, educational, experiential, authentic, altruistic and/or
spiritual. They like tours of temples in India, tours of the back country
where tourists don't go, eco-tourism, photo-safaris, fantasy baseball
camps, save-the-baby-seals vacations, help-rebuild-a-Mayan-village-vacations.
They don't go for package tours, fancy resorts or cruises.
Experiential consumers: Many CCs are the prototypical
consumers of the experience industry, which offers a more intense/enlightening/enlivening
experience rather than a particular product. Examples include weekend
workshops, spiritual gatherings, personal growth experiences, experiential
vacations, the vacation-as-spiritual-tour, or the vacation-as-self-discovery.
The providers of these services have to be CCs too, or they can't do
it authentically (the kiss of death), and so one sometimes gets the
impression that everyone is taking in everyone else's wash - or workshop.
Holistic everything: CCs are the prototypical innovators in, and consumers of, personal
growth psychotherapy, alternative health care and natural foods. What
ties these together is a belief in holistic health: body-mind-spirit
are to be unified. CCs are forever sorting out the weird from the innovative.
Some CCs are those whom unsympathetic physicians describe as "the worried
well," who monitor every twitch and pain and bowel movement, in a minutely
detailed attention to the body. This tendency may be why CCs spend more
on alternative health care and regular health care even though most
are fairly healthy. They may live longer, because they do at least some
kinds of preventive medicine - in contrast to the Modernist executive
pattern of treating the body like a machine that you feed, exercise
and vitaminize, and otherwise ignore until it breaks down.
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