Real Guitars R 4 Old People [Guest Blogger: David J. Miller]

The always politically incorrect, yet sharp South Park uses Guitar Hero to offer some insights into young, creative class consumers and their reality (the digital world). Enjoy the clip. (posted by David) 

Creative Class, Clothing, and Wealth

(posted by David) A snapshot of life in the creative economy from the WSJ's Wealth Report Blog. How to Spot a Rich Person: "Identifying the rich used to be fairly simple: They dressed, talked and looked a certain way. They had iconic last names like Hutton or Hearst or Phipps, often with Roman numerals at the end. Today, wealth has been democratized and individualized, and the rich come in all ages, shapes, sizes and ethnicities." According to a Jaguar salesman, "It used to be if someone walked in with jeans and a T-shirt I could ignore them or ask them to leave. Now that guy could be a billionaire. You have to be nice to everybody these days."

Tallahassee Park and Ride Initiaitve Begins

Congratulations to our KCCI catalysts in Tallahassee on today's launching of their Park-N-Ride Community pilot program. The goal of the program, led by the Greenovation team and its partner StarMetro, and supported by some great sponsors,  is to "offer Tallahassee drivers a convenient, environmentally conscious option for commuting." Catalyst Bill Berlow is participating in the pilot program and writes about his motivations, expectations, and the program in today's Tallahassee Democrat. To sign up as a participant click here. Snippet from Bill's piece below.

posted by David

Car Sharing to Save Detroit?

In addition to seeing hybrids all over the place, I see a lot of Zipcars and Flexcars in metro areas. (To be honest, it bothers me that they get reserved spots with no meters in many towns, but I digress.) This new model of car ownership/use, the sharing model, seems to be taking off and many innovative organizations are getting on board.

Equity Residential Properties, a huge publicly traded apartment building operator, recently inked a deal with Zipcar to provide cars and spaces at some of its properties. Today's WSJ (sub req'd) features an article by Darren Everson highlighting how Zipcar is 'driving' into the college market by inking deals with Universities to put cars in and around campuses.

Perhaps Detroit's long suffering car makers should think about this new model of ownership in trying to revive US sales/revenues? With many of the user's of car share services in college and just starting their careers, this seems like a growing consumption trend that Detroit would want to take advantage of?

posted by David

The Car of the Creative Class

The Creative Class clearly brings its own ethos to work, leisure, cities, and consumption. From the San Jose Mercury News (hat tip: ValleyWag), The Prius is the number #1 selling car in Silicon Valley. Thats right, the large US metro with the greatest % of CC in its workforce has made the Prius its car of choice by buying more Prii in June than any other model. "That puts the Prius ahead of Toyota's Camry and Corolla and Honda's Accord and Civic, all cars that outsell the high-mileage, gas-electric sedan nationwide."

"Are we ahead of the curve, or what?" asked Rod Diridon, executive director of the Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State University, and a Prius owner.

The Prius' newfound status reflects the continued greening of Silicon Valley. Diridon listed sustained higher gas prices, the availability of carpool-lane stickers for solo Prius drivers - no more are being issued - and the intelligence of local residents as factors in the Prius' popularity."

posted by David

 

Creative Class Queen Bucks Housing Market Trends

While many think that tattoos and piercings are typical of all creative class members, Martha Stewart and her empire embody many elements of the creative class theory -- from a focus on design and supporting the creativity of customers to building a career  that allows for one's passion to play a central role. According to a new WSJ article (sub required) by Michael Corkery, creative class Queen, Martha Stewart has been very effective in using her creativity to sell homes in a weakening housing market. From the piece...

"All across the country, home builders are gasping for air as sales plunge, inventories rise and profits disappear. But in one small corner of the housing market, the sales picture is a little brighter: There is steady demand for houses designed in part by Martha Stewart and built by Los Angeles-based KB Home.

Here in the Atlanta area, where new-home sales dropped 20% in the first quarter of 2007, traffic at Martha-KB new-home developments has been steady. The largest Martha-KB Home development has been outselling the average Atlanta subdivision 2 to 1, according to SmartNumbers, a real-estate information and analysis firm, based in Marietta, Ga."

While some core creatives may never be interested in a Martha Stewart home, there are other members of the group who are clearly interested in letting her design a warm, welcoming home for them. (A longer segment of the article is available after the jump).

Posted by David

This Post is Bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S

In our research on creative class consumers, we find that many creative class members have high expectations that their vendors adhere to their creative class ethos. From Spingwise, a short piece on Dole's attempt to provide more to their organic customers.

"Dole Organic lets consumers “travel to the origin of each organic product”. By typing in a fruit sticker's three-digit Farm Code on Dole Organic's website, customers can find the story behind their banana. Each farm's section on the website includes background info, shows photos of the crops and workers and tells consumers more about the origin of Dole's organic products."

Here is a link to the farm (#776) that produced the banana in the picture. And just for fun, here is Kirk Cameron and a friend on YouTube using a banana to prove creation (though they forget that a banana fits in a chimp's hand as well as it fits into a human hand).

posted by David

Agents See $$ in Green Housing

In marketing circles, green is the new black right? Drive a Prius, buy organic, and now, when home shopping, you must use an 'Eco-broker.' Check out this article by Lauren Tara LaCapra at RealEstateJournal.com. From the piece,

"More than 1,000 agents have taken a $395 course offered by a former U.S. Department of Energy official on the basics of what makes a house green -- one that conserves energy and is close to public transportation, for example. After taking the course, they then can advertise themselves as "EcoBrokers" on their business cards and Web sites. Though that's a tiny 0.3% of all U.S. real-estate professionals, similar initiatives are popping up to raise awareness and take advantage of wider public acceptance of issues such as global warming and growing concern about higher energy costs."

posted by David

XM Angers Creative Class Consumers

From the Consumerist Blog, a nice little posting about the backlash brewing over the suspension of Opie and Anthony by XM Radio Management. While I have never listened to the potty-mouthed pair in my 2 years of subscribing to XM and I don't plan to cancel my subscription, I can understand the anger that is growing as XM now seems to be censoring itself and conforming to the rules of yesteryear.  Whats next, the cancellation of the 80's channel? From the piece,

The Impending Death of the Land-Line Phone?

While there is a bias towards young adults, the number of people dropping land-line phones for cell phones is increasing. A new survey by the federal government finds that more than 25% of young adults have only cell phones. Moreover, the portion of adults with only cell phones grew more than 2% in the latter half of the year and is now nearly 12% of all adults.

This finding not only has implications for researchers and emergency services, but also for telemarketers and marketers in general as potential customers use mobile, technologically advancing devices to communicate, shop, and enjoy content. 

Have you dropped your land-line? Why or why not?

posted by David