Is America an intellectual and cultural wasteland defined by reality television and fast food?  Cultural specialist Patricia Martin takes a different view, setting her sights on a highly desirable and burgeoning opportunity: cultural consumers.  Perhaps no one knows more about today’s cultural consumer than Martin, author of the groundbreaking new book, RENGEN: Renaissance Generation - The Rise of the Cultural Consumer and What it Means to Your Business.  Yet this growing segment, which is ushering in what Martin terms a second renaissance, has Madison Avenue and Wall Street scratching their heads and wondering how they can create products for, and market brands to, a consumer who is always one step ahead? 

“Cultural consumers are imaginative, eco-conscious and socially responsible world citizens who are spiritually broadminded and apt to fuse contemporary beliefs and personal explorations,” notes Martin.  “They also possess the technological savvy to retool your product to suit their needs and then creatively inclined to express themselves using it in ways you never imagined.”  One of America’s foremost trend forecasters and marketing futurists, Martin deconstructs the cultural consumer, revealing a second renaissance in the making on par with the one that illuminated Europe, citing these key findings from a two-year research effort:

• Sixty-five percent of Americans rank reading for pleasure as their top leisure activity

• Sixty-eight percent of the American public are interested in independent film

• Nearly half of the general population attends cultural events frequently – once a month or more.

• The typical adult attends an average of 1.9 cultural events per month.

• Younger respondents (18 – 29) attend an average of 2.3 cultural events per month.

•  Boomers (30 – 54) attend 1.8 cultural events per month.

• The mature segment (55+) attends an average of 1.7 cultural events per month

• More Americans attend museums, historical sites, zoos and aquariums than all professional sports combined, including auto racing.

Patricia Martin offers evidence of a seismic shift in the way we live, consume, express ourselves and voice our concerns.  Based on extensive original research with cultural evaluators/resources – including 1,400 marketing executives, major foundations including the Wallace and Pew Foundations, cultural institutions such as the New York Philharmonic, and “cultural scouts” in major cities – RENGEN provides a lens through which individuals, businesses, non-profit organizations, and even politicians can recognize and leverage the sea change occurring in their communities, businesses, and the marketplace at large.

RENGEN reveals this exciting second renaissance flowering in cities like Seattle, Providence, Philadelphia, and Chicago as well as in companies like Reebok, Absolut, Starbucks, and Winzeler Gear.  Reporting from the precipice of this major cultural renaissance, Martin reveals the factors that are giving rise to this huge economic, social and cultural shift, including:

Ø       The deregulation of the market for art and ideas, facilitated by the Internet and other technologies, fuels phenomena such as YouTube, Face book, the sprawling blogosphere as outlets for large-scale creative expression.

Ø       The heightened appreciation for the visual. Fashion becomes a language. Design drives innovation and consumers use products as tools to express themselves creatively.

Ø       A respect for learning. Tutoring enterprises thrive. Adults return to school, college kids seek apprenticeships.

Ø       The indie movement becomes a social construct new ideas and alternative thinking enter the mainstream.

Ø        The rise of cultural fusionism The growing fusion of unusual bedfellows, including education and entertainment (e.g., casinos with art museums), organized religion with new spiritualism (e.g., psychics and new wave thinkers “competing” with clerics), or capitalism and social work (e.g., cause marketing).

Ø       The will to be reborn. From evangelism to Botox, Americans are acting on an urgency to recreate themselves.

RENGEN also proves to be a valuable starting point for learning how technology, globalization and environmentalism are converging, changing the very nature of the creative process itself.  RENGEN is a must read for individuals, organizations, businesses, and even politicians seeking to take advantage of the opportunities the birth of the cultural consumer has to offer.