The New Culture of Desire: The Pleasure Imperative Transforming Your Business and Your Life [Hardcover]

Melinda Davis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2002

A wholly new force is driving human behavior today, and it's turning the world as we know it upside down and inside out. Human behavior is now being driven by a new survival instinct -- a new primal desire -- that is invisibly but unstoppably reshaping the world, from the most intimate details of our private lives to the dynamics of the global marketplace. "The New Culture of Desire" reveals and chronicles this present and future brave new world -- the beginning of Human History Part II. According to futurist Melinda Davis, it is evolving right under our noses, and we need to adapt "now" to survive -- and to thrive.

Described variously as "a secret weapon of the Fortune 100" and a "hired-gun visionary," Davis divulges the startling conclusions and once confidential details of The Human Desire Project, a six-year, multidisciplinary study to investigate what makes human beings want what they want and do what they do. Originally initiated as a landmark study for big business (Davis's client ranks include distinguished companies such as AT&T, Merck, Diageo, Procter & Gamble, L'Oreal, Unilever, and Lucent Technologies), The Human Desire Project evolved into an even larger phenomenon with far-reaching implications for all of our lives. In "The New Culture of Desire," you learn to leverage for your own good fortune, today -- and into tomorrow -- the same insights and strategies that inform the future plans of some of the most powerful corporate movers and shakers around. Here are just some of the revelations of "The New Culture of Desire: "

- The unconscious formula that we all use to make choices now

- Why bliss beats sex, money, and power

- The new peakexperience: the State of O

- The single greatest unmet consumer need

- The battle for our interior lives

- The five strategies we enlist to satisfy the new primal desire -- and what they mean for your life and your business

Harvard-educated and street-smart, Davis examines the telltale signs of our rapidly morphing world with the nose of an MIT/MTV anthropologist and an arsenal of case histories. Quizzes and checklists appear throughout the book to help you diagnose your own desires. New marketing models provide new ways to speak more powerfully to the heart of your customers' true desires. This insider's analysis of the most powerful desire-driven trends of our time provides a strategic guide to the inside of the new millennial mind, to help you understand your own motivations and those of your colleagues, customers, and friends. Here are some of those cultural trends that you need to know about:

- Magical Thinking: Looking for the simple, supernatural solution

- The Third Sex: Having it all

- Yoda-ism: New candidates for a god

- Tribe Crashing: The ultimate insiderism

- Hot-Blooded Spiritualism: Drumming up the saving graces

- Raging Amazonianism: The rise of the butt-kicking babe

- Pleasure Healing: Self-indulgence that does you good

- P. Q.: The Performance Quotient: Upgrading the human processor

A pioneering work that looks into what people want and why, "The New Culture of Desire" blows traditional future-planning theory and practice sky-high, and replaces it with groundbreaking strategies that really work.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Combining popular psychology with business acumen, consultant Melinda Davis presents a Faith Popcorn-like guide for businesspersons in The New Culture of Desire: 5 Radical New Strategies That Will Change Your Business and Your Life. Davis contends that Americans' desires have shifted in recent years, from the physical to the metaphysical. She explains ways businesspersons can tap into this shift and thus present consumers with products that truly suit their needs. The book is thus not only a manual for marketers who want to understand their audience, but also a revealing social study that will intrigue consumers and producers alike.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

There is an ever-proliferating number of trend prognosticators, futurists, and think tanks. Few if any can predict what will really happen. Nevertheless, take time to enjoy Davis' ideas, for this Harvard grad, novelist, and corporate consultant bases her five strategies for marketers on the search for bliss, pure and simple. After all, today's work and pleasure are defined primarily by knowledge; we interact via screens and remote videos, all balanced by a desire for the high touch, the human connection. Many statistics and current trends support her theory, including the growing demand for personal advocates, such as coaches, and the pursuit of altered states, whether it is in a spa or via cosmetics. Barbara Jacobs
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; 1st edition (October 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 074320459X
• ISBN-13: 978-0743204590
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #570,116 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars visionary, but overpowering, November 1, 2002

By 

paul zullo (brooklyn, ny United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The New Culture of Desire: The Pleasure Imperative Transforming Your Business and Your Life (Hardcover)

The deftness in which Melinda writes is encouraging. Her vision of our future seems to be on target and on the fore front. I thought she spent too much time making this a "self-help" book rather than a business tool. It wasn't until the tenth chapter that she actually explained how to apply her philosophies in the marketing of products. In addition, her fervent writing style began to weigh me down. She either has a great deal of enthusiasm or she's trying too hard to prove her point. The net net: I really enjoyed the book although it wasn't exactly what I expected.

8 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poetic Appeciation of Societal Dilemmas, October 10, 2002

By 

G. M. Chishti "hakim" (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The New Culture of Desire: The Pleasure Imperative Transforming Your Business and Your Life (Hardcover)

A book like this comes along perhaps once every 50 or 100 years. Melinda Davis points out that the mind & soul of humanity (not just "Americans") are undergoing a shift from a materialistic to a spiritualistic environment. The impact of this on our life values and behaviors is already evident in many subtle ways --- but promises to evolve into a full blown revision of the way life is carried on for the foreseeable future.

Her vantage in the end is that of a poetess, providing signposts for people to use as they grope their way into new modes of thought and experience. It is difficult to overestimate the significance of her theses. In particular, literary persons, those involved in the healing and psychological professions, and, sad to say, the marketing mavens, will find this a must read book. They will, no doubt, have their world all shook up by this true masterpiece of perception and insight.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good read....., September 9, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The New Culture of Desire: The Pleasure Imperative Transforming Your Business and Your Life (Hardcover)

The author is a very good writer. She wrtites about emeging consumer trends. Although I am not sure how radical the ideas are and not sure it will change my life. Davis contends that Americans' desires have shifted in recent years, from the physical to the metaphysical. One other book I like that relate these ideas to what brand does is 60-Minute Brand Strategist by Idris Mootee. It covers quite of those metaphysical stuff.