NONFICTION - Sept. 1, 1991

THE POPCORN REPORT by Faith Popcorn (Doubleday: $22.50; 226 pp.) Freud was a piker; he only asked what women want. Giant companies want to know what all of us want--next month, next year or whatever their lead time is for them to develop or package new products. Faith Popcorn makes a living telling them what she sees in her crystal ball. (Popcorn is, of course, not her real name: One grandfather came from Russia). She runs an operation that she calls BrainReserve, which caters to such clients as American Express, Polaroid and Tupperware--63 of them, in fact.

We know there are 63 because she lists them, along with quotes from business leaders, an index, a glossary and a list of all the periodicals BrainReserve plows through; this is her method of getting the book up over 200 pages. It is a melange of jargon and catch phrases she’s invented to assure nervous corporate execs that they’re on top of what will come next. You do have to wonder, though, why any company would pay a futurist who predicts, among other things, that the time has come for individually owned commuter airplanes, a fantasy that has managed not to come to fruition for 40 years.