Oprah as a brand

A powerhouse such as Oprah Inc comes with a simple message you must first understand the simple message put simply, says Oprah, "my message is, 'You are responsible for your own life.' " and here's how it translates into a business model: "We bet on ourselves," says Jeff Jacobs, president of Harpo and Oprah's longtime No. 2. "We are an intellectual property company, and our partners [ABC, Hearst, Oxygen] are distributors. Core content is developed here and has never left our home base."

Oprah Winfrey has maintained  a steadfast and devoted fan base during her career, because she has used her talk show as a daily platform for holding heart-to-heart discussions with her audience.   Most TV personalities seem distant and removed from the general public, but Oprah has never backed down  from sharing intimate, personal details about her life with her audience. She has discussed very openly  such incredibly difficult and personal topics as being raped when she was nine and using cocaine in her twenties, as well as her ongoing battle with obesity.

 By sharing these intimate personal details and showing her human side and vulnerabilities Oprah shows her viewers that when the lights and cameras are all put away, she faces many of the same problems as they do. It’s her seeming vulnerability and fragility that make her that much more inclusive of a brand.

When she launched her book club in 1996 to, “help get America reading again,” most media initially viewed it as a crazy idea and  ineffective. They thought that the talk show public didn’t seem a likely mix with the book public. Oprah concentrated on literary works dealing with strong emotional conflicts. Oprah’s viewers took to the book club idea immediately, so much so that only a year after its launch, U.S. News & World Report wrote that Oprah had, “set millions to reading who hadn’t read a book since high school and has made obscure books bestsellers.” By participating in this club, every Oprah viewer becomes part of the Oprah family for a few hours each week, while still remaining unique from the world’s non-Oprah viewers.

In the present, the placement of the Oprah Book Club logo on a book is the most surefire way for it to launch on the bestseller list. Book stores have so much faith in the “Oprah effect” that, sight unseen, they happily order thousands of copies of her upcoming club selection.

One of the most important reasons for the success of the Network is Oprah’s ability to intimately involve her viewers in the gift-giving process. She makes it a two-way street. She not only writes checks to charities herself, she gets her fan base involved with her. When the beneficiaries of the Angel Network’s donations appear as guests, viewers can almost feel the good that they are doing through this program.

Whether you like or dislike Oprah, you can’t argue her great success, involvement and importance on  “improving the lives of others.” The halo effect the Oprah brand receives from these community activities is very real. We all feel a certain warmth and quiet joy from helping others. Brands that bring about these feelings in us will almost always hold a special place in our hearts.

Sandra T