How Oprah Winfrey Implicitly Endorses Consumerism and Materialism

"For her, transformation is about self-esteem and about buying stuff."

Yes, Oprah famously says to "Live your best life." But when you think about how her show, magazine, and website operate, the life she's suggesting is filled with an awful lot of stuff.
A BusinessWeek story analyzing the marketing lessons of "Brand Oprah" explains that Oprah's popular "favorite things" series amount to infomercials and product placement. The fact that Oprah is not compensated for these product endorsements makes the endorsements all the more powerful. It also allows a subtle, measured but obviously pro-consumerism message to sneak through, as an expert quoted in the BW story notes:

"For her, transformation is about self-esteem and about buying stuff," says Susan Mackey-Kallis, a communications professor at Villanova University. "It's consumerism, but it's not crass."

Well, if self-esteem is somehow tied to buying stuff, that does seem a bit crass. Intentional or not, Oprah's "You deserve it" message, in which the right stuff will help you "live your best life," is product marketing 101. Transformation is a much more attractive concept than contentedness or sacrifice; it's especially convenient that the former is much more advertising friendly as well.

Read more: http://money.blogs.time.com/2011/05/24/how-oprah-winfrey-implicitly-endorses-consumerism-and-materialism/#ixzz1NV4yvnTu

Brand Oprah Has Some Marketing Lessons

After 25 years, Oprah's influence remains unparalleled. As she moves to cable, there are signs she's preparing to shift her brand as well

Taping her talk show outside the Sydney Opera House in December George Burns/Harpo, Inc./Landov

By Susan Berfield

In 1988, Oprah Winfrey made a decision that would change her life—and eventually the future of television. Her talk show was already getting better ratings than kingpin Phil Donahue and aired in 198 markets. When she renegotiated her contract with King World Productions, which syndicated her show, and with ABC (DIS), which produced it, Winfrey demanded control and got it. Winfrey's Harpo Productions assumed the show's production costs, but it also collected licensing fees from local stations, estimated at $100 million in 1988. Plus, Harpo earned money from a few lucrative moments of advertising each day. "I never wanted to be in a position again in life where I was meant to do something but couldn't do it because somebody was telling me I couldn't," Winfrey later told writers of a Harvard Business School case study.

The impulse to take control of her life—and then enjoy it—resonated with her viewers over a 25-year span that will end on May 25, when she airs her finale on broadcast television and turns her attention to her new cable channel. Over that time, Oprah became a singular brand born of her own personal history. Winfrey's story of childhood poverty and sexual abuse, her struggle with her weight, and her striving and charisma made her the near-perfect peddler of a relentless optimism. She was more than a celebrity: She stood for self-improvement, doing good, and controlling your own destiny. Her motto, "Live your best life," was invoked on her show, in her magazine, and on her website.
It all added up to a brand radically different but no less powerful than Coca-Cola (KO) or the Marlboro Man. It propelled her show, which drew about 12 million viewers in the U.S. at its peak, through more than 4,500 episodes and some 30,000 guests. She stayed on message as she launched her magazine and produced movies and developed a raft of syndicated television shows including those of Dr. Phil McGraw and Rachael Ray. The brand ultimately made the meticulously manicured entrepreneur very rich, with an estimated fortune of $2.7 billion, according to Forbes. "I'm hard-pressed to think of a stronger brand than Oprah, and I've studied 200 years of brands," says Harvard Business School professor Nancy F. Koehn.
Winfrey's other great talent was to combine her message with a rousing consumerism absent even a hint of irony: Treat yourself! You deserve it! Her viewers and readers bought in and bought big. The brand's marketing fairy dust was sprinkled on an array of products she endorsed without compensation, somehow adding to her already robust credibility. One day she might talk about age-defying makeovers, the next about the faces of autism; she went to Ethiopia; she went green; she went vegan. And then she went shopping. "For her, transformation is about self-esteem and about buying stuff," says Susan Mackey-Kallis, a communications professor at Villanova University. "It's consumerism, but it's not crass."
Winfrey, who declined comment for this story, has helped turn her favorite books into bestsellers and her favorite things into instant successes. After she recommended Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth in January 2008, it topped the bestseller list on Amazon.com (AMZN). Within a month, Penguin Group had shipped 3.5 million copies. Her "Oprah's Book Club" plugged 65 books and was credited by some with saving the publishing industry.
Winfrey regularly announced her "favorite things" in shows that were tantamount to infomercials, though far more effective. When DreamTime's Foot Cozys, aromatherapy slippers, were featured on an episode in 2002, the company was selling 3,000 pairs a month. The following month, it sold 20,000. The slippers became DreamTime's best-selling product that year. When Winfrey presented such goodies to her audience, it was the companies (from Williams-Sonoma to Apple (AAPL)) that donated them. The big shows—in which audiences received cars and trips—inspired the fervor of revival meetings. "Product placement is a fair way to describe her 'favorite things,'" says Kevin Lane Keller, a marketing professor at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business. "But she is the one who is brokering those deals for her audience. It's product placement in a funny kind of way because the companies are giving the product away." Her brand could sell everything from croissants to refrigerators. Chicago blogger Robyn Okrant bought everything Winfrey recommended in 2008, spending nearly $4,800.