Oprah: From One Person To One Brand

Oprah (data sheet)

In May 25, 2011, the NBC program recorded the scene, showing the huge number of "25" TV walls slowly separated, and the studio soon burst into gigantic cheers.

Oprah, a pale red dress, slowly walked out and waved to the studio audience like the queen.

Before Oprah opened his mouth, the audience had already wiped the tears in his eyes.

Here, the Oprah Winfrey Show, which lasted for 25 years, went to the end.

In the clamorous American entertainment industry, the appearance of a star, the sudden popularity and subsequent exit have become commonplace.

However, Oprah's departure is obviously meaningless. This is not only a wave farewell of a public idol, but also a regrouping of a whole set of business logic.

In the face of Oprah's departure, many Americans can hardly conceal their sadness. This means that many people live in a dim light. At the same time, for many American businesses, this means a great loss of economic interests.

Before Oprah left, some TV stations began to panic about what kind of viewers chose to stay in front of the TV after the announcement of the Oprah Winfrey Show. Book publishers could hardly conceal the loneliness of Oprah after leaving. Mike Mary Glenn, publisher of Hill Hill publishing group, said, "for the publishing house, Oprah's book club is a great stimulant."

According to Nelson's data, the Oprah book club has promoted the sale of 22 million books in the past 10 years. Taking the classic Anna Karenina as an example, it sold 11648 copies in the 12 weeks before Oprah's book club, and sold 643122 copies in the 12 weeks after Oprah's reading club, an incredible increase of 5421%.

In the past 25 years, Oprah has long been the shaper of the mainstream culture of the United States. Her favorite book will become a best seller champion; her favorite music recordings will be sold; a female TV audience has been tracking Oprah's recipes recommended by the program for a year in a blog form; and experts have shown that in 2008, in the presidential election of the Democratic Party, Oprah brought Obama at least 1 million of the vote, and ultimately helped Obama defeat Hilary.

In the past, how did a young girl in the Mississippi tenant farm, a teenage problem girl, ever talk show queen, how to turn a program into a media group and turn a person into a brand? In this era of making celebrities more and more easy to create through the Internet, what will be the inspiration for her brilliant and present departure? {page_break}

From a program to a media group

"I don't think I am a businessman!"

This is the first sentence that Oprah threw to an interviewer when he received an exclusive interview with Forbes magazine in 2002.

At that time, Oprah sat on a thickened chair, and two Spanish Spaniel snuggled up to her feet.

Despite sitting on the personal wealth of $2 billion 700 million (2011), although her influence has been so closely linked to the business and economy of American society, her departure will bring "vacuum" to American entrepreneurs, but Oprah has never admitted that he is a businessman.

Oprah did have a lot of examples to prove that she was a real business man. She didn't read the company's financial statements. She didn't read the company's financial statements. Her company didn't have a clear business model. She kissed Tom Curise and more than half of her business sleeves, but she didn't kiss Jack Welch and Michael Dale. She flatly refused AT&T, Ralph Lauren, and Intel invited her to join the board. She said innocently, "brother, I really don't know what I can do on your board of directors." she once carefully saved 50 million dollars in cash and did not make any investment, and joked that it was her "private money". Fact

However, although there are so many facts as an example of Oprah's ignorance of business, no one can deny Oprah's success in business.

In fact, Oprah has already changed his role from a moderator to a businessman in his long career, and eventually built up a huge commercial empire with his own name as the core.

Behind Oprah's brilliant images in front of the TV set everyday, her commercial empire is orderly and orderly, and gradually pforms the influence of Oprah's TV on business interests.

"This program is committed to making ordinary people full of self-confidence and believing that they are the masters of their own destiny and do their best in their own lives."

In December 8, 1986, the first episode of the Oprah Winfrey Show began, and Oprah stood in front of the television.

Just like the brand essence of WAL-MART's "low price every day", all the truly successful corporate brands in the world are bound to have distinctive values. The formation of this unique value is inseparable from the brand name of their founder's life course.

Oprah is based on the "Oprah Winfrey Show" as the platform, with "the best of himself" as the core values, and builds his own business empire step by step.

Over the past 25 years, generations of television viewers have come and gone, and Oprah's skill in hosting has become more and more sophisticated, and the values of "being the best" have never changed.

In fact, the values of "doing the best" enrich Oprah's life experience in the first half and form the foundation of Oprah's later business empire.

It is worth pondering that when Oprah decided to take the value of "doing her best" as the foundation of her business empire, her life experience in the first half of her life naturally became the "biggest asset" of the commercial empire, and what she left behind was nothing more than maintaining and expanding the influence brought about by the promotion of values.

In 1976, Oprah, a young pioneer, received a TV reporter's job at Baldi Mo TV station, which was hit immediately.

Oprah, who was so emotional, could not control himself. He often burst into tears when he was in the audience. What Oprah could not bear was that the boss of the TV station pointed to Oprah's mouth shape and hairstyle, and even hoped Oprah would have cosmetic surgery.

Later, the emergence of Dennis Swanson, the current general manager of WNBC-TV in New York, made Oprah realize the true meaning of "being the best".

In 1983, Swanson interviewed Oprah in Chicago, and an interesting dialogue was launched in Swanson's office.

Oprah: "do you have no special request for me?"

Swanson: "no".

Oprah: "you know, I am black."

Swanson: Yes, I can see.

Oprah: "I am overweight."

Swanson: "I can see that too.

I don't need you to change your appearance. If I need a beautiful person, I'll just look for someone else. "

Dennis Swanson paid Oprah $230 thousand in annual salary and asked Oprah to host a local talk show in Chicago and beat another host Phil Donagh, who had dominated the Chicago talk show market for more than 10 years.

Oprah's genius in communication rapidly broke out, and in one month, the audience ratings were higher than Phil Donagh.

Dennis Swanson is the leader of Oprah's life, letting Oprah go out of his indecision and become a firm practitioner of "making the best of himself".

The emergence of Jeff Jacobs ignites Oprah's ambition to establish his own business empire.

In 1984, Oprah, who was struggling for a legal agreement, found Jacobs, a lawyer. Jacobs persuaded Oprah to become a hired host like most of the movie stars.

In 1986, Harpo was founded (Oprah's English reverse writing), Oprah gave Jacobs 5% of the shares, and in 1989, Jacobs joined Harpo as a general manager.

Since then, the wily Jacobs and Oprah have formed a strange combination. Jacobs said to Oprah, "come and let us make a new Oprah"; after listening, Oprah said, "ah, but we still have no idea what to do now."

Even the same thing will be completely different between Oprah and Jacobs. Jacobs seems to be "multi purpose development of the same content", and Oprah will be "helpless" for such words.

The combination of Jacobs and Oprah, though strange, does not prevent them from building up a media group.

In the entire media group of Oprah, the Oprah Winfrey Show became the core of the operation.

The Oprah Winfrey Show has been broadcast in 107 countries around the world and has been at the forefront of the competition for at least 50 similar programs in the United States. Its main audience is the middle age and medium level mass market. Its main advertisements are Procter & Gamble, hills, WAL-MART and so on.

The magazine O, founded in 2000, made a profit of 1 million 400 thousand dollars in second years.

Kayseri Black, general manager of Hearst magazine group, can hardly conceal his internal shock. "This is amazing.

Because in the magazine industry, the newly published magazines are only profitable after 5 years of publication. "

Unlike Oprah's talk show, the magazine "O" is mainly located in the wealthy class, with a per capita income of 63 thousand dollars, and prefers Lexus and other brands.

Oprah's film production department produced the award-winning television movie "meet Tuesday", which brings us $4 million a year.

Her female lecture tour, the best of her own, exploded. Only 8500 women from 4 cities in the United States entered the venue in 2001, bringing in 1 million 600 thousand dollars in revenue.

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A company of one person

Perhaps it is a brilliant talent, perhaps Jacobs's attentive assistance. Oprah, while actively using various channels to realize the constant increase of his brand value, has shown unusual calmness and restraint in many aspects such as his brand authorization and corporate control.

In the first 14 years of her career, Oprah had only worked with two companies, one was KING WORLD, the other was ABC, in order to distribute her TV shows.

Oprah refused to make his company public.

In terms of brand licensing, Oprah's refusal is more firm.

After Oprah became famous, food manufacturers, fashion designers, perfume manufacturers, book publishers and so on rush to Oprah, hoping to get the right to use Oprah brand, but Oprah declined.

Oprah once said, "if I lose control of the company, then I lose my opportunity to become myself". Oprah knows well how effective control of content production is the company's greatest challenge.

Because for Harpo, Oprah himself is not only the company's controller, but also the company's largest product.

Everything in Oprah's life: adversity in her life, her endless battle with her weight...

The spotlight in the Oprah Winfrey Show studio is spreading across the hearts of American audiences.

Oprah, with the help of selectively exposing his own life, touches the hearts of the entire American audience, thereby establishing an emotional connection with the American audience. Oprah's life has long been the core of Oprah's brand.

Contrary to Oprah, as an American "housekeeping Queen" and the idols of American family women, Martha Stuart once allowed kemat to sell her household utensils with her own brand, but then kemat went bankrupt. Stewart hoped his company would develop rapidly and open its company in 1999, but 3 years later, the company's stock fell to 19 US dollars from the highest 40 dollars.

These setbacks have a long-term and repairable destructive effect on Martha Stuart's brand value.

While strictly controlling the ownership of the company and the brand ownership, Oprah managed to manage the company without a teacher, requiring every company employee to sign a confidentiality agreement before entering the office to limit the exposure of the company's internal situation.

In 1994, a former employee of Harpo filed a lawsuit against the Harpo to recover wages, and disclosed that Harpo was a "dishonest and confusing" place.

Oprah successfully terminated the company's information by using a confidentiality agreement as a weapon.

Oprah knows that some information about herself is spread unchecked, which will greatly shake the trust between her and the public and eventually shake the foundations of her commercial empire.

At the same time, Oprah has strict requirements for the quality of the products of his company.

Before the publication of every issue of O magazine, she will check every article and every picture in the magazine proofs. From Tuesday to Thursday, from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. and Friday all day, if there is no television program to be produced, she will even pay attention to the use of every punctuation mark in each article.

In the magazine "O" advertising page location and dispatch time, Oprah also showed "unreasonable" strong.

According to the industry practice of American magazine pages, the catalogue pages of women's magazines should be placed at about 22 pages. Advertisers hope that readers can reach the catalog page after reading a lot of advertisements. But Oprah insists on the principle of "reader first" and puts the directory page in second pages. In the spring of 2000 issue of "O", Oprah insisted that readers of all magazines should receive magazines on the same day, just like Oprah Winfrey Show arrived at most families in the United States at 4 o'clock p.m. every day.

Oprah will also isolate her creative talents from ratings such as ratings.

"In fact, we do not need to care about statistics," said Danny Akinston Husen, executive producer of Oprah Winfrey Show.

If there is a bad reading rating of a Book Club, there is nothing to it.

Because we know that more people will read this book.

Kate Ford, general manager of film and television production of Harpo company, pointed out that Oprah is confident of the program to be broadcast. If the production program is awarded, Oprah will remain silent.

Oprah wants her employees to understand that we do not work for external rewards.

Disney executive Robert Igor hopes that Oprah's company can produce more programs to play on ABC, but Oprah's high standards of product quality make Harpo produce only one movie a year.

Igor reluctantly said: "even if there are enough buyers here, it does not mean that Oprah is willing to be a seller". When Oprah chooses to sell his own program, Oprah's biggest concern is "can I trust you"? {page_break}

Departure and return

In fact, rumors about the Queen's departure have never stopped.

In an interview with reporters in 2002, Oprah expressed hesitation about whether to continue the Oprah Winfrey Show.

She hopes to use her money and time to do something else, something bigger.

In addition to Oprah's own expectations of career changes, ratings decline, age, disputes arising from politics and business also provide more interpretation space for Oprah's departure.

The first is ratings.

In the TV season from 2008 to 2009, the ratings of Oprah Winfrey Show fell to 7 million, down 7% compared with the previous season, which is the third consecutive year's ratings decline.

For a talk show giant who had seen 12 million 600 thousand of the population in the early 90s of the last century, the result was obviously not enough to make Oprah happy.

In addition, the impact of traditional media on the ABC in the era of the media is also impacted by the Oprah Winfrey Show.

ABC, a senior executive who asked not to be named, said directly to the media. "The TV station has made it clear to Oprah, the production company Harpo, if she is willing to stay, we will substantially reduce the cost of copyright purchase.

At present, the profits of TV stations have dropped by 40%-50%, and the ratings of the programs have dropped by about half. However, the royalties paid by Oprah Winfrey Show have not decreased.

In addition, Oprah is also challenged by age. The 55 year old seems to have fewer and fewer resonates between her and younger audience groups.

Oprah's fanatical support for Obama also caused some trouble for her.

At the time when the president of the United States was in the white hot election campaign, the audience who supported Oprah's program not only refused to watch Oprah Winfrey Show, but also bombed Oprah on the Internet, accusing her of using her program to fool audiences.

In any case, Oprah would never be willing to curl up in the corner. As early as 2002, King World boss Rod Kim commented on Oprah's hesitation.

In fact, as Oprah disclosed to the outside world, "this time of departure is a better return for the future".

There are various signs that Oprah's departure is not so much as the rapids, but rather, when the whole media is in the ascendant, we are determined to achieve a magnificent turn.

After leaving, Oprah's career center will be pferred to OWN Oprah (The Oprah Winfrey Network), which she has invested with the American exploration communications company.

The cable television channel was put into operation in January 2011.

The establishment of OWN enabled Oprah to get a broader space: Oprah will master 50% of the channel's shares, and also coincides with the changes in the audience's habits in the American society.

It is reported that the TV viewing habits of American TV viewers have shifted from public TV networks like ABC, CBS and NBC to excellent cable TV stations like HBO and Showtime.

This trend is especially prevalent among senior audiences because they can spend money without advertising interference, and more importantly, such platforms provide better programs. This undoubtedly echoes Oprah's dream of making high-quality programs for a long time.

On the other hand, Oprah's choice of gorgeous turn is directly related to the change of TV viewing habits in the Internet age.

With the development of Internet technology in American society and the change of population structure in the United States, the demand of TV audience of new generation is increasingly diversified.

At 4 p.m. of the previous working day, tens of millions of TV viewers across the country were sitting in front of the TV watching Oprah's spectacular scenes hard to recover. Oprah's Winfrey Show, which ran for 25 years, is more and more difficult to fully carry Oprah's "best to do" values.

As a matter of fact, the series of pre screening shows before the OWN television broadcast shows that OWN TV station will actively open up new forms of programs, hoping to make an issue in meeting the diverse needs of audiences.

As some experts have analyzed, the future OWN TV station will realize the multi carrier propagation of Oprah's "best to do yourself" brand value. The program will focus on two main themes: "star and inspirational", which are made up of three main categories.

The first category is Oprah's interview with superstars in face-to-face form. These stars have the quality of Oprah's approval. The growth experience of the superstars is told by Oprah, just like telling the audience's own story. The second category is "Ask Oprah" s All-Stars. Oprah's star friends come out to answer questions such as "how to maintain the vitality of a group" by the audience's representatives. The third category is the show of no celebrities. The host guides guests to talk about the past memories and the vision for the future at the program site, and finally tells the audience: "what really deserves treasuring is the present".

In addition, Oprah is still ambitious in planning a new program.

She hopes to make a program like the next TV superstar.

In such a program, participants compete by making new TV test shows, and the winner will get the chance to launch a series of programs in OWN.

It can be imagined that such a program will become a new interpretation of Oprah's "best of himself" values.

"Make the best of yourself, and then you can do it on Oprah's TV network instead of just that one show!" this is Oprah's new business model, and also the reason for her leaving and the starting point for her return.