What do you get when you combine 6,000 women, Oprah Winfrey and a 3-day celebration in New York City?  Some surreal, jaw-dropping, crack-up moments along with a whole lot of chaos and estrogen-fuelled drama.  Oh… and a city-wide jump in shoe sales.

A one woman show, media maven and brand, Oprah Winfrey is quite possibly the most influential woman on the planet.  And like so many, seeing her live was on my bucket-list.  So when O Magazine’s Live Your Best Life Weekend in New York came across my radar, I jumped at it and so did some of my friends. 

So there we were in the city that never sleeps and neither did we really, squeezing sight-seeing, shopping and signature cocktails in with a very full event schedule. From a champagne welcome reception and an inspiring line of “Lifeshop” headliners (Dr. Oz, Suze Orman, etc.) to a gala at Radio City Music Hall and a Sunday charity walk, it was non-stop fun.

Highlights

• Oprah live.  Mind-blowingly brilliant.  And after following her for years, it was like watching a girlfriend on stage.
• Eat Pray Love author Elizabeth Gilbert’s opener.  So real, so cool… that woman oozes how to live in the present.
• A great welcome kit, spectacular collateral materials and sponsors like L’Oreal that rocked the gift bags.

Lowlights

• There was one glaring gap in this Oprah brand experience – the logistics at Jacob K. Javits Convention Center were beyond bad.  From mismanaged line-ups and event coordination to banana battles in the food lines and near-riots over a lack of bathrooms forcing urinal usage by some angry sisters (yes you read that right), that facility was ill-prepared for 6,000 women (and 10 men).  My friend’s and I laugh about it now, but it was truly like an all-day episode of Survivor.

The weekend also marked the 10-year anniversary of O Magazine which continues to set the bar on  page-turning layouts and visual platforms along with compelling content, life stories and a just-right balance of tasteful advertising. 

But that’s just one piece of Oprah’s media empire. 

There’s Oprah & Friends satellite radio, Oprah’s Book Club, the multi-layered Oprah.com, a new reality show and with September 2011 marking 25 years and the last for the Oprah Winfrey Show, she’s launching OWN Network.

Whether relaxing in my living room or as a proud, live participant in magical NYC it’s been a wild ride to be part of the Oprah brand experience.  And it’s not over yet.

MY SOAPBOX:   When you’re #1, you’re an easy target. 

News this week talked about how the Oprah Winfrey Show has had a 7% decline in viewership – which on 9 million is hardly a crisis. 

But rather than focus on how her O-Factor has changed lives, saved lives, got millions reading, and raised over $80 million to fund 200+ charity grants in the US and 30 other countries, let’s focus on a dip/blip in ratings on a show that’s winding down (??).   

And for the record, it’s winding down to make way for a ground-breaking, new network that’s poised to make what the Oprah Winfrey Show did to daytime television look like training-wheels.

Maybe the real story is how we’ve only scratched the surface on Oprah’s enduring influence.

brand experience, Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert, Live Your Best Life Weekend, O Magazine, Oprah & Friends, Oprah Winfrey, Oprah.com, OWN Network, smd marketing, smdmarketing, susan dore

How to describe the buzz around Julia Child… a resurgence?  A resurrection?  Not trying to be clever with the “r words” but those are the questions I asked myself when contemplating an attempt to capture the marketing story around the Julia phenomenon. 

I landed on renaissance because long before The Food network and media-moguls like Martha Stewart, there was Julia Child. 

A cooking legend for over 40 years, Julia personified the enjoyment of cooking and eating, forever changing the way we think about food. 

Fast-forward and the brand called Julia Child has “renaissanced” (not really a word but it is now)… from pioneering trail-blazer to mainstream fuelled the 2009 hit Julie & Julia.  Depicting true events in the life of Chef Julia Child in the early years in her culinary career, the movie contrasts her life with Julie Powell, the New York blogger who cooked her way through all 524 recipes from Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year.

Sending box office, book and spin-off media sales through the roof, Julia Child is a fun case study in the drivers that make any brand “cool”: 

1. originality
2. uniqueness
3. timelessness
4. innovation

Originality/Uniqueness

• Delightfully candid with self descriptors like “enthusiastic carnivore”, she was as refreshing as she was adorable.  (Definitely an original.)
• And as the proud new owner of a box set of DVD’s capturing 36 episodes of Julia’s cooking show The French Chef, I can add that I had forgotten what a culinary comedian she was!  You can’t help but crack up watching her truss a goose and cry out “You just whack it off!” as she raises then slams a large knife down on a wing joint.  Then you think you’re watching an old Saturday Night Live episode when she lines up a long row of chickens on the counter to explain the difference between a roaster, fryer and every bird in between… they look like they’re going to break into a head-less song and dance. 
• And don’t even get me started on the whimsical, nasal lilt in her voice when she passionately and breathlessly exclaims things like, “And NOW it’s time to add the RED wyyyyyyyn”.  (You just gotta love her.)

Timelessness/Innovation

First published almost 50 years ago, Mastering the Art of French Cooking demystified the daunting, classic cuisine with easy-to-follow tips and techniques in plain English.  From bouillabaisse to her famous Boeuf Bourguignon, this French cooking bible/cookbook continues to show beginners and seasoned chefs the way.

You don’t have to be a foodie to be drawn into the joie de vivre around the Julia Child story.  It’s fantastically fun and charming… add that she lived 92, animated years savouring French food, butter and more butter?  Bon appétit! 

MY SOAPBOX:  While Hollywood certainly paid homage to the culinary icon and breathed new life into the enduring Julia Child legacy, the fact that she never allowed her name to promote a commercial product makes it even more of a marketing masterpiece in personal branding. 

Developing a personal brand is an imperative component of today’s on and offline world.  What’s your story?

brand experiences, brand strategy, branding, julia child, julie & julia, julie powell, mastering the art of french cooking, personal brand, Personal Branding, smd marketing, smdmarketing, susan dore, the french chef