Oprah's Brand Power

If you’ve been watching television at all this week you will have heard how Oprah, with one tweet, boosted the value of Weight Watchers by $150MM.  One has to be impressed with the economic clout of a woman like that.  Oprah may not be on conventional television anymore but her influence on people is still huge.

Reasons why she is influential include her enormous appeal as a down to earth, approachable person.  She won audiences over in her early days on her talk show by being open and honest about her own weaknesses.  She was always empathetic towards her guests and she really built on that connection.  As time went on she shifted the purpose of her show from being sensational and exploitive to being more informative and nurturing which exploded her popularity for a second time.  She went on to assist others with a career on television, Dr. Phil, Rachel Ray, Nate Berkus and Dr. Oz to name a few.  Along with that she recognized herself as a “brand” and started her O magazine empire, a radio network and then the OWN network.  This woman has huge media clout.

She has her Angel Network for charity work, her school for girls in South Africa, she has an Oprah Book Club (her endorsement makes the book a guaranteed best seller), she works with Deepak Chopra on Meditation, she publishes books taken from her articles in her O magazine, and on and on.  She is a power house of energy, ideas, and enthusiasms and through it all she makes a tremendous connection with people, particularly women.

Little wonder that any company would jump at the chance to have her on board as a spokesperson as well as assuming a seat on the board of directors.  We may have a gender gap but we also have some women who truly have risen to the top of the heap in the corporate world.  I am suitably impressed.