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.
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