Has Oprah Changed Celebrity Endorsements Forever?
Amongst one of the most influential and powerful celebrities worldwide, Oprah Winfrey just stepped up and changed celebrity endorsement deals in a way very few have times 70,000,000!
Most brands and their agencies when vetting a potential alignment with a celebrity, go about many traditional means including polling, analytics, social media evaluation and many other key contributing factors. Once the noodle is run through the soup, what comes out is confirmation or rejection. You only have two choices when it comes to a celebrity.
Even with a 97% recognition by consumers according to TMA and #18 ranking on a measurement of a celebrity’s endorsability, still doesn’t tell the story of the Oprah brand. You see, Oprah is like your grandmother, your favorite aunt, your best friend, your mentor, your protector, your favorite teacher, your girl scout troop leader, your favorite coach and so much more all rolled into one incredibly smart, adept, calculating, insightful, market altering Megalodon! Forget about the “sharks” on Shark Tank. Oprah makes them look like toothless guppies!
The definition of the word Nirvana is not just a Kurt Corbain band, it is when something feels absolutely perfect. Oprah’s acquisition of 10% of Weight Watchers, becoming a board member and their global marketer-in-chief is Nirvana! Very few times in my career have I been stopped in my tracks to analyze a celebrity deal and thought to myself, money aside, I wish I had done that deal! This is one of those very rare times! The enormity of this opportunity, the timing, the fit (no pun intended) is flat out remarkable.
The integrated opportunities, the brand elevation, the stock bump are all well and good, but you can’t be over 25 years old and remember at least two iterations of Oprah, one heavy and one not heavy. And their-in lies the true beauty of this star alignment! Oprah is a woman unlike any other woman who has experienced her life through weight gain and weight loss, publicly. She is one of the tens of millions that suffer from this and she understands the stresses and anxieties about dealing with a self image that is manifested from her weight. This is not unique to women obviously but Oprah has this Yoda -like connection with women and moms!
