Oprah Needs a New Brand?

Why would Oprah ever want to change her brand, a woman who has her own network, magazine, and worth over three billion dollars? There is no doubt Oprah has made an empire for herself. She promotes books and they instantly become best sellers, she supports a man and he becomes president. Oprah even makes regular guests such as Dr. OZ and Nate Berkus, celebrities who now have their own show. A recent article in Bloomsburg Business, Brand Oprah Has Some Marketing Lessons, discusses how even though Oprah is an icon she is attempting to reach a new audience.

While promoting her new network OWN Oprah appeared on The Daily Show with John Stewart in effort to reach a younger demographic. Also during The Daily Show, Oprah gave everyone in the audience a trip to Washington for John Stewart’s and Stephen Colbert’s rally. The article quotes Robert Thompson, a professor of popular culture at Syracuse University stating, “It was the first time we saw Oprah trying to suck the cultural mojo from someone else."

So will appearing on shows like The Daily Show help her in reaching this new demographic and maybe even a rebrand? In my opinion in attempts to target a new demographic Oprah should become more involved in social media, especially Twitter. Oprah currently has numerous Facebook pages and her own Twitter. However Oprah has only 882 tweets and not much interacting with her audience members, only following 33 people. Her Facebook page OWN does a better job with interacting with asking fans what they thought about the recent guest or new syndicated shows appearing on OWN. The key is reaching out like she did appearing on The Daily Show, however no follow up with that targeted demographic has left the mission in captivating a new demographic in limbo.