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I’m going to write my paper about Oprah Winfrey, because I find it very interesting how one woman can have so much influence on people all over the world.

“In what ways can Oprah influence a community, and how does branding play a role in this”?

Oprah Winfrey is considered one of the most powerful women of our time. Oprah Winfrey was also the first African American woman to become a billionaire. She started broadcasting in Nashville, Tennessee, at the age of 17, moving to news then talk shows. In 1976, Winfrey moved to Baltimore, where she hosted the TV chat show, ‘People Are Talking’. The show became a hit and Winfrey stayed with it for eight years, in 1984 she hosted WLS-TV's morning talk show, AM Chicago. Within one month she became the number one talk show. In less than a year, the show expanded and was renamed ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’. In 1988, She gained ownership of the program from ABC, and she established Harpo Productions, Inc. (“Oprah” spelled backwards), a production facility that established her as the third woman in American entertainment to own such a studio (and the first to own and produce her own talk show.) In 1994, with talk shows becoming increasingly trashy and exploitative, Winfrey kept her show free of tabloid topics. In 1996, Oprah’s Book Club was ‘born’. It’s an on-air reading club, intended to get the country excited about literature again. All Oprah Book Club selections to date have become instant bestsellers. She was presented with the National Book Foundation's 50th anniversary gold medal for all that Oprah's Book Club has done for books and authors. In 1998, she saw even more recognition by being named one of the 100 Most Influential People of the 20th Century by Time Magazine. She also received the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences' Lifetime Achievement Award.

Influences:

Oprah brings her select group of professional healers to her panel and these experts give their dose of expertise to solve these people’s problems. She has introduced world famous psychiatrists and therapists to the show as guests to offer important advice to her television audience. She has also introduced a segment called “Remembering your spirit”. This part of the show discusses spiritual themes and attempts to teach people to be grateful for the life that they have, not for the life that they aspire to be. This segment, known as “Thank you God for what I have in life” is highly religious and spiritual. Oprah brings on people who have experienced tragedy and transformation. Oprah Winfrey has a connection with her audience because of many factors. She is a talkative person who speaks her mind; she is outgoing, and seems to expose her soul to the audience. This intimate exposure and display of vulnerability endears her to her audience. This makes her a part of the family and a recognizable part of their lives. She is like another sister or mother or more importantly, a close friend. In 1998 when she was sued for making a public remark on her show talking about the mad cow disease, “I’m not eating a hamburger now”. She was sued by the Texas Cattle association for bringing down beef sales. (This is when she met Dr. Phil, and eventually helped him get his own television show) This illustrates that she has a tremendous amount of power and influence and she can actually devastate an industry. When she won her court case, she spoke at a press conference outside the courthouse. “Free speech rocks”, she said. Some critics would say she should not have made her opinions public because of her influence on society. They say she has a manipulative personality that has her supporters spellbound. She is more than just an influence as she represents a system of values and a religion. There is a sense of finality and confidence when she speaks. She is very certain of her opinions and she makes her opinions very clear and known. She is not merely a talk show host but a representative of morality of today.

‘Oprah’ has become a household name. Her focus has been uplifting women through the content on her show, in her magazine, as well as online and encourages her viewers to “Live Your Best Life”.[1] Oprah.com is the official website and covers projects in which Winfrey and Harpo Productions are involved. It includes links to information on her two shows, ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show and Oprah after the Show’. The website is a combination of message boards, chat rooms, O Groups, the O! Oprah Magazine ; her book club, Oprah's Angel Network, and biographical information and online journal create the structure for discourse on a wide array of topics. There are also pages on the site dedicated to the topics around which Winfrey focuses her television and magazine stories: spirit and self, relationships, food and home, and mind and body. Additionally, the site provides access to a newsletter, e-mail contacts, a message board and an online journal. Oprah.com places a significant focus on philanthropy, with information on hundreds of charities highlighted on The Oprah Winfrey Show and volunteering opportunities for visitors. But most importantly, Oprah.com combines and extends the franchise of the Oprah Winfrey Show and “O Magazine” into a commercialized space where women of all races are targeted for marketing purposes.

The link to the Oprah's Angel Network gives the reader tips on how to start making a difference and how to make a donation. The site provides resources for creating a nonprofit organization. “Oprah’s Angel Network”, is a large fundraising campaign in which Oprah donates homes “Oprah houses”. Through her angel network and through other private contributions to her fund, families have been chosen from across the United States as recipients for newly built bungalows. These homes are built by volunteers of the community and backed by Oprah’s funds.

Related Nonprofit Organizations:

There are hundreds of nonprofit organizations listed on the Oprah's Angel Network portion of the Oprah.com Web site, These organizations have been profiled on The Oprah Winfrey Show and fall into the following categories: children, women, special interests, community, family and housing, and health. They are recipients of donations from the network or the “Use Your Life Award.” The list is updated regularly.

The Garden Project , based in San Francisco, “promotes valuable life skills like work ethic, self-confidence and literacy as well as gives prisoners and ex-offenders an opportunity to give back to their communities by teaching them the farming trade” (Harpo Productions).

Heifer International is a well-established organization dedicated to helping impoverished families address hunger by becoming self-reliant. Donations to the Heifer Project purchase animals for families in hunger-stricken countries or impoverished areas within developed countries. The animals are used by the recipients to produce food (e.g., eggs from chickens and milk from goats) and products that can earn them a living (e.g., sale of a donated sheep's wool).

Susan G. Komen Foundation strives to eliminate breast cancer through the advancement of research, education, screening and treatment. The foundation has raised more than $250 million. The Komen Race for the Cure series is the largest series of 5K runs/fitness walks in the world. Over one million participants walk or run in more than 100 cities across the U.S. and in several foreign countries. In 2002, the race raised nearly $83 million and only six percent of the proceeds spent on fundraising costs. The Komen Foundation is the largest private funding source for breast cancer research and community outreach programs.

Free the Children Web site, at http://www.freethechildren.org/ , provides information on this “international network of children helping children at a local, national and international level through representation, leadership and action” (Free the Children). The organization fights to free children from poverty and exploitation, as well as empowering them to understand they are able to take leadership and have a voice in what happens in the world. It was founded by Craig Kielburger at the age of twelve. The site can also be found in a link through Oprah's Angel Network.

Habitat for Humanity International Web site offers information about the organization's programs, history, events, access to local affiliates and more. The site also provides Habitat World , a worldwide magazine providing stories and up-to-date information about the organization. This nonprofit organization pairs resources and volunteers together to build affordable housing for those in need. The site can be found with a link through the Oprah's Angel Network section of the Oprah.com Web site.

The “Oprah Book Club” initiated in 1996. With her promotion of her monthly book club, she gives out a copy of her monthly chosen selection to the audience and she has a contest. She asks viewers to write her a letter about why the book was so important to them. Her staff chooses the 6-10 people who have written the most articulate response. The winners are then invited to have dinner with Oprah and the author of the book at her home. This helps develop a closer relationship with the audience. The dinner and discussion with the author is then taped and shown to the studio audience and the television viewers. This technique makes the viewer feel like a part of her family. ‘We get into her personal life and she appears to let people in very closely’[2].

"Building a brand out of a client is not necessarily suitable for every client," says
Brian Dubin, head of WMA's East Coast commercial division. "The key is finding those clients who do have an interest in building a brand out of their name or out of an image that they represent." "This is a niche in the market," says Michael Flutie, owner of management company and talent branding firm Michael Flutie's Office. "It's so small; not that many experts exist." Creating a brand, say those who are doing it, means taking something amorphous and making it tangible. Branding also can mean simply identifying a career goal and implementing a game plan to achieve it. But appealing to a great number of people while maintaining a core audience is one of the greatest challenges of a branding campaign. Usually, those who take a long view and grow their brand slowly have the longest shelf life; one of the best examples is Winfrey, who has built a multimedia empire on the strength of her personality and a consistent self-empowerment message. Because of her talk-show and her monthly cover shot on O: The Oprah Magazine, she does not require additional media attention to put her brand before the public. "She's been incredibly smart in how she's managed the Oprah brand," says Jim Andrews, editorial director at the IEG Sponsorship Report, which tracks corporate sponsorships and endorsements.[3] Oprah has been called “…a magnet for women…”[4] she views the Internet as “…an essential means of extending the commercial success of the ‘Oprah Brand’ in the twenty-first century…”[5] She is also a partner in the Oxygen Media Inc, which designs programming specifically geared toward women. As niche marketing has become the driving force in targeting specific groups, the Oprah Empire is a good example of the growing attention to women-focused advertising. The convergence of cable television and digital media link the importance of communication technology (television, internet) with women’s marketing and are able to “…target the female audience across online and offline environments for advertising and research purposes”[6]. Many advertisers look for a brand that has the greatest potential for convergence flexibility, consumer loyalty, and global recognition, all of which are present in Oprah. Advertisers want to be on Oprah.com, in her “O Magazine” and have television spots because they have a captive and loyal audience.

Leslie Ragan Shade’s book “Gender and Community in the Social Construction of the Internet” talks about how the gendering of different communication technologies has lead to diverse women’s cultures and communities on the Internet. She focuses on how women are portrayed as consumers and purchasers on the Internet. She outlines the emergence and promotion of “…a commercial internet environment for women, fueled by the entry of large corporate interests…” In the section titled “Shop Till You Drop”, the emergence of women online has created a demand for relevant topics (health, beauty, finances, etc.) to keep them online. Given that advertisers “…want the most bang for their buck…” and because women have 80% of the buying power in household purchases, advertisements promoting products for women is essential to a successful website. Because “men are surfers and women are seekers, going online for specific information…not spending hours looking around” suggests a different pattern of consumer behavior unique to the commercialization of the Internet. The Oprah Brand has recognized this, and has therefore created a demand for advertisers to promote their products with the Oprah name attached. The Oprah Brand focuses on the issues facing women today, not just White women or African American women or a particular age group. The focus on improving oneself for the better is a message that transcends cultural distinctions and every woman can find something they can relate to somewhere in her media products. As Cooks, Paredes, and Scharrer note in “There’s ‘O Place’ Like Home”, “Much of the content on Oprah.com is a reproduction of content in the magazine and the talk show” and thus does constrain the actual amount of content online. However, this does lead to brand recognition and an ability to focus target-marketing efforts in the virtual realm. The login process consists of giving your age, household income, race among other tracing characteristics to better target Oprah.com’s members.

Barbara Warnick’s “Masculinizing the Feminine: Inviting Women Online ca. 1997” outlines why there was an increase in the amount of women online and the mixed messages sent the female’s way at the beginning of the online craze. She points to the fact that “…there was more available in this medium that was of interest to women than there had been previously…” and Oprah.com as well as the Oxygen network are prime examples of the growing trend of sites for women. Advertisers recognize the importance of the niche market, and their “…interest in developing Web-based markets for their products aligns with their interest in the female consumer…” The internet was seen as a place of growing opportunity, and many women who did not venture online would miss out on community, self and relational building. Warnick also argues that women with families and children who may have felt that there was little reason to go online were met with hundreds of sites dedicated just to those topics. The Oxygen Network as well as the Lifetime Network are two cable channels/Internet sites that approached women through a media that they were already familiar with: television. The Oprah Winfrey show encourages its viewers to log on and talk to Oprah.com after the show and view it on the Oxygen Network. Encouraging women to go online has been increased by advertising, which recognized that women are typically the household purchasing power. All sorts of companies recognized this and began to advertise on women’s websites recognizing that “Advertisers’ interest in developing Web-based markets for their products aligns with their interest in the female consumer”. The content was forced to alter as more and more women came online, focusing more on what average females wanted to view. Warnick goes on to argue that masculinizing the feminine meant to construct an ideal type of woman, who was career oriented, opportunist, tried new things and who lead the purchasing power of her family. Shopping innuendoes are present throughout the “O Magazine” and Oprah.com, and their significance is important because of the large following that the Oprah Brand has. If Oprah says that a certain item is cool, it’s cool for all ages and races. The O List that appears in every issue of “O Magazine” lists items that Oprah herself uses and endorses. Every other page in her O List contains an advertisement (Crate and Barrel, Ellen Tracy Parfum, Visa, Pier 1 Imports, Ferrero Rocher Chocolate) further promoting products. Realizing that advertisements are a major part of revenue for magazines and online websites, it is important to look at how the advertisements use their products to appeal to a particular audience or target market, and in Oprah Brand, that is women. The products on her O List and the advertisements in-between are female oriented. The Ellen Tracy Parfum evokes the image of wonder and freshness, targeting those older women who want that innocence feeling again. The Visa advertisement shows a young light skinned African American female wearing hip clothing, walking confidently down the street with trendy clothing boutiques behind her. This ad specifically targets young, college age women who are still trying to find a place or discover where they fit in, usually through commercialized clothing and shopping. This ad suggests that if you use Visa, you will feel confident in your new trendy clothes and find a place to fit in.

The Oprah’s Favorite Things television show is another example of the focus on consuming women. Twice a year, an audience is surprised by being on Oprah’s Favorite Things show, in which Oprah gives away, knowing that the free advertising they will receive will more than balance out the cost of the product itself. Oprah’s Favorite Things are in great demand after the show. Oprah makes sure to include items that a wide range of women in different economic situations could afford. Oprah.com and “O Magazine” also advertises items that are on her Favorite Things List, putting the contact number and website to promote the purchasing of the products. The Oprah Brand works to increase demand for a product just because someone says they like it or have it. In “Creating a Space for ‘Every Woman’ at Oprah.com”, Cooks, Scharrer, and Paredes analyzed how women participate and form relationships online, what the social and cultural basis for their participation and whether sites such as Oprah.com are important for women. They concluded that “…there is no doubt that online spaces are important sites for women, but whether commercial sites like Oprah.com are the best models is yet to be determined” Should we take a site like Oprah.com and only look at how it commercializes women? Or is the bigger picture more relevant, and addressing the topics that are important to women should be given more credit? The community building that Cooks has found is central to the appeal of Oprah by women nationwide and “…her value lies in the degree of esteem with which she is held by millions of women throughout the world…her female audience describes her as a trusted friend, a confidant, and ally” As Lisa Nakamura shows in “Where do you want to go today? Cybernetic Tourism, the Internet, and Transnationality” the invisible process of “Othering” or the putting someone in a category based on being different than the norm. She focuses on technology advertisements and how these, from the perspective of a white person, attempt to erase the boundaries that are associated with race but in fact create “Othering” through the images used. When looking at Oprah.com, it is clear that although Oprah is an African American, the website does not focus on this one aspect of race. Since Oprah appeals to all races (as evidenced by the audience on her show), Oprah.com also appeals to all races of women. Oprah’s mission is to “…use television to transform people's lives, to make viewers see themselves differently and to bring happiness and a sense of fulfillment into every home”[7]

Winfrey not only been voted one of the 100 Most Influential People in America but also has become something of a cultural icon. Through her shows, she touches on topics such as dieting, makeovers, battered wives and children, dysfunctional families, horrific tragedies, and abuse in all forms. ‘Oprah’ has become a household name. Her focus has been uplifting women through the content on her show, in her magazine, as well as online and encourages her viewers to “Live Your Best Life”. Oprah can be seen as a community because of all the different people she reaches out to. Oprah Winfrey has a connection with her audience because of many factors. She is a talkative person who speaks her mind; she is outgoing, and seems to expose her soul to the audience. This intimate exposure and display of vulnerability endears her to her audience. This makes her a part of the family and a recognizable part of their lives. She is like another sister or mother or more importantly, a close friend. Oprah Winfrey has built a multimedia empire on the strength of her personality and a consistent self-empowerment message. Because of her talk-show and her monthly cover shot on O: The Oprah Magazine, she does not require additional media attention to put her brand before the public. "She's been incredibly smart in how she's managed the Oprah brand. Oprah is clearly an icon of mass culture because although she wants to make a difference in people’s live, she is still commodity. Her name is linked with many organizations and companies know that if she promotes the product, they will get higher sales. She is not directly a commodity but she represents an instrument in which corporations can use her persona to influence others to purchase products, and services.

Consalvo, Mia, and Susanna Paasonen. Women and Everyday uses of the Internet: Agency and Identity. New York: Peter Lang Publishing Inc., 2002. 139-141.

Cooks, Leda; Scharrer, Erica; and Paredes, Maria. "Creating a Space for 'Every Woman' at Oprah.com" Communication Institute for Online Scholarship, Inc., 2003.

Jackson, Linda; Ervin, Kelly; Gardner, Philip; and Schimitt, Neal. "Gender and the Internet: Women Communicating and Men Searching" Sex Roles: A Journal of Research. Plenum Publishing Corporation, March, 2001. Accessed via Expanded Academic ASAP November 17, 2003.

Tybout, A. &Carpenter- Creating and managing brands in: Iacobucci,D.(ed.) (2001) Kelogg on Marketing (New york: John Wiley&Sons, inc.)

Shade, Leslie Ragan. Gender and Community in the Social Construction of hte Internet. NewYork: Peter Lang Publishing, 2002.

Warnick, Barbara. "Masculinizing the Feminine: Inviting Women Online ca. 1997". Critical Literacy in a Digital Era: Technology, Rhetoric and the Public Interest. New Jersey: Laurence Erlbaum Associates, 2002.

Tybout, A. &Carpenter- Creating and managing brands in: Iacobucci,D.(ed.) (2001) Kelogg on Marketing (New york: John Wiley&Sons, inc.)

[1] Oprah Online, 2003

[2] People, Dec 20, 1999

[3] http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/television/feature_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=2030984

[4] (Cooks, Paredes, and Scharrer, 153)

[5] (Cooks et al., 153)

[6] (Cooks, 155)

[7] (Oprah.com, Online).


	charlene May 9, 2005 04:59 PM PDT oprah i desprately need your help. kind regrads charlene


	whitney April 12, 2005 03:56 AM PDT im reasearching oprah and her influence on americain women, and i appreciate your paper. i has helped a lot!


	Blair January 20, 2005 02:55 AM PST wow! what a brilliant topic! i am disappointed that you haven't blogged since june last year - you've got something interesting to say! keep it up!

Influences:

Related Nonprofit Organizations: