Oprah Cult Brand Profile

It’s hardly an accident that Oprah Winfrey has maintained such a fervently steadfast and devoted fan base during her career. She has used her talk show as a daily platform for holding heart-to-heart discussions with her audience. Some TV personalities seem distant and removed from the general public, but Oprah has never shied away from sharing intimate, personal details about her life with her audience. She has openly discussed such incredibly difficult and personal topics as being raped when she was nine and using cocaine in her twenties, as well as her ongoing battle with obesity. By sharing these intimate personal details, Oprah shows her viewers that when the lights and cameras are all put away, she faces many of the same problems as they do. She is indeed an ordinary person with ordinary problems to overcome. It’s her seeming vulnerability and fragility that make her that much more inclusive of a brand.

When she launched her book club in 1996 to, “help get America reading again,” most media pundits initially viewed it as a crazy idea and delusional. They thought talk show viewers didn’t seem a likely mix with books. Oprah went ahead anyway. Her monthly selections ignored light and fluffy romance novels and concentrated on literary works dealing with strong emotional conflicts. The formula worked. Oprah’s viewers took to the book club idea immediately, so much so that only a year after its launch, U.S. News & World Report wrote that Oprah had, “set millions to reading who hadn’t read a book since high school and has made obscure books bestsellers.” By participating in this club, every Oprah viewer becomes part of the Oprah family for a few hours each week, while still remaining unique from the world’s non-Oprah viewers.

Now, the placement of the Oprah Book Club logo on a book is the most surefire way for it to rocket onto the bestseller list. Book stores have so much faith in the “Oprah effect” that, sight unseen, they happily order thousands of copies of her upcoming club selection.

In 1997, a year after starting the book club, Oprah launched the Angel Network with the goal of inspiring people to really “use their lives” and reap the rewards that come from giving to others. It’s hard to argue with the results. Through donations of viewers, Oprah’s Angel Network has now given homes to thousands of needy people and college scholarships to hundreds of deserving students.

The foremost reason for the success of the Network is Oprah’s ability to intimately involve her viewers in the gift-giving process. She makes it a two-way street. She not only writes checks to charities herself, she gets her fan base involved with her. When the beneficiaries of the Angel Network’s donations appear as guests, viewers can almost feel the good that they are doing through this program.

Whether you like or dislike Oprah, you can’t argue with the fact that she really does care for people that are, “improving the lives of others.” The halo effect the Oprah brand receives from these community activities is very real. We all feel a certain warmth and quiet joy from helping others. Brands that bring about these feelings in us will almost always hold a special place in our hearts.