Oprah's and Dove Soap's Internet Monetization and Branding Strategy

Oprah is one of the smartest entrepreneurs in the world and has one of the most recognizable brands and her team works hard to protect and grow her brand. As a Baltimore native, I would like to think that it was the water that Oprah imbibed during her long stint working in Baltimore that prepared her for success. Right after she left Baltimore for Chicago she became a world wide superstar. Some other former Baltimoreans who became successful after leaving Baltimore include: Babe Ruth, Barry Levinson, John Waters, and Nancy Pelosi so I hope my water theory is true because it gives hope to all former Baltimoreans (myself included).

My two year old son is very musically inclined and enjoys watching and singing and dancing to various music videos that we watch together on Youtube. A couple of weeks ago, my wife started watching with our son a clip from a recent Oprah show that included the cast from Glee singing Journey's "Don't Stop Believin". For about a week they went to Youtube to watch the clip.

All of sudden the clip they were watching disappeared and a message appeared stating that the clip was removed due to copyright infringement. My wife then went to Oprah.com and found the clip. However, on Oprah.com, there was a 30 second Dove commercial that had to be watched before the cast of Glee's rendition of Don't Stop Believin was played. The web page that contained the Glee clip was fully branded by Dove. In addition, Dove was a sponsor of the actual episode that aired the performance on The Oprah Winfrey Show and is a sponsor on Fox.com's Glee home page.

Even though it appears that Oprah and Dove fully branded the entire user experience they both missed out on creating a Social Media 360 Deal. This was an internet brand campaign and not a social media brand campaign. To learn how to fully monetize your social media assets you may contact me at www.shearlaw.com.

Copyright 2010 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.