1. Pg. 1 – Oprah’s Marketing Campaign Exposed © Michael D Russo
Oprah’s Marketing Campaign
Exposed!
By Michael D. Russo
What is the key to marketing?
Understanding your market. I have found this to be
the biggest factor for success with bold campaigns.
Getting noticed is one thing, being able to translate
your story into sales is another entirely. The most
successful campaigns always lead onto something
bigger and better than at the start and not every campaign is run with sales in mind.
The following is the result of the National Marketing Campaign that was put together to help capitalise on Oprah
Winfrey’s visit to Australia. You don’t have to be involved in the marketing industry to understand the power that
someone of Oprah’s calibre can have on a product, industry, political issue or even a country. In the case of her visit
to Australia, the purpose of the huge marketing machine that was established, was to improve tourism to the land
Down Under. The visit was a joint business arrangement that took more than a year to put together between
Tourism Australia and Harpo Productions (Oprah’s production company). Collectively Australian State Governments
and Tourism Australia put up millions of dollars to ensure the US Media Queen’s visit. Add to that the massive push
and investment from big name sponsors such as Qantas Airlines (among others) and you have a readymade
marketing machine worth many hundreds of millions of dollars over the next decade at least. The winners –
Australian tourism!
So the question becomes how can this affect YOUR business? A small operation of only a handful of staff, no
recognised name, limited resources and no ties to Harpo or any of the major government or private organisations
involved in such an event. What follows are simple marketing strategies you can use to bring new blood into your
business. Many of which were used as part of the ‘Oprah in Oz National Welcome Campaign’. You don’t have to
have a visit by Oprah to make many of these strategies work but this is the Oprah in Oz Marketing Story.
In September 2010 Oprah Winfrey announced on her world popular television show that she would visit Australia as
part of the final season of her hit show. The announcement was made, around four months prior to her trip,
scheduled for December 2010. By this time most of the major sponsors, deals and negotiations were already in
place. At the time I was consulting with a small but talented television production company. The Oprah campaign
was just one of several major initiatives at the time. The challenge for the company was the same as most. Get
noticed, bring in more clients, sure up the cash flows and build long term equity.
With a budget that started at zero and nothing but a phone and internet connection I had two main challenges.
Funding the campaign and finding support. I went to work to identify the target market. What were we trying to
achieve. We wanted exposure and clients. Exposure being the primary objective (sales would follow in due course).
Our main revenue consisted of corporate work from small business in producing product and promotional videos
and television commercials. Our objective was to tap into a larger corporate market that would have a regular
spend on our services.
We knew two things about our product. One, every small business owner wants more exposure and two, video is
the number one converter of online sales in the world today. About 500% better than any other online sales tool.
So armed with this knowledge we identified two main areas of interest for us. The first was the small business
owner. Always looking for greater exposure we could provide them with an online video for use with social

2. Pg. 2 – Oprah’s Marketing Campaign Exposed © Michael D Russo
marketing on their website or as a promotional tool in their sales kit. This provided small but regular income as we
sold many of these low costs videos to many different clients. The second key area was that of larger corporate that
had a substantial sales and marketing budget and would spend more money on a regular basis for promotional
campaigns or commercials.
There was a lot of buzz about Oprah’s visit. The challenge was to tie a story into current events that would get us
noticed by the media and by Harpo and be exciting enough that other companies would not only join us in the
campaign but pay to be involved. What we came up with was the ‘Oprah in Oz National Welcome Campaign’, which
as the name suggests was simply a way to say G’day and welcome her to Oz. We wanted to make sure she had the
best welcome of any country she had ever been to and with the reception the country put on as a whole from
individuals, to community organisations and of course the government and big corporate I think it’s safe to say that
was very much accomplished.
So how did we show our support?
By shooting a Welcome Video for her arrival. We began by identifying companies in our target market and asking
them if they wanted to be part of a video shoot for Oprah’s visit. We were looking for 3-15 people per organisation
to come down for 30 mins and say Hi. The response was overwhelming. Originally scheduled as a one day shoot, we
ended up shooting for 3 days and filming over 30 companies including more than half a dozen big national
organisations (which just happened to fit our market perfectly, surprise, surprise). We specifically looked for
companies that could help us broaden the reach of the campaign by marketing to their own members and
employees.
What happened was an opportunity for hundreds of new people to see our facilities, get a chance to meet us and
show what we could do. On the day, at the completion of each shoot, we took them into our edit suite and showed
them some short funny videos we had made. There was no sales pitch, simply an introduction to our team.
Everybody that saw us left smiling or laughing at what they had seen. Overnight our credibility went through the
roof. Each group also received a photo shoot during filming of their video which was edited and sent to them on
email - often before they got back to the office. This gave them an immediate talking point which was emailed and
facebooked to friends, clients, employees, company directors and even media long before the video they shot was
ready.
The campaign also consisted of a Facebook fan page and gave us ample opportunity to talk about events, companies,
individuals or activities involved in the campaign. Over the few months leading up to Oprah’s arrival thousands of
‘fans’ visited the page and watched the videos on You Tube.
We also contacted local schools asking for submissions from Australian school children who wanted to send their
greetings. Once again the result was hundreds of cards, pictures and paintings that were later sent to Harpo. This
point is particularly important because no matter what we did to get media attention the ‘corporate welcome video’,
as it was called by some, did not seem to get the interest we had hoped. It wasn’t until a local paper picked up the
story about school children showing an interest in Oprah’s visit that the campaign gained wide spread media
interest. The paper ran a full page spread on page 3 about the story and we began to get mainstream radio and
newspaper coverage thereafter. It’s always important to have more than one angle to your campaigns.
The total campaign exposure reached an audience over 1 million people. In addition to this we got a pocket full of
new clients to approach in the New Year who already trusted and liked us as well as new contacts with media,
consultants, companies and not to mention internal communications with Harpo!
Now I should point out here that we achieved all of this and DID NOT make it on the Oprah show as part of her visit
or anywhere in her official tour.
My question is, “Did it Matter?”

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Was our objective to get onto the Oprah show in the first place? Of course we were trying to get noticed by Oprah’s
people and was hoping she would share some of her light with us. However, although this was number one on our
list of objectives, it was last on the list in terms of priorities for us. What we wanted was greater exposure and new
clients and we got both. Had we, or any of our clients, secured one of those coveted spots on The Oprah Show we
had a pitch all ready to go. We knew going in that all of the ‘important people’, the big boys with the deep pockets if
you will, had already stitched up virtually all available time so everything we were doing was an outside chance. Yet
the results spoke for themselves. The campaign became a launching pad for many other projects.
Oh and by the way. Remember how I said not every campaign is about sales? That may be true but every campaign
costs something in time and resources. This is how we paid for this one. We simply asked each company to ‘pitch in’
and help cover some of the costs. We suggested a nominal fee for each person participating in their shoot and told
them it would be greatly appreciated. They paid willingly. Although this was not a profit generating exercise, rather
an awareness campaign, it did cover costs and lead to a number of new sales even while the campaign was still in
progress.
So if Oprah’s not coming to your town any time soon how do you tap into big name ‘stars’ or brands? Once you have
a clear idea of what you want to achieve, start looking for events, people or stories you can weigh into that will raise
your credibility or that of your brand. If you can’t find something that fits your mould, create one.
The two keys points are these; have a good story to tell and make sure it’s one others can easily get involved with.
The more people on board talking about your story the greater the exposure.
This story was specifically written for those without Million Dollar Budgets. It’s easy to make a campaign work when
your GM says to you – “Go do it, here’s a budget of $4 million, make it work!”
It’s when you’re trying to accomplish an objective and you have $1000 to work with or less, then things become
difficult.
Hans Jakobi, a retired property millionaire, and mentor of mine once said to me,
“The lack of money causes creativity – when you have money there’s no need to be creative!”
If you want to work with big boys with deeper pockets, don’t go to them with a product or an idea. Go to them with
a pitch for a campaign. “Here’s how to make it work and this is the exposure we expect – Oh and by the way I
happen to have a product that can fill than need!”
Marketing applies as much to the entrepreneur as it does to the product they sell. Sometimes the entrepreneur is
the product and is better to promote them than what they sell.
Marketing Fundamentals is the life blood of many a new enterprise but often last implemented as new
entrepreneurs focus on what they know, which all too often is not marketing. Learn it, live it, try it and you’ll always
have new clients, new products and a market willing to buy what you’re selling.
Michael D Russo
Help For Entrepreneurs
michaeldrusso.com
michael@michaeldrusso.com