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Oprah Winfrey

The Oprah Winfrey Network

BMIHMS

November 14, 2013 Authored by: Luis Benavides

Lecturer: Juliet TanBBC302 Business Management Entrepreneurship

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Executive Summary

Born in the United States, Oprah Winfrey has gained fame and power by using

charisma and her communication gifts in a smart way. We will be addressing her

history and her personality traits in order to identify the factors that made this

entrepreneur so famous and how she became one of the most powerful women in

the world.

In order to get this information, this report will be referenced on the Forbes diary,

several of her biographies around the internet and one of her biography books.

We will reach the conclusion that Oprah knew how to play the marketing game and

that she knew how to build her personal brand in an attempt to leave her past behind

and go from a little scared and mistreated girl to the woman she is now by breaking

all the barriers she had to go through and to bypass all the obstacles in front of her.

Its recommended for people that read this report to approach it with an open mind

and genuine curiosity in order to enjoy most of it.

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Contents

Executive Summary .................................................................................................. 1

History of Oprah Winfrey ........................................................................................... 3

Oprahs Mindset and Personality .............................................................................. 4

Competitive Strategies used by Oprah ....... ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ....... 5

Entrepreneur on Business Management and Intrepreneurial Pursuits ........ ........ ....... 5

Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 6

Referencing .............................................................................................................. 7

Appendix ........ ........ ........ ........ ....... ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ....... ........ ........ ..... 8

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History of Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Gail Winfrey, well known for being a TV show is also a producer, actress,

business owner, philanthropist and author of books. She was born in Kosciusko,

Mississippi the 29 th of January in 1954.

Considered the most powerful in 2005, she is indeed one of the most powerful

influences of the XX century.

This Afro-American woman is an admirable entrepreneur as she wasn t born in a

good nor wealthy position. Her childhood was very hard.

During her early childhood, Oprah suffered abuses that affected her physically and

psychologically. When she was nine, her cousin and her uncle raped her. She got

pregnant when she was 14 due the mistreatments she was being under. As a sign offaith and humanity, she decided to keep the baby; sadly she had a miscarriage

before the baby could be even born.

With a strong mind and proposed goals in a stable manner in her mind, she decided

to keep going. When she was 19, she got a scholarship and decided to study

Communications in the University of Tennessee; she started working as a reporter in

a radio station in Nashville where she even won Beauty Contests.

The first step in her business journey in TV started thanks to the contract shecelebrated with Chicago s WSL-TV that offered her a job as a presenter in a TV Talk

Show called People are Talking lasting for 8 years due her great cognitive and

social skills in front of the camera.

She took another big step in her career when WSL-TV hired her to be the own

presenter of her own TV Morning Show. Her great charisma soon turned this small

TV show successful and soon it was renamed to The Oprah Winfrey Show which is

very famous and still has a really big rating on TV despite its age.

Oprah has also succeeded as an actress in several movies and has shown empathy

for the people that live in a bad situation at the moment.

She has demonstrated that, after all, being a good entrepreneurship is not just

having a lot of money but to be able to work hard and be able to take whatever that

comes without whining about unfortunate events that happen to him or her.

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Competitive Strategies used by Oprah

The Oprah TV Show has a diverse range of competitors on TV. Hallmark andLifetime WE are always changing in order to compete with the shows launched byOprah Winfrey.

Being the most powerful TV program for women at the moment, Oprah has beenusing the Bypass Strategy in order to diversify her show. This is, Oprah always triesto differentiate her show from others by doing new things and this helps in luringmore people to watch her network.

By being consistent and using a multicultural approach in her TV show Oprahapplies the Bypass strategy in an effort to make her program different from the onesaired on Hallmark and Lifetime WE.

The second example would be against the Ellen DeGeneres show. Both of these TVshows are really successful therefore Oprah has to use a Flanker Attack in order togain something from it. Oprah s TV Network created a website, a magazine, a radiochannel and her own mobile device app in order to offer more to the show viewer,Ellen DeGeneres in comparison, cannot do this because of the nature of herprogram and the fact that she doesn t own the network her TV show airs on.

Entrepreneur on Business Management andIntrepreneurial Pursuits

Oprah has diversified her established business by creating strategic alliances withthe TV distributor King World in order to distribute her TV Show. She has alsocreated an alliance between The Oprah Winfrey Show and the ABC TV Chain inorder to distribute her TV Movies.Thinking about her market target which are Women, Children and Educative Sector;she invested in Oxygen Media LLC. This company owns a women-targeted cablenetwork to which creates a TV show called Live your Life for.

By doing this People automatically felt carried by her charisma and it was no lie thather ideas were not bad but perfect.

Considering her own success, she immigrated to other markets and created newcompanies such as: Harpo Productions, Harpo Studios, Harpo Films, Harpo PrintLLC and Harpo Video. She also created and launched her own self-improvementmagazine called The Oprah Magazine . The success of the magazine turned outbetter than expected and surpassed its growth expectations.

Oprah has also made her TV show and TV network very available to people, withover more than 24 seasons and 5,000 episodes, Oprah includes a lot of variety inher TV show. She succeeds in Marketing by making the watcher feel that he or sheis part of the TV show as the people that are presented in The Oprah Winfrey showdo represent the social or cultural background of everybody. This has put the showas the leader of audience in the US, even over her top competitors.

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Referencing

Amy Fontinelle. (2011). 6 Business Lessons You Can Learn From Oprah. Available:http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0611/6-business-lessons-you-can-learn-from-oprah.aspx. Last accessed 12 Nov 2013.

Cin Escariot. (2010). Oprah Winfrey. Available:http://www.hoycinema.com/perfil/Oprah-Winfrey.htm. Last accessed 12 Nov 2013.

David Bauder. (2010). Oprah's network leads competition to rethink goals. Available:http://www.today.com/id/40755620/#.UoPp_lC-2m4. Last accessed 12 Nov 2013.

Lisa Arthur. (2012). What Oprah Taught Me About Marketing . . . andPedicures. Available: http://www.forbes.com/sites/lisaarthur/2011/05/24/what-oprah-taught-me-about-marketing-and-pedicures/2/. Last accessed 12th Nov 2013.

Rant Sullov. (2013). Oprah Winfrey. Available: http://www.forbes.com/profile/oprah-winfrey/. Last accessed 12 Nov 2013.

Rohit Bhargava. (2012). Truth: The True Story Of How Oprah Became Oprah. Available:http://www.rohitbhargava.com/2012/05/truth.html. Last accessed 12 Nov 2013.

Scott Allen. (n.d). Oprah Winfrey - About.com Readers' Most AdmiredEntrepreneur. Available:http://entrepreneurs.about.com/od/famousentrepreneurs/p/oprahwinfrey.htm. Last accessed 12 Nov 2013.

Yeye Covar. (2013). Oprah Winfrey - Harpo Inc. Available:http://clubensayos.com/Negocios/Oprah-Winfrey--Harpo-Inc/1043388.html. Lastaccessed 12 Nov 2013.

Susan Berfield. (2011). Brand Oprah Has Some Marketing Lessons. Available:http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_22/b4230020001120.htm. Lastaccessed 12 Nov 2013.

Sue Wentforth. (2013). Brand History: Oprah and triumph. Available:http://www.theredzone.co.za/747-brand-history-oprah-and-triumph. Last accessed 12Nov 2013.

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Appendix