Martha Stewart's guilty verdict on Friday may have damaged the brand name of her household products beyond repair, even if her moniker is stripped off the labels and namesake company, retail and media experts said.
Nearly 40 percent of Americans surveyed in a consumer poll last week said they would no longer buy Martha Stewart products if the self-made millionaire was found guilty of making false statements and obstructing justice in a stock-trading scandal, according to preliminary results.
Britt Beemer, chairman of consumer research firm Americas Research Group, said 600 out of a total 1,000 interviews for the poll have been tabulated.
Beemer says that when 40 percent or more of consumers say they will no longer buy a brand, those brands are apt to never come back.
"She's very close if not over that negative 40 percent level, which is beyond repair," Beemer said.
He said it was likely that her namesake company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, would change its title to remove the Stewart reference, possibly an acronym like "MSO".
"The only option at this point ... is to have someone come out from behind the curtain and say, 'I'm the person who's really been designing this stuff for the last 5 years'," he said. "The trouble is Martha's ego in the past has never allowed anyone else in the company to have a face."
Steven Addis, chief executive of the Addis Group branding agency, said the company should focus on what Martha Stewart's brand represents -- well-designed, quality goods for the American home -- minus Martha.
"There is lots that can be done, including not using her likeness," Addis said.
Discount chain Kmart, which carries Martha Stewart product lines, has kept her well-groomed image in its advertising, even after she was indicted last June. Kmart commercials featuring the ex-model were on national television Thursday night, the eve of the verdict.
The March edition of Martha Stewart Living, the magazine which has seen advertising drop sharply, carries a photo of a smiling Stewart with garden hose in hand accompanying a letter to readers on spring's green resurrection.
"The era of Martha Stewart as style maven was probably reaching its expiration date anyway," said Robert Thompson, professor of media and popular culture at Syracuse University. "There is something very '90s about it."
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
RUBBER STAMP? The latest legislative session was the most productive in the number of bills passed, but critics attributed it to a lack of dissenting voices On their last day at work, Hong Kong’s lawmakers — the first batch chosen under Beijing’s mantra of “patriots administering Hong Kong” — posed for group pictures, celebrating a job well done after four years of opposition-free politics. However, despite their smiles, about one-third of the Legislative Council will not seek another term in next month’s election, with the self-described non-establishment figure Tik Chi-yuen (狄志遠) being among those bowing out. “It used to be that [the legislature] had the benefit of free expression... Now it is more uniform. There are multiple voices, but they are not diverse enough,” Tik said, comparing it
TOWERING FIGURE: To Republicans she was emblematic of the excesses of the liberal elite, but lawmakers admired her ability to corral her caucus through difficult votes Nancy Pelosi, a towering figure in US politics, a leading foe of US President Donald Trump and the first woman to serve as US House of Representatives speaker, on Thursday announced that she would step down at the next election. Admired as a master strategist with a no-nonsense leadership style that delivered for her party, the 85-year-old Democrat shepherded historic legislation through the US Congress as she navigated a bitter partisan divide. In later years, she was a fierce adversary of Trump, twice leading his impeachment and stunning Washington in 2020 when she ripped up a copy of his speech to the
RSS