Tony Bennett POV

Bringing Back The Jazz

GLOBE AND MAIL
Report on Business
Thursday, July 22 2004

In the beer business, brand is everything. For Molson, many industry observers agree that its flagship Canadian brand is in desperate need of repair as the middle-market lager loses customer share to low-cost beers and the superpremium imports. Now, amid speculation that a major corporate overhaul is in the works at the venerable brewer, RICHARD BLOOM asked three marketing experts what they would do to kick-start Canadian.

Alan Middleton
Marketing professor, York University's Schulich School of Business

No. 1: Revisit the whole advertising approach. The problem they have right now is their current advertising agency misunderstood the concept of the I AM campaign. The concept is I AM, not IAM Canadian. The I AM in its original form was a statement of what made a 19-year-old male a personality that was different from parents, friends and other people. I AM this!
The new ad agency that was appointed a few years ago did that brilliant advertising - Rant. Well, then they made a mistake. They thought what the campaign should be about was all nationalism. ...Rant was a brilliant one-off, but to describe a 19-year-old male as firstly all about nationalism all the time is pure B.S. and a total misunderstanding of the power of the campaign.
I would get an ad agency to demonstrate how they would relaunch the I AM campaign. I AM is about understanding the beer drinker; where their head is now. The brilliance of the original campaign was it demonstrated that it was so in touch with where the head of the 19-year-old beer drinker was. They've got to get in touch with where that beer drinker is and they've drifted way away from it.
Second, you've got to liven up the distribution of the brand. ...Beer is boring in controlled environments like (Ontario beer seller) Brewers Retail. That's because companies like Molson and Labatt don't want to spend the money on upgrades because then they have to let other brands in.
Repackage it. Make the bottle and the label part of the continuity but wake it up. Bring some excitement back to the brand. Right now it's boring "mass" and something that I'd stay away from because Corona or Heineken are much more exciting.
No. 3 is they've got to get their PR machines rolling. This means (rejigging) everything from sponsor promotions to buzz marketing.
You've got a market that increasingly doesn't want to wear a badge that says "mass." When you order a beer you wear a badge. You want to wear a badge that say "special, different". ...especially, the 19-year-old wants to be special.
Then they've got to do some of the basics, like turn on their sales force. What companies often forget is branding starts with your own people.

Tony Chapman
Chief executive officer, Capital C, a promotional marketing firm

There has to be a two-tiered strategy: there's one for the United States and how to export Canadian around the world; and there's a domestic strategy.
Domestically, Canadian is caught in the middle between the value segment and the superpremium segement. We used to have the best beer - but now the superpremium segment no longer is Canadian beer, it's imports from the United States and Europe. If you want premium, you tend to go to beers like Stella, Bavaria, Heineken. They're (Canadian) caught in the middle.
I think there's a lot more room for (ad campaign) I AM Canadian. If this was a brand called American, then I AM American really plays on the patriotism. But Canadians are more understated, we're more doers than talkers - I think I AM Canadian has got to play to the subtle nature of Canadians and our identity and our pride. We like to be proud without wearing it on our sleeves.
Then I would do fewer, bigger and better on the promotional front. The consumer has become quite accustomed to T-shirts in the cases; I'm not sure how many more T-shirts they need. The other thing we can do is to create buzz and excitement. What's the buss factor that we can put in the marketing to get consumers saying: That's who I am, that's what I'm all about. I get that. I'm part of that. I want to drink out of that special can to get to that special event.
In the States, I would do the opposite. I would go after the superpremium segment. You talk about Canada in the States and they talk about clean water, fresh air, pollution-free - as much as we want to get away from the Rockies and the Mounties and the Great White North, that's how the Americans view us. I would say, how do make Canadian the No. 1 import in the United States?

Ken Wong
Marketing professor, Queen's University

The essence of all strategy is the notion of what problem are you solving for the consumer. The way Canadian is positioned right now, the only problem it appears to be solving is an affiliation with Canada. The current campaign that "why don't I snap my fingers when I order a beer?" is not only a slam against American beers but all imported beers, which is a bizarre thing because a lot of Molson's brands are imported brands.
Nationalism to me just isn't a motivation for buying beer and I don't think the folks at Molson have been able to attach Canadian to a particular occasion for drinking. I don't think that they've struck a chord that resonates with the target demographic they're after - young males between 18 and 30. What you're starting to see here is a brand that' lost touch with its constituents.
I don't think Labatt has done a better job with Blue - in both cases ad agencies have come up with catchy ads that people see, but that liking of the ad is not translating into beer consumption.
I think it's time to overhaul the product. I'm not saying go micro-beer, I'm just saying you've got a product here that doesn't have any functional point of distinction. Consumers can't taste the difference between the beers. Most can't see a visible difference in the hue or colour of the beer. So it basically comes down to us drinking the advertising and whatever product they wind up throwing at us. There's just nothing distinct about Canadian any more.
Molson Canadian Rocks was a great idea in its time, but I think it has lost some of its cachet. If you believe the assumption that music and that demographic go hand in hand and you need to align yourself with music to get that demographic, then they could do an affiliation with music downloads ... they could be doing guest spots music videos with specific performers. There are a lot of things they could be doing.
What Canadian really needs to do is get back on the streets and start talking to young men. And I'm not talking just about bars. They need to go to campuses and colleges and get more streetwise. If they're not prepared to change their product, then they better have the world's greatest image campaign - and they certainly don't have that now.

Just Doing Good Deeds No Longer Does It

GLOBE AND MAIL
Report on Business
Monday, September 6, 2004

TORONTO -- At a brand strategy session at a Toronto ad agency, Alison Gordon confesses to her colleagues that she's kept awake at night by fears of what the competition might do.
It's not a rival corporation that has her scared. Ms. Gordon is the marketing director of Rethink Breast Cancer, an edgy charity that targets young people. Her competition is the more mainstream and better-funded Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation.

"If we don't push the envelope, then we're just the Foundation with less money," Ms. Gordon says, half-jokingly, to the group assembled at Capital C, a downtown Toronto agency.
Ms. Gordon knows the other organizations do great work and she supports their efforts. But she also recognizes that if Rethink is going to make an impact, it must define how it is distinct and sell that difference to supporters.

It used to be enough for charities to do good deeds. Not any more. Under strain from government cutbacks and competition from a growing number of non-profit organizations, charities are adopting marketing strategies from the corporate world, speaking in terms like "market share" and "target audience."

Above all, they are striving to define a unique brand identity in order to better communicate what they do to a skeptical and media-saturated public.

"In the past, charities focused more on doing good work and creating ideas to raise money. Now they're thinking of themselves as brands," says Marc Stoiber, creative director of Grey Worldwide Canada, which has been involved in rebranding work with Unicef.

Mr. Stoiber says the Unicef brand had become tired and misunderstood despite six decades of helping children. Research showed that most adults recognized the Unicef name and could associate it with the orange boxes children carry at Halloween to collect coins. But few people knew quite what the charity did.

"Unicef is like the Pillsbury Dough Boy or Tony the Tiger -- everybody loves them but they wonder where they are now," Mr. Stoiber says.

The international rebranding involved introducing a simple tagline "For Every Child" to replace the scattered messages that Unicef was putting into the marketplace.

"People are bombarded with so many messages every day. Brands are a tool to help people understand an organization better in a very simple way," says Nicole Ireland, associate director of communications for Unicef. Ms. Ireland says she expects the rebranding to have an impact on donations. She said it is already helping people inside and outside of Unicef to better understand the charity.

The YWCA had a similar problem. While Canadian women knew the name of the organization, they didn't really understand how it was different from the YMCA. And many thought of it as little more than a health club.

Toronto ad agency Zig Inc. recently worked with the association on a brand-building ad campaign to communicate that the YWCA helps women at critical turning points in their lives -- for instance, when they make a decision to leave an abusive relationship.

"If you don't clearly understand what an organization is about, why would you either give money or give time to help them succeed?" says Zig founding partner Andy Macaulay. Back at Rethink's brand strategy session, Capital C president Tony Chapman asks participants what defines Rethink.

"Can we put cool and hip?" Ms. Gordon asks. "Because I think that's why a lot of people get involved in us -- because of our brand."

Rethink board member Geoff Siegel isn't convinced. It was Rethink's alternative image that attracted him to the charity, when his 33-year-old wife was first diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago. Now the image ticks him off.

"Cool and hip only gets you so far," he says.

Rethink was founded in 2001 with a very specific understanding of what it wanted to be. Executive director MJ DeCoteau had worked for the Breast Cancer Society of Canada but felt there was a need for a breast cancer charity that spoke to women under 40.

She founded Rethink with a goal of using fashion, art and music to attract donations, and unconventional techniques to raise awareness about breast cancer screening.

From the outset, Rethink understood the importance of branding. Instead of doing what most charities do and hiring a fundraiser as its second employee, Rethink hired Ms. Gordon as director of marketing.
"We saw that for our audience, fundraising would mean that we had to be savvy marketers," Ms. Gordon said.

The charity -- best known as Canadian agent for the Fashion Targets Breast Cancer T-shirts -- has held a "bra and panty party," put on a bikini fashion show and held a breast-health seminar -- complete with free cocktails -- in a trendy Toronto furniture store.

While some charities will gratefully accept any fundraising partnership that comes their way, Rethink deliberately rejects some offers in order to preserve its brand.

There are at least two other charities in Canada focusing on breast cancer.

The Breast Cancer Society of Canada says its brand is about being family-based and low-key, with slim administration costs, according to Barbara Bone, the society's vice-president of development. The Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation turned down an opportunity to discuss its brand.

Rethink sees itself as competing not only against these organizations, but against everyone vying for women's attention and dollars, Ms. Gordon says.

"I want women to help with funds for the cause, as well as being aware of their breasts' health . . ." Ms. Gordon says. "Others want them to buy shoes."

HALF YOUR EMPLOYEES READY TO JUMP SHIP

GLOBE AND MAIL
REPORT ON BUSINESS
JANUARY 26, 2005

THIS JUST IN: HALF YOUR EMPLOYEES READY TO JUMP SHIP
by Virginia Galt

Canadian employees are so disenchanted that 46 per cent said in a survey they would consider jumping ship if a comparable job were available, Watson Wyatt Canada reported yesterday.
Organizations that pressure employees to "raise the bar" on performance -- without also providing adequate training and rewards -- are cited as major sources of frustration in Watson Wyatt's recent survey of more than 3,000 Canadian employees.

Two years ago, 37 per cent of those surveyed said they would consider changing jobs.
The willingness to move is partly a reflection of an improving labour market and "a growing perception that the employment deal offered by other companies might be better," Watson Wyatt reported.
There is always a tendency to wonder whether "the grass is greener elsewhere," the firm said. However,

this most recent survey found a deepening disengagement among Canadian employees.
If unaddressed, this will affect organizations, whether their employees go to the competition or stay and underperform, said Liz Wright, Toronto practice leader with Watson Wyatt Canada's human capital group.

The survey found that only 40 per cent of employees feel they have opportunities for growth, development and advancement with their current employers and only 27 per cent believe there is a clear link between job performance and pay.

Even companies that invest heavily in training and strive to recognize and reward strong performance will lose some people to competitors, David Fulton, general manager of human resources at Calgary-based Shell Canada Ltd., said in an interview yesterday. The challenge is to attract and retain the best -- and keep the door open for those who have left.

"We have lost some people we would love to have kept," he said. The competition for talent in the oil patch is such that employees will sometimes leave for higher pay, but return to Shell "because they like the workplace environment, they like the way they were treated."
A key attraction, he said, is Shell's reputation for providing "damned good training" and for drawing a "clear line of sight" between each employee's contribution and the bottom line. Good performance is recognized and rewarded.

Ms. Wright said companies are under enormous competitive pressure and "the marketplace has changed." But employers have to do a better job of "managing that change" so that employees feel equipped to keep up with the new demands that are being placed on them.
"While there is potential for employers to lose good employees, there is also potential for gaining them," the Watson Wyatt report said.

Mr. Fulton said Shell conducts regular employee surveys and moves to address perceived shortcomings. "I don't think it's something you ever crack, but you just keep working at it and try for continuous improvement."

Shell developed its performance management and training programs largely in response to employee feedback, he said. The company also holds managers and supervisors responsible for providing the support that employees say they need.

Not all employees move for negative reasons -- some just see an opportunity that is too good to pass up. Toronto-based promotional marketing agency Capital C has definitely benefited from the greater willingness of employees to change jobs, chief executive officer Tony Chapman said in an interview yesterday.

Susan James said yesterday she jumped to Capital C from another agency three weeks ago "for a more senior job and more responsibility."

Her colleague, Sheri Pearson, was attracted to Capital C's creative environment -- and the fact that it does not subscribe to the industry norm of 12-hour workdays. "There is good work/life balance here," said Ms. Pearson, who joined the agency in November.

Both Ms. James and Ms. Pearson were happy in their previous jobs, but each saw the move to Capital C as an opportunity to advance their careers.

It is common for people to switch jobs every two years in the agency business, Ms. James said. However, Mr. Chapman boasts that he has not lost an employee to a competitor for the past three years.
Mr. Chapman tries to make his company "a great place to have an adventure." There is a strong collaborative culture, he said.

"Every three months, everyone in the company gets a portion of our profits, so it's not just about six superstars that are going to be lavishly well paid," Mr. Chapman said.

Ms. Wright of Watson Wyatt said companies that pay attention to employee engagement, reward good performance and provide advancement opportunities will have an edge over their competitors.
"Creating a high-performance culture -- in which high performers are rewarded and developed -- is an important element of motivation," added Watson Wyatt practice leader Graham Dodd.

"Participants cited rewarding performance, managing poor performance, receiving feedback and encouraging high performance as significant challenges [for their employers]. This should be a cause for some concern," Mr. Dodd said.

What's best for the brand?

GLOBE AND MAIL
Report on Business
March 2004

What's best for the brand?
A panel of marketing experts debates the pros and cons of keeping or dumping Martha Stewart as the brand behind the company

TONY CHAPMAN, CEO of Capital C, a Toronto-based Marketing agency

She's in an incredibly precarious situation. She's found guilty of all four counts and she put up a lousy defence, which is attributable to her arrogance. She has lost control of this very contrived imagery...She has lost control of who the perfect Martha Stewart is. The image is shattered.

To restore her brand, the first thing she has to do is make a new promise to her fans and her loyal customers. She still has to file the legal appeal and say, "I still think I'm innocent." Then she has to get out there, on the Larry King show or the Oprah Winfrey show, call in all her favours. She should appear very humbled and somewhat confused by Big Bad Wall Street and why she was found guilty.

"Yes, I was stupid obviously and I made some bad mistakes and exercised bad judgment, but it wasn't out of maliciousness. Why would I risk all that I have built up for $50,000?"

Then I would get back to what she does best...back to the business of planning the perfect barbeque.

I would trade on her notoriety. I would convince a major network to do a special on Martha Stewart's comeback. I would call it back to business...or, better yet, back to living.

KEN WONG, Marketing professor, Queen's School of Business

Now that it looks like she'll go to jail, I think her customers could forgive her. But investors would be a different story if she is not there to manage the company. If I were her, I would set up some kind of mechanism to maintain contact from within prison walls. Depending on what facility she is in, she could be hooked up with high-speed Internet access and still be able to run the company.

The company cannot distance itself from her. It has to make sure her physical presence isn't missing. That means being prepared to run a ton of reruns or get out and film a whole mess of stuff before she gets incarcerated. Beyond that, it depends on how long she stays in jail.

I don't think the brand needs to be insulated. The brand relates to her customers and, as Rosie O'Donnell said the other day, it was "a bitch hunt." If Rosie O'Donnell is typical of the female sentiment...those are the customers.
I don't think you change the name of the company. When people bought Martha Stewart towels, they were not necessarily the greatest thing in the world but they had her imprimatur of quality. If you take out the Martha Stewart, you remove the essence of the brand.

DON WATT, Retail consultant, Don Watt & Partners

I am in no way one of those people who think that she deserves all sorts of punishment because the government is being selective here. If you are friend of George Bush's you don't go to jail. If you are standing alone they can make a case out of you. The Enron guys may got to jail but I wonder.
Anyway, I think that in the U.S. people hate the U.S. government overridingly. These kinds of actions against individuals are resented by people. So my advice would be for her, or for the company, to keep her image front and centre, don't downplay it because she's created a great brand and she's created a good product line.

Whatever the feds do to make a point on something is political and I wouldn't let it interfere one bit. I would maybe make her image stronger in the fact that she may not have the presence on the street that she once had if she is going away for a year or so.

I would push her harder. I think to walk away now would be to buy the government's story and admit defeat. Vietnam taught us we couldn't defend ourselves to victory so she is now in a position where her company has to accelerate her presence rather than diminish it.

DAVID DUNNE, Marketing professor, Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, U of T

I'm not sure it would be all that dramatic, to be honest. She does have a hard core of loyal people, you could see some of them lined up outside the court. There certainly will be people who will stick with her through thick and thin. That would be the core of the company's business right now. However honest or dishonest Martha Stewart appears to be, it probably has not much to do with her homemaking skills, which is the reason that those people subscribe to the magazine and watch the shows.

It's the people who are in and out, and maybe buy the magazine occasionally, watch the show occasionally, there might be some effected there. So for that reason, I might do some fairly minor things such as try and make it clear that the corporation is not the same as the person. ...But I wouldn't go so far as to completely abandon the Martha Stewart name or anything like that.

History shows in terms of crisis management with brands that the best policy is to be absolutely straight and up front with people. I would place print ads and put some things in the magazine, too, that outline the situation, maybe a letter to subscribers or a letter to fans, that sort of thing, that says this is the situation, but we are run as an independent corporation.

GEOFFREY ROCHE, Creative director, Lowe Roche Advertising Agency

Omnimedia has too much invested in Martha Stewart to suddenly change the name of its magazine and products. It would be a huge mistake to change the brand name. It is a highly powerful brand, they just need to get separated from her for a while. They should continue doing what they have been doing for the past - don't run photos of her or her homes in the magazine and don't acknowledge the court case. They should emphasize the quality and reliability of their designs which exist above and beyond her name. She needs to stop her website which is filled with news and facts about the court case. People see the Martha Stewart website as synonymous with the company.
Martha Stewart's role now is to do as much as possible to improve her reputation. A lot of people are very sympathetic to Martha. She could tap into that support by coming forward with a mea culpa to try and redeem her reputation. If she said 'look, I made a mistake' then she could start moving beyond this. She also needs to generate some positive news. She could set up a Martha Stewart foundation that advocated more rights for women in the workplace. A lot of women look up to her and this would help build on that support.

CHRIS STAPLES, Partner, Rethink, a Vancouver-based ad agency

Don't change the script. Stick to the plan. Martha's been out of the magazine except for her letter for the last two years. They just launched a new magazine called Everyday Food, which is excellent. Her name doesn't appear anywhere.
It was never just Martha Stewart. She was very rarely featured with the magazine. It was her aesthetic - but it wasn't about celebrating her. I thin it's very easy to say, 'Oh, Martha's going to jail, the whole company's going to go down the tubes.' To me, it's sort of like the Walt Disney Co. Walt Disney was the embodiment of a lot of things that stood for Disney but the company certainly survived his death.

Anyone who has read the magazine or has watched her TV shows, they know she's not perfect. They're not watching it for her. They're watching it for her aesthetic. And that will carry on. Maybe I'm crazy but I think there'll be some bumps but the company should do just fine in the long run.

People always used to criticize Martha for pretending to do it all. Like she cut every blade of grass in the garden. But if you actually watch her show or read her magazine, she's always clear that it's a big team of people that helps her. Her true fans, they're not fans of the person.

What's best for the brand?
A panel of marketing experts debates the pros and cons of keeping or dumping Martha Stewart as the brand behind the company

TONY CHAPMAN, CEO of Capital C, a Toronto-based Marketing agency

She's in an incredibly precarious situation. She's found guilty of all four counts and she put up a lousy defence, which is attributable to her arrogance. She has lost control of this very contrived imagery...She has lost control of who the perfect Martha Stewart is. The image is shattered.

To restore her brand, the first thing she has to do is make a new promise to her fans and her loyal customers. She still has to file the legal appeal and say, "I still think I'm innocent." Then she has to get out there, on the Larry King show or the Oprah Winfrey show, call in all her favours. She should appear very humbled and somewhat confused by Big Bad Wall Street and why she was found guilty.

"Yes, I was stupid obviously and I made some bad mistakes and exercised bad judgment, but it wasn't out of maliciousness. Why would I risk all that I have built up for $50,000?"

Then I would get back to what she does best...back to the business of planning the perfect barbeque.

I would trade on her notoriety. I would convince a major network to do a special on Martha Stewart's comeback. I would call it back to business...or, better yet, back to living.

KEN WONG, Marketing professor, Queen's School of Business

Now that it looks like she'll go to jail, I think her customers could forgive her. But investors would be a different story if she is not there to manage the company. If I were her, I would set up some kind of mechanism to maintain contact from within prison walls. Depending on what facility she is in, she could be hooked up with high-speed Internet access and still be able to run the company.

The company cannot distance itself from her. It has to make sure her physical presence isn't missing. That means being prepared to run a ton of reruns or get out and film a whole mess of stuff before she gets incarcerated. Beyond that, it depends on how long she stays in jail.

I don't think the brand needs to be insulated. The brand relates to her customers and, as Rosie O'Donnell said the other day, it was "a bitch hunt." If Rosie O'Donnell is typical of the female sentiment...those are the customers.
I don't think you change the name of the company. When people bought Martha Stewart towels, they were not necessarily the greatest thing in the world but they had her imprimatur of quality. If you take out the Martha Stewart, you remove the essence of the brand.

DON WATT, Retail consultant, Don Watt & Partners

I am in no way one of those people who think that she deserves all sorts of punishment because the government is being selective here. If you are friend of George Bush's you don't go to jail. If you are standing alone they can make a case out of you. The Enron guys may got to jail but I wonder.
Anyway, I think that in the U.S. people hate the U.S. government overridingly. These kinds of actions against individuals are resented by people. So my advice would be for her, or for the company, to keep her image front and centre, don't downplay it because she's created a great brand and she's created a good product line.

Whatever the feds do to make a point on something is political and I wouldn't let it interfere one bit. I would maybe make her image stronger in the fact that she may not have the presence on the street that she once had if she is going away for a year or so.

I would push her harder. I think to walk away now would be to buy the government's story and admit defeat. Vietnam taught us we couldn't defend ourselves to victory so she is now in a position where her company has to accelerate her presence rather than diminish it.

DAVID DUNNE, Marketing professor, Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, U of T

I'm not sure it would be all that dramatic, to be honest. She does have a hard core of loyal people, you could see some of them lined up outside the court. There certainly will be people who will stick with her through thick and thin. That would be the core of the company's business right now. However honest or dishonest Martha Stewart appears to be, it probably has not much to do with her homemaking skills, which is the reason that those people subscribe to the magazine and watch the shows.

It's the people who are in and out, and maybe buy the magazine occasionally, watch the show occasionally, there might be some effected there. So for that reason, I might do some fairly minor things such as try and make it clear that the corporation is not the same as the person. ...But I wouldn't go so far as to completely abandon the Martha Stewart name or anything like that.

History shows in terms of crisis management with brands that the best policy is to be absolutely straight and up front with people. I would place print ads and put some things in the magazine, too, that outline the situation, maybe a letter to subscribers or a letter to fans, that sort of thing, that says this is the situation, but we are run as an independent corporation.

GEOFFREY ROCHE, Creative director, Lowe Roche Advertising Agency

Omnimedia has too much invested in Martha Stewart to suddenly change the name of its magazine and products. It would be a huge mistake to change the brand name. It is a highly powerful brand, they just need to get separated from her for a while. They should continue doing what they have been doing for the past - don't run photos of her or her homes in the magazine and don't acknowledge the court case. They should emphasize the quality and reliability of their designs which exist above and beyond her name. She needs to stop her website which is filled with news and facts about the court case. People see the Martha Stewart website as synonymous with the company.
Martha Stewart's role now is to do as much as possible to improve her reputation. A lot of people are very sympathetic to Martha. She could tap into that support by coming forward with a mea culpa to try and redeem her reputation. If she said 'look, I made a mistake' then she could start moving beyond this. She also needs to generate some positive news. She could set up a Martha Stewart foundation that advocated more rights for women in the workplace. A lot of women look up to her and this would help build on that support.

CHRIS STAPLES, Partner, Rethink, a Vancouver-based ad agency

Don't change the script. Stick to the plan. Martha's been out of the magazine except for her letter for the last two years. They just launched a new magazine called Everyday Food, which is excellent. Her name doesn't appear anywhere.
It was never just Martha Stewart. She was very rarely featured with the magazine. It was her aesthetic - but it wasn't about celebrating her. I thin it's very easy to say, 'Oh, Martha's going to jail, the whole company's going to go down the tubes.' To me, it's sort of like the Walt Disney Co. Walt Disney was the embodiment of a lot of things that stood for Disney but the company certainly survived his death.

Anyone who has read the magazine or has watched her TV shows, they know she's not perfect. They're not watching it for her. They're watching it for her aesthetic. And that will carry on. Maybe I'm crazy but I think there'll be some bumps but the company should do just fine in the long run.

People always used to criticize Martha for pretending to do it all. Like she cut every blade of grass in the garden. But if you actually watch her show or read her magazine, she's always clear that it's a big team of people that helps her. Her true fans, they're not fans of the person.