I have been witnessing an onslaught of Martha sightings lately. The girl seems to be everywhere! Her new Craft Line seems to be very popular. I've personally used some of her stickers - they're super cool.
She's designing homes for Kaufman & Broad which seem to be selling like hotcakes.
Her Signature line of Valspar paints is available at Lowe's.
You can send your sick aunt a bouquet of flowers designed by Martha herself from
www.marthastewartflowers.com
Her line of custom furniture for Bernhardt looks great.
Now she's topped her home collections at KMart with a new partnership with Macy's which is being advertised to death.
There's Martha TV and Martha Radio, Martha books, Martha magazines including Blueprint which I really love.
Despite all this success the girl still can't get no respect. I ran across an interesting article the other day on MSN Money . The author of the article Michael Bush opens the article by asking the question - "Is Martha Stewart washed up? Wall Street says yes."
He states that her companies stock has fallen 40% since last December. Viewership of her TV show has dropped by 30% since it's relaunch in Sept 05. Sales of her merchandise at KMart have been weak and are falling as we speak.
Bush writes, "In terms of "appeal," she ranks near the bottom of 1,000 rated celebrities, along with Donald Trump and bad-boy rocker Tommy Lee. Stewart gets ratings for "trust" similar to those scored by actress Lindsay Lohan, who has been in and out of rehab for alleged alcohol abuse, and Gene Simmons, who showed off his makeup skills as lead singer of the rock group KISS. These ratings come from surveys done by Omnicom's Davie Brown Entertainment division."
He goes on to explain on page two of the article possible reasons for these slides and bright points in the future for Miss M and her company. But all this is said after the first page full of jabs at our favorite perfectionist. Maybe that guy that cried hysterically on youtube for Britney can get on the Martha bandwagon and help her out.
I say that any women who can build a $700 million company, go to jail with grace and dignity and pick herself up again after her stay in the big house to resume her career and launch countless new ventures should be given a break. She is a freakin marketing genius and she has reinvented herself almost as many times as Madonna. People love to love her - people love to hate her. But everyone should at least admire her tenacity.
Top image courtesy of super collage artist extraordinaire, Claudine Hellmuth
Check out her blog at claudinehellmuth.blogspot.com
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