The Super Bowl Of Love and Marketing

By Scott Smith in News on Dec 2, 2005 5:43PM

Say what you will about Oprah but the woman is a media genius.

The Trib’s Chris Jones has got the full rundown on her Letterman appearance. The pull-quote on the Trib’s webpage is a bit harsh though: “Winfrey's incomparable celebrity wattage reduced the typically caustic Letterman to little more than a sycophantic escort.” Yes, Dave was nice to her. Perhaps overly so. But if you’re trying to mend a fence, you don’t usually kick at it while you’re working.

The conventional wisdom is that last night Oprah and David Letterman finally put to rest whatever bad blood might have existed between the two of them. But by Letterman’s own admission, things were settled between the two of them when Winfrey presented Letterman’s son Harry with a “tub” of books to celebrate his birth.

But if it doesn’t happen on camera, it doesn’t really happen. So like a gambler who saves her last chip for one big bet, Winfrey cashed in when the odds were in her favor. From the purple wrapping paper to the shots of the marquee, Oprah’s appearance snagged the equivalent of millions of dollars of free advertising for her Broadway production of “The Color Purple.”

We’ll leave it to others to snark on the de-clawed Letterman and her plans to journey to Africa and yank young girls out of their homes to give ‘em some book learnin’. For now, we’re just going to sit back and marvel at The Oprah Machine. Well played, Ms. Winfrey. Well played.

Image via Yahoo