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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Stewart begins new ‘adventure’



 (The Spokesman-Review)
Associated Press

NEW YORK — Forget the aristocratic Martha Stewart, obsessed about making the perfect pie crust. In her post-prison chapter, Stewart wants to use her five-month incarceration as inspiration for a more touchy-feely approach that will embrace a broader group of readers and viewers.

With barely a break since she was released from a federal women’s prison in Alderson, W.Va., on Friday, a beaming Stewart told several hundred employees Monday that she’s learned a lot about the country through the cross section of people she met in prison. That has made her realize that Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. should focus not on just communicating the “how to” but the “why” in its editorial content in an uncertain world.

“We’re going to deepen our bond with the millions who read our publications and watch our television programs. And we’re going to engage and inspire new readers and new viewers for whom these topics may have seemed alien, unfamiliar or even — believe it or not — superficial,” said Stewart, who dropped her CEO and chairman titles during her legal woes, and has now returned simply as founder.

As Stewart told a cheering audience, “We’ve changed America’s living with our wonderful products,” but she added that “our adventure is just beginning.”

And as if to confirm her new down-to-earth image, Stewart pulled out a much-photographed poncho that she wore the day she was released from prison on Friday, saying that it didn’t come from a fancy store, but was crocheted by a fellow inmate.

“The night before I left she handed me this … and said, ‘Wear it in good health,”’ Stewart said. “I hope she is reading the news and looking at television because I’m so proud of her.”

Whether Stewart has emerged from prison a changed woman may not matter. But marketing executives called this new marketing strategy brilliant in helping to turn around the multimedia empire, which has struggled with a string of losses and sales declines since news surfaced in June 2002 about Stewart’s questionable stock sale. Company officials declined to offer any details on the company’s new approach.

“Her prison experience can be used as a new and powerful brand asset,” said John Barker, president of DZP Marketing Communications, based in New York. “What prison has done is to make her more fallible. There is this opportunity to make Martha more approachable, more empathetic.”

Barker added that Stewart’s prison experience has made her “start to understand the real struggles that people have in their lives.”

He said that where Martha Stewart Living once focused on functional benefits in its editorial, it is now becoming more aware of the “emotional power of the brand.”

C. Britt Beemer, chairman of America’s Research Group, based in Charleston, S.C., agreed, noting, “America is going to find out that they are going to see a new Martha that is more humble, more caring and more understanding of the American female. I would say it is a very clever transformation of a business icon into a real person with feelings.”

At the meeting with her employees, Stewart spoke on a stage decorated with posters of her flagship magazine’s April cover — the first Martha Stewart Living to prominently feature her image on the cover in at least a year.

Stewart’s new working life will include some changes.

She will be answering to a new chief executive and president, Susan Lyne, who replaced longtime confidante Sharon Patrick last November.

Stewart also will eventually be required to show up to work with an electronic ankle bracelet under the terms of her five-month home detention. She was not wearing one Monday.