Today I was reading Annie’s blog at https://blogs.ubc.ca/annielei/, and I was intrigued to learn how extensively the cast of Jersey Shore are creating brand names for themselves, and marketing Jersey Shore inspired products.

Of course this branding and merchandizing of a TV-show or a character is nothing new. Most people are used to kid’s tv-characters and cartoons starting of as a book or a tv-show and then spreading out to toys, lunch boxes, video games and so forth and so forth. But what we usually are not used to is that, shows mainly targeted for adults, would participate in such merchandizing and branding. Sure there are C.S.I board games, but going all out is far more rare.

I started thinking that if there was one show that I would wish would start branding and marketing related products, it would be the Real Housewives reality series. Currently there are 7 separate series under the Real Housewives name; Real housewives of Orange County, New York, New Jersey, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Beverly Hills and Miami. All of these shows present powerful and mostly inspirational women living in some of the most exciting cities in the U.S. Despite the name of “housewives” most of these ladies are entrepreneurial and work hard for their big bucks and live a high life that they have earned.

I could just envision a series of self-help books (“How I made my millions”, “Combining work and kids”), talk-shows, cooking books and shows, clothing and accessory lines, or even beauty products that could easily be integrated to the real housewives brand. Over 5 million Americans tune in weekly to watch these ladies, why wouldn’t they buy additional products or watch these ladies in other contexts (say talk shows).

I think this would be a great opportunity to extend the Real Housewives brand, because to be honest, how long will viewers just be satisfied by  watching these ladies on the screen before they start requiring to get another dimension to their Real Housewives experiences. So Bravo, call me if you want to brainstorm 😉

Until next time,

Roosa xxx