Oprah and Daisy Fuentes

I just learned that Daisy Fuentes has a new line of clothing for women. How do I know this?

Did I see the merchandise at a store? No.

Did my wife mention it to me? Nope.

Did I see an advertisement in a magazine? No.

Perhaps I saw a TV commercial about the product line? Not.

I happened to catch an episode of the "Oprah" television show. I'm not a regular "Oprah" viewer, but I do happen to know that she has a huge following--millions of viewers, fans and loyal disciples.

You'd have to live under a rock not to have heard about the Oprah Book Club. Oprah is a maven, a trendsetter and a trusted source of information about a wide variety of issues, services and products. She publishes a magazine. She has a web portal, a TV show and even an Angel Network.

Oprah is huge ... and I am certainly not talking about her battle with weight control. Oprah is a very powerful customer evangelist. The stuff she touts sells like hotcakes, especially with women. Doesn't matter if it's clothing or books or nutrition or exercise programs.

Oprah IS a mega-brand. She conducts meaningful, trustworthy conversations with her audience. And I'll say that I respect her as an entertainer and philanthropist. She helps people and she gives. I like that.

Now, back to Daisy and the new line of women's clothing. Oprah had Daisy Fuentes on her show last week to debut Daisy's new clothing. It was so incredibly clever. The whole debut was packaged as "makeovers for housewives." Oprah's crew found three friends from the Chicago suburbs, fixed them up, took them shopping at Kohl's and decked them out in Daisy's stylish duds. In addition to the housewives, Oprah allowed Daisy to bring professional fashion models onto the set to display more of the merchandise. It was a soft sell, but mostly it was all about the clothing. I lost count of the number of times that Daisy and Oprah mentioned that "you can purchase the clothing at Kohl's Department Stores."

Oprah has a following of millions of women. By having Daisy on her show, she gave a huge endorsement to the new line of women's clothing. The value of this 10-minute segment on Oprah was worth millions.

You just can't buy that kind of publicity! Kudos to the marketing geniuses, Daisy Fuentes AND Oprah Winfrey!!