Long before \u201cinfluencer\u201d was a job title, Martha Stewart was getting paid like one. Kmart was signing the checks.<\/p>\n
\n
Stewart, 85, said on MasterClass\u2019s Other People\u2019s Business podcast that her licensing partnership with the discount chain once brought in as much as $65 million a year in royalties.<\/p>\n
\u201cKmart was my first big money, and it was a lot of money,\u201d she said. \u201cI was clearing $65 million a year in royalties.\u201d<\/p>\n
That income, she said, was \u201cfunding the whole development of my magazine, the whole business.\u201d It also helped set up the moment in 1999 when Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia went public and made her America\u2019s first female self-made billionaire.<\/p>\n
A discount-store deal that sold billions<\/h2>\n
Kmart first hired Stewart in 1987 as a lifestyle consultant and spokesperson for its home division. That arrangement fizzled in the early 1990s. Stewart complained about the chain\u2019s merchandising and quality control, and Kmart was drifting toward financial trouble. After Floyd Hall became CEO in 1995 and set out to turn the retailer around, Kmart came back to her.<\/p>\n
In 1997, the company launched Martha Stewart Everyday, a line of sheets, towels, shower curtains, and other bed-and-bath goods sold only at Kmart. It later spread well beyond the linen aisle.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey wanted me to be an influencer,\u201d Stewart said. \u201cThey didn\u2019t know that word, but I knew that I could really influence a huge [audience].\u201d Fortune has called her the original influencer.<\/p>\n
The terms were generous. \u201cThey signed this very fabulous deal with a huge royalty that I would get on every sale of every product that I designed,\u201d she said. Kmart also paid for the advertising, starting with a first-year budget of about $20 million that went largely to TV commercials.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the first year, we sold hundreds of millions of dollars of product,\u201d Stewart said. \u201cThey took a chance.\u201d At its peak, she said, the line was selling close to $2 billion worth of merchandise a year.<\/p>\n
In fashion and media circles, a tie-up with a mass-market discounter looked like a step down for a woman whose brand was built on East Hampton taste. Stewart saw distribution. This was before Amazon, and Kmart operated roughly 2,200 stores by 2000. She called it \u201cthe biggest retailer in America at the time.\u201d Walmart had actually overtaken Kmart in sales around 1990, but Kmart still put her products in front of millions of shoppers every week.<\/p>\n
The partnership outlasted her legal troubles and Kmart\u2019s own 2002 bankruptcy. As late as 2008, the Kmart line accounted for 43% of her company\u2019s merchandising revenue. It ended in January 2010, after Kmart\u2019s parent, Sears Holdings, declined to renew. Stewart moved on to deals with Macy\u2019s and Home Depot.<\/p>\n
How a stock sale cost her about $1 billion<\/h2>\n
Her fortune took its biggest hit from a much smaller transaction. In December 2001, Stewart sold her shares of ImClone Systems a day before the FDA\u2019s rejection of the company\u2019s cancer drug became public. The sale avoided a loss of roughly $45,000.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors never convicted her of insider trading. In 2004, a jury found her guilty of conspiracy, obstruction, and lying to federal investigators about the sale. She served five months at a federal prison camp in Alderson, W.Va., from October 2004 to March 2005, followed by five months of home confinement. She later said Orange Is the New Black wasn\u2019t as good as real prison.<\/p>\n
Stewart says the ordeal cost her \u201cabout a billion dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe lawyers took me to the cleaners and they were horrible,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Her company took a hit too, because its brand was Stewart herself. Shares sank during the scandal, and the business never fully recovered. In 2015, Sequential Brands Group agreed to buy Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia for about $353 million, a near-clearance price next to its peak valuation. The deal took the company off the New York Stock Exchange.<\/p>\n
The comeback, with an assist from Snoop Dogg<\/h2>\n
Stewart\u2019s second act has leaned on a partnership few would have predicted. Snoop Dogg appeared on The Martha Stewart Show<\/em> in 2008. Eight years later, the two were co-hosting a cooking show on VH1, Martha & Snoop\u2019s Potluck Dinner Party<\/em>.<\/p>\n\u201cYou know the real result of that friendship? Demographics,\u201d Stewart said. \u201cThat quadrupled my audience and quadrupled his audience.\u201d She has also said Snoop taught her how to negotiate.<\/p>\n
Still adding businesses at 85<\/h2>\n
Stewart hasn\u2019t slowed down. Her Emmy-nominated series Martha Cooks<\/em> arrived on Netflix on Aug. 25, and full video episodes of The Martha Stewart Podcast<\/em> followed a day later, part of Netflix\u2019s video podcast partnership with iHeartMedia. That\u2019s a friendlier relationship with the streamer than she had with the 2024 documentary about her life, which she said she hated.<\/p>\nLast year she launched a skincare brand, declaring that retirement \u201cis not an option.\u201d In May, she unveiled an AI startup that aims to manage your home before things break.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I\u2019m back,\u201d Stewart said on the podcast. \u201cI mean, I\u2019m pretty good.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
#Martha #Stewart #Kmart #paid #million #year #royaltiesbankrolling #empire<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Long before \u201cinfluencer\u201d was a… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4336,1405,1586,1149,9409,9407,9406,673,5281,2495,9410,9408,85],"class_list":["post-6298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-business-advice","tag-chief-executive-officer-ceo","tag-empire","tag-entrepreneurs","tag-kmart","tag-martha","tag-martha-stewart","tag-million","tag-paid","tag-retail","tag-royaltiesbankrolling","tag-stewart","tag-year"],"yoast_head":"\n
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