Martha's business may be in big trouble

Martha Stewart's hands-on, high-profile retailing formula--once the key to her unprecedented success--may be her brand's death sentence when she is in prison, according to Arun K. Jain, professor and chair, University at Buffalo (N.Y.) School of Management. "Rarely do you see designers out there touting their products and showing us how to use them. That sort of work usually is done by beautiful models, and is why the Versace line still has cachet even though he is gone, and Chanel still has Chanel's imprint though few have seen Coco Chanel.

"Martha was selling herself; Versace sold the products. Martha's brand benefited tremendously from her image as a style diva and her uncanny ability to promote it through her TV program and magazines."

With Stewart the domestic diva missing from TV--replaced by news accounts of her criminal lapse in judgment--her brand may collapse into a void. "With Martha gone, the gloss will be tarnished and opportunity for product promotion obviously diminished," says Jain.

Die-hard supporters may continue to buy Stewart's products, but Jain questions whether, in the long run, even these supporters will stay at her side, given the fickleness of the fashion-buying public. "No matter what her supporters may say, Martha will not be hosting a show from prison," he points out. "Nor will she possess the same authority to write a column about what mainstream America should be serving for Thanksgiving."

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