Licenses, Marketing, Online Keys for Martha

By Cecile B. Corral -- Home Textiles Today, 10/1/2007 12:00:00 AM

New York —

Cultivating and expanding its licensing partnerships, driving its cross-platform advertising, and increasing its digital business are the three top priorities for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSLO) over the next few years.

The first involves "making sure" the existing licensing partnerships like those with Macy's and Costco "live up to their promises, and that we drive these into big businesses that create increasing revenue for the company year over-year," ceo Susan Lyne said at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia XVI Conference. "This is not just about launching but building businesses."

Specifically with Macy's, which officially launched its Martha Stewart Collection line in September, MSLO hopes to able to capture "in reasonably short order" about 10% of Macy's $4 billion home business. "And hopefully we can grow it from there and hopefully grow their business for them."

Secondly MSLO hopes to stir "a lot more" cross-platform advertising deals, Lyne said, pointing to the company's strong brand identity and wealth of consumer relationships across merchandising and media platforms.

Ramping up its digital presence is the third priority. "This is an area where we know we have huge opportunity," Lyne said, noting MSLO is working on developing its second e-commerce site, poised to be "much more community based and has a wiki element to it. We have only begun to scratch the surface of what is possible for us in the digital realm."

Wiki is a server software that allows visitors to create and edit Web page content, the most well-known example being Wikipedia.org, the cyber encyclopedia to which anyone can contribute information.