The Lucky Magazine of the Future Is Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop
LatestGwyneth Paltrow’s Goop is very serious: a second extensive profile in weeks on the company’s expansion is out in Fast Company, an ode to how hard the actress has worked and how far her lifestyle brand has come.
This piece is more specific than the last, clarifying that—as you might has suspected if you enjoy close-reading—that the barn referenced in Racked’s piece on Goop, with its “soaring ceilings and rustic wood floors,” is actually on Gwyneth’s land in Los Angeles. As has been reported before, Goop is in the process of getting ready to launch things like a skincare line in 2016, with the help of Lisa Gersh, the former Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia CEO (pictured above with Paltrow) hired last year. Reporter Anjali Mullany gets the goods on Gersh’s split from Martha, pointing out that even her good work there got her into trouble:
“I went to Martha Stewart with the purpose of creating contextual commerce,” says Gersh, referring to the strategy of allowing audiences to shop seamlessly as they consume content. But her efforts to bridge the editorial and business arms of the struggling empire—and enable buying through storytelling—were unsuccessful. “It’s hard because of traditional beliefs about content and traditional beliefs about commerce,” Gersh says. “It’s hard to change cultures.” Though Gersh oversaw a massive restructuring and helped grow MSLO’s digital ventures, a product-side deal she helped broker with JCPenney resulted in a high-profile breach-of-contract lawsuit between Martha Stewart and Macy’s. By Gersh’s own account, she and the company were never the right fit.
But according to Goop, things are looking good at Goop: “…revenue in the first half of 2015 was up 62% over the same period the previous year.” (You can learn more about the rest of the very Goopy team on Goop’s website; the dress code for their staff photoshoot appears to have been “black blazer.”)
Mullany’s reporting leads one to speculate that as magazines like Lucky are trying (and failing) to successfully monetize the line between commerce and editorial, lifestyle brands led by personalities like Reese Witherspoon, Jessica Alba, Blake Lively and of course Paltrow, are taking over where more traditional magazines have left off, with only a dash of a “lean in” reference necessary: