Repeated trips to rehab, a shaved head and a nasty child custody spat don’t normally spell success for a celebrity.
The recent run of public embarrassments, however, won’t deter Elizabeth Arden Inc. from launching its fourth Britney Spears scent later this year. There’s no way of knowing what missteps could arrive between now and then, but based solely on past performance, it’s a good decision.
Over the past 24 months, Spears’ fragrances have sold more than $300 million globally. The lines were developed in partnership with L.A.-based Brand Sense Partners.
Even Eliabeth Taylor, who has been out of the public spotlight for quite some time, generates millions through branding. Since Taylor’s fragrance first hit the market 15 years ago, it has sold more than $1 billion. Today, it is still the No. 1 celebrity fragrance in the United States.
Research indicates that consumers are willing to pay up to 25 percent more for celebrity-branded products so it makes sense that almost everyone’s getting in on the action.
Along with the Spears fragrances, Brand Sense has helped develop products for Magic Johnson, Dodge and EA Sports.
Net Newbie
Broadcaster.com, the recently launched online entertainment content community, is already ranked 156 among online entertainment communities in the United States, according to Web site tracking service Alexa. That’s a long way from Yahoo, MySpace.com or Google, but still a good showing for a Net newbie.
The site, launched in November, also posted an 88 percent month-over-month increase in the number of monthly unique visitors, which grew from 13.5 million in December to 25.4 million in January, according to Google Analytics.
The free entertainment site allows users to create, view and organize original rich-media content using a variety of applications. Broadcaster’s library includes full-length movies, music videos, news feeds, original and proprietary content, and the company says it is pursuing content licenses from major movie studios, cable and television networks and music labels.
Broadcaster Inc. is headquartered in Los Angeles, and the company stock is traded over-the-counter. International Microcomputer Software Inc. acquired the company from an investor group last year and changed its name to Broadcaster Inc. The company reported revenue of $3.15 million last quarter, down from $4.64 million the previous quarter, and posted net losses of $3.97 million, widening the previous quarter’s $1.96 million loss.
Staff reporter Anne Riley-Katz can be reached at
[email protected]
or at (323) 549-5225, ext. 225.
