How did the Kardashians make their fortune?
The family that stars in the most popular reality show in the United States managed to masterfully combine the professional and the personal to generate millions. What is the secret of your success?
The reality series "Keeping up with the Kardashians" (The Kardashians) just returned for its 16th season, which means family feuds and blatant product promotions are back on the screen.
The show has been running for more than a decade. And the family fortune grows in parallel.
Kylie Jenner - who, when the series began, was only 9 years old - is now 21 and a multimillionaire.
With an estimated fortune of US $ 1 billion, according to Forbes magazine, the makeup mogul is by far the richest member of the Kardashian clan, led by "momager" (mother and manager) Kris Jenner.
But the rest of her sisters do not spend their lives precisely looking for change behind the sofa.
Kim Kardashian West is a multimillionaire thanks to hers own beauty lines, perfumes and hers "kimojis" hers; Kendall Jenner is an international runway model; Khloe Kardashian has hers own jeans business, Good American; and her older sister, Kourtney Kardashian, benefits from product promotions and collaborations with fashion entrepreneurs.
Combining the personal and professional with his incredible reach on social media turned out to be lucrative. The sisters' fans total $ 537 million, which allows them to amass millions of dollars by exploiting pop culture.
etty Images. Kylie Jenner made a fortune from her own cosmetic line.
Alexander McKelvie, a business professor at Syracuse University in New York, USA, thinks the show is carefully scripted.
"If you analyze it, you would think it is very spontaneous," he told the BBC.
"But it is more likely to be written, planned and very well prepared to deliver a clear and compelling message about what the producers and the Kardashian family want to know about them."
How did the Kardashians make millions?
This season of "Keeping up with the Kardashians" is based on a "scandal" involving Khloe Kardashian, her ex-partner Tristan Thompson and an alleged "entanglement" with Kylie Jenner's best friend, Jordyn Woods.
On the show, Khloe laments, "It's horrible to have to be so public. I'm not just a TV show. This is my life."
At the time the alleged romance emerged, the price of Jordy Lip Kit, a lipstick that was part of a collaboration between Klyie and Jordyn, was discounted by 50%,
It was soon sold out.
In an interview with The New York Times, Kylie Jenner said that she did not know that the price had been reduced, adding: "I would never do such a thing."
But the fact is that the scandal generated sales.
BBC
"Essentially their entire lives are on screen all the time and I think that makes them more trustworthy for certain consumers," Alison Gaither, a beauty market analyst at research firm Mintel, told the BBC.
In that first episode, audiences also saw Khloe's photoshoot for her jeans company, Kim and Kylie discussing a perfume collaboration and Kim's husband, rapper Kanye West, talking about their own projects. he.
This coincided with the launch of Kourtney Kardashian's blog on healthy lifestyle Poosh, similar to Gwyneth Paltrow's website, Goop, but showing much more skin.
Reuters. Kourtney Kardashian (left), pictured with Kim Kardashian West, just launched her own blog.
Like almost all Kardashian products, Poosh was advertised through Kourtney's Instagram account.
Khloe's jeans firm last year and Kylie's cosmetics line also base their success on that social network.
"What they've done best is really leveraging their social media following to create a brand that they want, especially in the case of Kylie Jenner," Gaither said.
When Kylie first released her lipsticks in November 2015, she was able to promote them to millions of fans directly through her Instagram account, which meant she was able to skip the marketing costs and get an instant reaction on what people are saying. liked and what not.
Lewis Sheats, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Entrepreneurship at the University of North Carolina, USA, says: "If we thought 20 years ago that an entrepreneur receives feedback from 20 of his clients, he would invite them to touch the product with their hands or try it out at a street stall, then interview them. "
"On social media you can reach hundreds of thousands of people in a few seconds and get their immediate impressions of a concept."
Have the Kardashians made money?
Some of the businesses the family built in its early days of fame, especially those involving older sisters Kourtney, Kim and Khloe, didn't always sell well.
The sisters were the face of a makeup brand called Khroma Beauty. But after its launch in 2012, the line was soon pulled from stores over claims of copyright infringement.
It took the form of Kardashian Beauty, but still the legal problems continued. It was only very recently that the family was able to save themselves from the situation.
Getty Images. Among the family's first businesses is the Kardashian Kollection clothing line.
They also launched the Kardashian Kard, a prepaid credit card aimed at teenagers.
However, it was soon scrapped after then-Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said he was "deeply concerned" by the card's high fees "combined with its appeal to financially rugged young adults."
But even now, not everything they touch turns to gold.
Kendall Jenner's time as the face of Pepsi collapsed in a storm of anger after she starred in a commercial that some criticized for trivializing the Black Lives Matter movement.
Pepsi withdrew the ad a day after its publication.
Kim Kardashian West, a mother of three (soon four), drew the ire of the US Food and Drug Administration when she promoted an anti-morning sickness drug.
And several family members were criticized for receiving money for promoting weight loss products.
BBC Radio 1 host Jameela Jamil, who campaigned for body positivity - an internet movement to empower women who don't have "perfect bodies" - described Kim Kardashian West as "a terrible and toxic influence on young girls. ".
What's next for the family?
The family's current television contract runs through this year, and at this time it is unclear if the series will continue.
Last season's numbers dropped as the 1.3 million viewers who saw it at its premiere dwindled to 851,000 by the end.
Reuters. Actress, activist and television host Jameela Jamil criticized the Kardashians for promoting weight loss products.
If the program is nearing its end, will the family maintain the same level of success?
"They certainly won't get as much free publicity," McKelvie responds.
"But they were successful in finding other ways to stay in the false conflict media, whether self-made or not. And that's free publicity too."
