Martha Stewart Talks Podcasting, Authenticity, and Making Ugly Things Beautiful

A couple miles south of the Las Vegas Convention Center where cutting-edge tech dazzled CES attendees last week, another darling of the advertising and marketing industry took the stage: author, media mogul, and lifestyle icon Martha Stewart.

Stewart joined four women executives from Omnicom at the Cosmopolitan to discuss how the themes of her decades-long career continue to shape content creation and branding. Sofia Colantropo, chief marketing officer at Omnicom Media Group moderated the panel. The panel also included Chrissie Hanson, CEO of OMD USA; Louise Johnson, global CEO of Fuse; and Katie Klein, chief investment officer at Omnicom Media Group North America.

“I might do the cover of Sports Illustrated and look glamorous and fabulous in a bathing suit at 82, but I also make sure that my blogs and my Instagram posts and my TikToks show me cleaning out the chicken coop,” Stewart told a crowd of marketers during CES 2025.

It’s that authenticity, she explained, that has endeared her readers, viewers, followers, listeners, and customers over the last 50 years.

Adapt alongside tech innovation

A key to the success of Stewart’s brands, she explained, has been to learn and evolve with the tech that consumers are using.

“What Martha Stewart Living has done all along is try to adapt early to the kinds of technology that will make a difference,” she said. “We’ve done that very nicely. That’s why our Instagram is so popular. Our TikTok is becoming more and more popular. All of that stuff helps. Take advantage of it. It’s there—use it.”

For media agencies, artificial intelligence can help to fill in the gaps as the connected commerce landscape becomes more complex, noted Hanson. AI models can help advertisers be more hyper-targeted, to anticipate consumers’ needs, to optimize campaigns, and to appropriately follow up after a purchase is made, she said.

“How am I using AI to really understand—am I delivering the right product, the right service?” Hanson said. “All of those capabilities help us make the magic of connected commerce experiences really practical and real.”

Follow cultural synergies

Last summer, Stewart worked alongside longtime collaborator and friend, Snoop Dogg, to promote NBC’s broadcast of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. In the first week alone, their involvement contributed to a 79% boost in viewership compared to the Tokyo Olympics, Stewart said.

The result points to the value that can be created by connecting the right personalities to cultural moments. Stewart pointed to Taylor Swift’s outsized influence on NFL viewership, and how fashion designer Kristin Juszczyk (who is married to 49ers fullback Kyle Juszczyk) obtained a license from the NFL to create fashionable spectator attire for fans.

“The first woman to change disgusting football jerseys into incredible dresses,” Stewart said, to a burst of laughter from the crowd.

With a store that launched just this month, Juszczyk’s brand Off Season has already been worn by celebrities including Swift, Simone Biles, Brittany Mahomes, and Taylor Lautner.

Find the right content medium

Over the course of her career, Stewart has used practically every medium to connect with her fans—from books and magazines to television, radio, podcasts, social media, and live events. Her favorite, though, is radio and podcasting, she said.

“My early books were about how to do it yourself—recipes, of course, teaching you how to cook a meal, how to throw a fabulous party,” Stewart said. “When I started the magazine, we took it even further. We did craft projects. We taught you how to do everything.”

From there, the “omnimedia” company moved into “omnimerchandizing,” she explained. “People wanted to have the finished product. People are not lazy, but they’re occupied with other things, and they need to buy.”

Next, it all moved onto the internet—building out a digital empire. “We’ll see what’s coming now with AI,” Stewart said.