Yuku free message boards

Market America taps pop culture

By Richard M. Barron
Staff Writer

Monday, May. 12, 2008 3:00 am

GREENSBORO - Market America , which sells and distributes such diverse items as T-shirts and DNA screening kits, is ready to make a mark on pop culture.

The Greensboro-based company is teaming up with a famous fashion star and creating a one-stop Web page offering news and information about music and products from music stars.

By doing so, Market America wants to grow beyond its image as a cosmetics and vitamin supplements company.

In the process, it hopes to combine the draw of celebrities with Market America's product sales system, which uses a combination of the Internet and individual sales representatives around the world.

It began Sunday , when the glamorous world of hip-hop fashion met Market America in an episode of Style Network 's "Kimora: Life in the Fab Lane."

The reality show about fashion model and businesswoman Kimora Lee Simmons featured her appearance earlier this year at a Market America convention in Miami to promote a line of cosmetics.

Simmons, who created the Baby Phat fashion company with former husband Russell Simmons , helped create a line of cosmetics called Fabulosity that only Market America will sell.

"We're friends, and she's a wonderful person and she and I have a lot that we relate to on a personal level, so we wanted to work together," said Loren Ridinger, senior vice president .

The episode, which follows Simmons' daily life, showed her backstage at a Market America convention admitting a fear of public speaking. The episode will be rebroadcast several times during the week.

Ridinger said the products sold out quickly after her appearance, and Simmons will return to Market America in August to launch a line of bath and body products.

To step further into the world of pop culture, Market America will soon roll out a Web site that combines exclusive artist pages plus access to a variety of music news, charts and Web download services.

The company also hopes to offer some music exclusively at the site, which will be called MA My World.

Music artists are becoming independent marketers of their music and merchandise as the industry changes, said Steve Ashley, Market America's executive director . Market America can make deals with these artists to find sources for licensed products and share in the profits.

"When they come to the handbags or products, that's where we come in as a product brokerage," Ashley said. "We can outsource those different products based on their lifestyle and we can bring fans into their one site and create a fan club. You're creating a world around (Latin singer) Alejandro Sans or Jennifer Lopez or Paul McCartney."

Ashley said the company hopes the site will grow to encompass a variety of marketing deals with celebrities, as well as links to already established sites about sports, entertainment and other subjects.